Moving screws with bare hands, Boston Dynamics Atlas evolves again: Brothers, get ready to enter the factory

In today’s hot humanoid robot track, Boston Dynamics is one of the early entrants.

Over the past few years, the dynamic parkour capabilities of the Atlas humanoid robot have attracted global attention. Later, we also saw Atlas demonstrate its handling capabilities on a simulated construction site. However, it should be noted that at present Atlas is still only a development platform and cannot be used for actual work in the real world. One reason is that the hydraulic drive design it uses has not yet been perfected.

The latest demonstration video released by Boston Dynamics shows that Atlas and other humanoid robots have the ability to complete difficult manipulation tasks and can even manipulate heavy objects under appropriate conditions.

In the video, Atlas steadily grabbed a screw that was thicker than his own arm and carried it to the target location:

Actually, Atlas had no fingers for a while, but instead two black spheres. However, early last year, Boston Dynamics installed "crab clips" on the ends of its arms. Now, its fingers have evolved into three. Although they are not as dexterous and soft as five human fingers, they are enough to firmly grasp round screws.

Switch to the first perspective and look like this:

Continue to carry the next one. In the process of reaching the new target, Atlas almost fell down, but finally stabilized:

It can be seen that this screw is not ordinary heavy, and the process of picking it up by Atlas is also a bit difficult:

For a long time, Boston Dynamics ( Boston Dynamics is known around the world for its groundbreaking innovations in robotics, including Atlas, a bipedal humanoid robot that can run, jump and perform astonishing feats.

However, Atlas is not the only humanoid robot "ready to enter the factory."

As the competition for humanoid robots heats up, humanoid robots from companies such as Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and Figure are also approaching the level of finding jobs in the real world. The valuations of these companies have also risen. For example, according to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft and OpenAI are negotiating to participate in Figure’s new round of financing, in which Microsoft may invest approximately US$95 million and OpenAI will invest US$5 million.

Figure The first humanoid robot.

The technology and implementation progress of humanoid robots have always attracted much attention. Although some people once questioned: "What's the point of making it a humanoid robot? Any robotic arm can complete this task at 10 times the speed and ideal accuracy, this seems to be just a cheap hype."

But at least for Boston Dynamics, while the company is operating at a loss, it can also invest more than ten years in the research and development of humanoid robots. It is obviously not for hype.

In the long run, humanoid robots will be suitable for more application scenarios due to their small footprint and flexible movements.

Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of Figure, said: “For decades, the commercial market for single-purpose robotics has become saturated, but the potential of general-purpose robotics has been completely untapped. Dig it out." Figure's humanoid robot is also ready to enter the factory, and its first job is at BMW's Spartanburg plant in South Carolina, USA.

Tesla is also working hard to build and commercialize a bipedal humanoid robot. The robot is named "Optimus" and has been updated to Optimus Gen 2. According to preliminary statements from Tesla, the Optimus should cost around $20,000.

A previous video has shown Optimus folding shirts independently:

In the latest announcement In the video, "Optimus Prime" has achieved autonomous walking without help, with light steps, and the robotic arm can still swing with the steps (albeit slowly):

Assuming that humanoid robots can really replace humans to complete work, it may cause the employment rate in some industries to decrease or even disappear, but there is no doubt that we still look forward to this day coming as soon as possible.