It's strange how these Boston Dynamics videos were already going "viral" almost 20 years ago when I was in school. [quod pod/dog walking terrain outside]<p>Back then, you also thought practical robotics would be almost there.<p>Really makes you think about today's videos, and whether it's just hype all over again.<p>If you have the data/background, feel free to expand how these demos are different from back then in relation to robotics becoming actually deployable in real arbitrary environments.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44_zbEwz_w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44_zbEwz_w</a><p>Aside from looking a bit sluggish when accelerating, and having too large oscillations in the leg control loop, it looks like motion capture. Very impressive.
If I think about robotic autonomy, I imagine a sort of layer cake:<p>1. Intent and Planning -> What am I doing, What will happen when I do it<p>2. Macro Implementation -> What are instructions down to all my parts<p>3. Local Implementation -> Given Instructions, let’s move my leg<p>4. realtime / reactivity -> OK, I’m 3 degrees off expected on this foot, need to rebalance everything.<p>Figure et al are demoing 1-4, but slow and without motion - just heads and hands.<p>Tesla’s robot day was demoing 4 only, as far as I can tell — engineers with controllers did all the macro planning and movement requesting - but there’s no way you can rebalance a robot live with a handheld controller - that seems certain to have been live from code.<p>BD has always existed in this kind of liminal space to me, where it’s not clear that they’re doing anything more than 4 with their demos. Extremely impressive mobility demos, to be clear. But, I’ve never seen a humanoid demo from BD that’s not in what looks a pre-scanned and planned room.<p>And we never hear claims about 1, 2 or 3 for humanoid robots from BD as far as I’m aware.<p>I think for years the low level mobility part has been so hard, BD has felt way ahead, the planning and environment responsiveness was just science fiction. Today we see that the top part of that layer can be gotten with vision models, and we’re seeing dual architectures where those vision models instruct small fast models for layers below. My guess is that this architecture is going to be relatively resilient, changing the cost structure and opportunities for robot companies.<p>So, I guess if I add all this up, we have a race between mobility experts and agile ML teams with robotic experience. And that adds up to some early launch products; I’d imagine they will be clumsy, and that BD will be a late launcher if it ever goes after consumer at all; it may just decide to license. Anyway I’d like to buy one, so the next few years should be interesting.
Where are they at with power supply? All these videos are now showing the robots untethered (and they have been for a while), but how long can they operate untethered?<p>Are they just running on Lithium Ion batteries? And the new electric joint motors are more efficient than powering hydraulics?
Here's the video linked in the article:<a href="https://youtu.be/I44_zbEwz_w" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/I44_zbEwz_w</a>
I would be much more impressed to see a person with a controller (and just directional controls) telling the bipedal robot where to go in a normal human environment - for example, just crossing the street.<p>These seem very curated, on perfectly flat, grippy surfaces.<p>Perhaps it just shows how truly difficult the human method of bipedal locomotion really is that this doesn't seem to have been achieved yet.
It's all fantastic until that one rotation of the waist...then it flys straight through the uncanny valley. It goes from 'observation of movement of an organic thing' to 'I'm calculating the most direct route between steps A and B'...to horrific effect.
What surprises me with all of the robots is that the engineers had the freedom to create the best machine for all purposes, yet they keep creating a "humanoid" with 1 body, head, 2 arms and 2 legs. Is our human body form really the best for all tasks?
I was pretty amused when I saw the headline, thought to myself, "oh, there must have been some reveal for the new Atlas robot" and then noticed the url was newatlas.com.
Is it just me, or do these new "leaps" from Boston Dynamics feel tiresome?<p>People would surely appreciate automation that helps with household tasks like cleaning, chopping vegetables, and ironing clothes. But such delicate activities don’t seem to be part of BD’s vision....not even on the periphery.<p>What is the end goal that BD has in mind? Yet another Police/Military toy?
Whenever I read something about Boston Dynamics now, I can't help but remember that scene from Silicon Valley (HBO) where Eric kicks BigDog <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFnMBW95RZI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFnMBW95RZI</a>