Watch Boston Dynamics Atlas Robots Demonstrate Parkour Skills Like a Pro
!humanoid-robots!~Atlas-[Boston-Dynamics++]!~quantum*atlas!~meelectronics-atlas,volkswagen-atlas, antec.atlas,trackr,atlas!~Watch Boston Dynamics may have new owners, but that hasn’t slowed the robotics’ teams work at teaching Atlas new skills: this time on a custom parkour course. [#Boston Dynamics] #Atlas Robot! Significant advancements in dynamic humanoid robots
Boston Dynamics Atlas robot has advanced its parkour skills since we previously watched it navigate obstacles like a chief. In another video from the company, the bipedal robots can be seen bouncing up the levels of a layered platform, stumbling into and over a balance beam and generally making most humans look like blocks in comparison.
The Atlas robot, which also considers backflips and handstands as a real part of its talents, has demonstrated great balance while performing parkour previously. The distinction here is the robot can now adapt behaviors based on what it sees. That means engineers don’t have to pre-program bouncing movements for all the platforms and gaps the robot may experience. It’s become a more free athlete.
Boston Dynamics may have new proprietors, yet that hasn’t eased back the mechanical technology’s teams work at teaching Atlas new skills: this time on a custom parkour course. The bipedal ‘bot has been flaunting its human-like talents for half a decade now, yet while recreating the kind of gymnastics that circulates around the web on TikTok may appear to be an odd concentration for Boston Dynamics, in fact the company argues it has a lot of real-world applications.
For this particular demo, it’s the first run through two Atlas robots have been active in the same parkour routine at the same time. It’s a thick 90 seconds or something like that of bouncing, vaulting, and flipping, punctuated with running and abrupt turns, and it’s easy to fail to remember exactly how complex all of this is to a robot that’s attempting to sort out the course and balance at the same time.
What’s important is that the actual course isn’t preprogrammed. While it very well may be easier for Boston Dynamics assuming they could simply load up all the necessary movements and, have Atlas carry them out in grouping, that kind of preset pattern isn’t really helpful for when robots have to deal with the changeable real-world. Instead, the designers teach Atlas diverse center developments, and the actual robot concludes how to consolidate and carry out them according to the terrain at hand.
“In this iteration of parkour, the robot is adapting behaviors in its collection based on what it sees,” Boston Dynamics explains. “This means the specialists don’t have to pre-program bouncing movements for all potential platforms and gaps the robot may experience. Instead, the team creates a smaller number of template behaviors that can be matched to the climate and executed on the web.”
Although backflipping through warehouses or leaping across office work areas probably won’t be especially important skills, the ability for a robot to move starting with one behavior then onto the next and remain balanced and compelling certainly is. The subsequent algorithms – shaped and constrained by factors like solidarity to weight ratio, range of movement, and even physical vigor – have broader applications for Boston Dynamics’ commercial robots, for example, the Spot robo-canine.
While it’s easy to assume that robots will be more grounded and more capable than humans (and maybe get a little anxious about exactly what kind of talents they’re being programmed with), the human body does in any case have its advantages. “For example, the robot has no spine or shoulder bones, so it doesn’t have the same range of movement that you or I do,” Scott Kuindersma, Atlas Team Lead, explains. “The robot also has a heavy middle and comparatively weak arm joints.”
For new proprietor Hyundai, Boston Dynamics is part of a shift toward being “a Smart Mobility Solution Provider,” rather than simply an automaker. Having acquired the company from SoftBank earlier this year, the unavoidable issue presently is whether Hyundai can extract profit from what Boston Dynamics has been creating.
There a few intriguing things in this video. In the first place, Atlas is accomplishing some genuine work with its chest area by vaulting over that bar. It’s not supporting its whole weight with one arm, since it’s bouncing, however it’s doing what resembles some fairly mind boggling balancing and weight management utilizing all four of its appendages without a moment’s delay.
The greater part of what we’ve seen from Atlas so far has been lower body centered, and while the robot has utilized its arms for forward rolls and stuff, those moves have been less complex than what we’re seeing here. Aaron Saunders, Boston Dynamics’ VP of Engineering, recommended to us earlier this year that the Atlas team would be dealing with more chest area stuff, it seems as though they’re presently conveying. We’re expecting that Atlas will keep on improving toward this path, and that sooner or later it’ll have the option to do the equivalent of a draw up, which will open up a lot more extensive variety of behaviors.
This is a quite serious deal. Without discernment, Atlas was running its schedules daze—as long as the climate was kept pretty much totally static, the robot would do okay, however clearly that’s a major limitation. What Atlas is doing in this new video is still somewhat restricted, as in it’s actually depending on template behaviors created by humans rather than doing genuine dynamic planning, yet this addresses a ton of progress.
This will in general be the justification for humanoid robots, along with the idea that you need a humanoid structure factor to operate in human conditions. In any case, Kuindersma is absolutely correct when he says that humanoids may not be the best plan for any particular task, and at least in the near term, practical commercial robots tend not to be generalists.
Indeed, even Boston Dynamic’s canine like robot Spot, with its capable legged versatility, is fit primarily to a narrow range of explicit tasks—it’s great for situations where legs are necessary, however in any case it’s mind boggling and costly and wheels regularly improve. I believe it’s vital that Boston Dynamics is running after a go-anywhere, do-anything robot, but on the other hand hold expectations under control, and recollect that even robots like Atlas are (I would argue) a decade or all the more away from this generalist vision.
Meanwhile, Boston Dynamics appears, regardless, to be moving away from their habit of shock posting crazy robot recordings with zero explanation. Along with the new parkour video, Boston Dynamics has assembled a second in the background video.
Atlas, initially intended for search and salvage tasks, was uncovered to the general population in 2013. The robot stands about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall and weighs about 190 pounds (86 kilograms). It’s battery-controlled and hydraulically actuated with 28 levels of opportunity.
Boston Dynamics has recognized parkour as an ideal test activity for Atlas as the company attempts to make powerful humanoid robots more able. The training discipline engages the entire body and expects Atlas to maintain its balance in various situations and seamlessly switch between behaviors.
“We’re investigating how to push it as far as possible, some of the time operating at those cutoff points,” says Benjamin Stephens, Atlas controls lead. “We learn a great deal from that as far as how to construct robots that can endure falling on their face and getting back up and doing it again.” To see a portion of those face-plants and crashes, watch the in the background video underneath.