4 months ago
After years of testing its humanoid robot (and forcing it to dance), Boston Dynamics' Atlas is entering production. The robotics institution says nan last merchandise type of nan robot is being built now, and nan first companies that will person deployments are Hyundai, Boston Dynamics' mostly shareholder, and Google DeepMind, nan firm's newly minted AI partner.
This last endeavor type of Atlas "can execute a wide array of business tasks," according to Boston Dynamics, and is specifically designed pinch consistency and reliability successful mind. Atlas tin activity autonomously, via a teleoperator aliases pinch "a tablet steering interface," and nan robot is some beardown and durable. Boston Dynamics says Atlas has a scope of up to 7.5 feet, nan expertise to assistance 110 pounds and tin run astatine temperatures ranging from minus 4 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. "This is nan champion robot we person ever built," Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter said successful nan Atlas announcement. "Atlas is going to revolutionize nan measurement manufacture works, and it marks nan first measurement toward a semipermanent extremity we person dreamed astir since we were children."
Boston Dynamics has been publically demoing its activity connected humanoid robots since astatine slightest 2011, erstwhile it first debuted Atlas arsenic a DARPA project. Since then, nan robot has gone done aggregate prototypes and revisions, astir notably switching from a hydraulic creation to an all-electric design successful 2024. Later that year, Boston Dynamics demonstrated nan robot's expertise to manipulate car parts, which appears to beryllium 1 of nan first ways Atlas will beryllium put to work.
Hyundai plans to usage Atlas successful its car plants successful 2028, focused connected tasks for illustration parts sequencing. In 2030, nan car shaper hopes to person nan robot's responsibilities "extend to constituent assembly, and complete time, Atlas will besides return connected tasks involving repetitive motions, dense loads, and different analyzable operations," Hyundai says. Google DeepMind, meanwhile, is receiving Atlas robots truthful it tin activity connected integrating its Gemini Robotics AI instauration models into Boston Dynamics' system.
