Boston Dynamics continues to amaze us with progress on its humanoid robot, the Atlas. In the new video, Atlas works on a construction site, shows off his fascinating new abilities, and spice it up with acrobatics that would get most of us fired.
Over the last few years we’ve seen Atlas develop some pretty incredible senses for its own body. ft), 89 kg (196 lbs) android with 28 hydraulically actuated joints with impressive speed, dynamic balance and constant confidence and fluidity. Exercise – Not to mention some athleticism most of us struggle to match. Now the Atlas team is turning its work in a more practical direction.
“We’re not just thinking about how to dynamically move the robot in the environment, as we did with parkour and dance,” says Atlas team lead Scott Kuindersma. “We are now starting to get Atlas working and thinking about how to enable the robot to perceive and manipulate objects in its environment.”
In a video released today, Atlas is given a task. Bring the tools to your “colleagues”. To complete it, the robot must find a heavy board, pick it up, and use it to fill gaps in its path. You’ll need to pick up a heavy tool bag, run across the plank, and balance as you perform cheeky little jumps to higher levels. Then you have to use jumping, twisting and heaving motions to throw the tool bag to another level higher than yourself.
And since Boston Dynamics always gives people what they want, Atlas pushes heavy boxes to the floor and uses it as a platform for “chic tricks.” Strength available in almost every joint of the robot.
Atlas gets a grip | Boston Dynamics
The video above shows another incredible stepping stone for the Atlas team, but it’s the skill behind the performance that’s really compelling. Engineers must constantly micro-analyze the nuances of human movement to artificially recreate the kinds of movements we all do. A day without thinking.
A lot of it is preparation. When we lift or push something heavy, we anticipate its weight and its effect on balance. So the Atlas must learn to do the same, and incorporate the weight and proportions of the objects it carries into its own sense of dynamic balance. The dynamic path building shown here means that Atlas should interact quickly and naturally with a non-static environment. This is a big perceptual step up from the static obstacles we dealt with in the parkour phase.
Atlas sees the world through cameras in your head, including color cameras and depth-sensing time-of-flight cameras that you use to build a 3D map of your environment. The test requires this visual system to work for extended periods of time while the team programs specific information into the robot. , jump to higher levels, throw bags, push crates, and do sick flips. Robots must autonomously know the position, shape, and orientation of these objects.
Work on picking up your tool bag. As Atlas finds a bag on the floor and runs over it, it builds its own internal model of the shape it needs to lift, planning how the gripper hand will deal with the object. where should i grab it? From what angle should the hand approach? How much does it weigh? where is the center of mass? How should I prepare my body before lifting? Where should I carry my bag if I want to run? to jump? The team explains further in a behind-the-scenes video.
Inside the Lab: Moving Atlas from Sim to Scaffold
So even robots, which are known for taking giant leaps in every sense of the word, are pretty big leaps. However, looking at both videos, I don’t think Atlas is helping on a real construction site. Not because he’s ripping a sick 540 out of a fallen box. I wouldn’t fly with OSHA, especially if an apprentice started trying to copy him.
What has taken Atlas to an already incredible level is the enormity of the challenge, teaching robots to perceive, classify, interact, ignore, reuse, avoid, and explore an almost infinite number of objects. Balanced with the incredibly difficult idea of Objects are used in a wide range of chaotic and fluid real-world environments, with poorly worded instructions from human superiors. That’s the problem, and we humans can pat ourselves for being able to do things like that all the time, all day, every day, without much thought.
Boston Dynamics agrees, saying it’s still a long way off. Fortunately, under his ownership of Hyundai, a South Korean giant with over US$220 billion in annual sales, this painstaking, groundbreaking, exciting and highly entertaining robotics research can continue. increase. put out a new video.
Source: Boston Dynamics
