Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Here comes the dream brick-moving robot! Yesterday, Boston Dynamics released a new video showing the ace robot Atlas carrying boards, triple jumps and throwing toolkits on a simulated construction site are all small case.

Atlas, a Boston powered biped robot, has been popular for five and a half years since its debut in 2016.

Yesterday, Boston Dynamics released a new video in which the robot Atlas took on a new job and turned into a "construction robot".

Lift the plank, move bricks and so on, it is no problem, but also excitedly turn around.

Running up the steps and so on is a small case, which is silky from speed to stability.

Another turn around and take off, smoothly throwing a bag of tools to the construction workers on the scaffolding.

When I got off work, I was happy to be good at it-stand firmly on the 360 °back flip, perfect!

Such a cool and smooth robot is not very wow, but in fact, a few years ago, it was a kid who could not even walk.

The species, standing at the tip of the robot pyramid, evolved rapidly from 2016 to 2023 and was born with only two twisted long legs as a toddler.

Now it can complete a variety of difficult tasks such as backward somersault stable landing, robot parkour, gymnastics and so on.

Whenever Boston Dynamics releases a new Atlas video, the comment area can always listen to the sound of wow, not only the appearance is getting cooler and cooler, but the new skills are also constantly refreshing human cognition.

In January 2021, after nearly a year and a half of choreography, simulation, programming and upgrade, videos of Boston robots dancing in groups went viral on the Internet, and atlas harvested a lot of traffic.

Musk tweeted "wow"!

But they want to do more than that, and the latest release of this special skill is to show how Atlas can help in life, not just dancing and being cool.

Scott Kuindersma, head of the Atlas team at Boston Dynamics, said in a behind-the-scenes video:

We are not just thinking about how to make robots move dynamically in their environment, now we are starting to make Atlas work and think about how robots should be able to perceive and manipulate objects in their environment.

How to implement all kinds of complex operations for Atlas it is a top priority for Atlas to be able to adapt to a variety of environments and maintain balance so as to avoid wrestling during walking, running and jumping.

In order to do this, from the ability to perceive the environment to the ability to adapt to the environment has experienced many iterations in the past five years. At the same time, its ability to act independently has also been enhanced.

In order to complete all kinds of complex operations, one must first keep a balance in the movement.

The original Atlas stumbled, still stiff during the walk, unable to move the whole body when it was about to fall, and only regained its balance by changing its pace.

Over the next few years, Atlas gradually learned to wave his arms to maintain balance, using quintic splines to generate advanced movements (such as swinging foottracks), and using a given foot position as the node of the spline.

The team says the robot's body structure is very different from that of humans, such as it has no spine and shoulder blades, and its arms are relatively fragile.

Therefore, the team must constantly weigh its weight, intensity, activity ability and other elements between its size and complexity, and optimize the control algorithm to better coordinate its various actions.

Despite the fact that it is a big man of 1.5 meters, in order to maintain the flexibility of the fuselage, Atlas uses 3D printing to reduce weight and space, thus forming a robot with a high strength-to-weight ratio and a large workspace.

Aaron Saunders, an engineer at Boston Dynamics, said

Print through 3D. We can significantly reduce physical inertia, which is a big deal for walking robots-most of the energy in the system is used to swing heavy legs in the air.

In addition, Atlas can sense obstacles and cross rugged terrain autonomously or remotely through stereo vision, distance sensing and other sensors.

The research team provided Atlas with a high-level map that outlined its course of action and what should be done at its appropriate location.

In the process of completing the task, Atlas uses this information to navigate for itself, and it can perceive the environment and independently plan the whole action to complete the challenge according to the perceived data in real time.

Each action performed by Atlas comes from the action template in its behavior library, and it can independently select the corresponding action from the library according to the target situation.

At the same time, Atlas's Model Predictive Controller (MPC) will adjust its force, posture, action timing and other details to deal with the environment, foot slippage and other possible real-time factors.

In addition, MPC allows Atlas to predict the next action across behavior boundaries. For example, when it knows that this jump is followed by a backflip, it can automatically create a transition from one behavior to the next, so that each step is naturally coherent.

Boston Dynamics is a for-profit organization that wants to commercialize its technology and sell its products.

But in essence, Boston Dynamics is a research laboratory full of engineers and scientists who want to push the limits of science regardless of commercial interests.

Reconciling these two goals is very difficult, and Boston Dynamics has proved to have changed ownership several times over the past decade, from Google to Softbank Corp. to Hyundai.

The company is looking to create a successful business model and has previously released a number of commercial robots, including the multi-purpose robot dog Spot and the mobile robot arm Stretch, which can move boxes.

Both have found interesting applications in different industries, and with Hyundai's manufacturing capabilities, Boston Dynamics may be able to turn them into industries with unlimited potential.

Compared with other robots limited to a specific environment (flat ground, uniform lighting, flat objects, etc.) or need to change the environment, our adaptability, flexibility and versatility to the environment are obvious.

But as Ben Stephens, head of Atlas control, said at the press conference:

Even Atlas, the most advanced biped robot so far, is still a long way from achieving human smooth and flexible motor skills. Take a look at some of the failures in the new Atlas video and you will find that there are still gaps to be filled.

Manipulation is a broad area, and we still have a lot of work to do, but it gives us a glimpse of the direction of development in this field.

Reference:

Https://futurism.com/the-byte/boston-dynamics-robot-toss-tools-construction-worker

Https://www.bostondynamics.com/about

Https://www.bostondynamics.com/resources/blog/sick-tricks-and-tricky-grip

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Xin Zhiyuan (ID:AI_era)

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