It's a shocking video because Atlas opens and it's shocking. sorry. But it's also a shock because Atlas has always been a humanoid robotics research platform, not a commercial product. And this new video makes us curious.
Car-building tasks are well-suited to robotic automation: large volumes, heavy parts, high risk of personal injury, and high precision and reliability requirements. In fact, manufacturing and assembly lines already involve numerous task-specific robots.
But there are still many jobs that seem much more random and chaotic, and this is where humanoid robots try to step in. Obviously, this will be one of the earliest applications for the Tesla Optimus robot, and we recently saw that the figure is going down a similar path with BMW.
We didn't expect Atlas to roll up its sleeves for this kind of work. However, here's what it says:
Atlas Struts
We've seen Atlas previously try to develop workshop chops, toss tool bags, and more with its construction site anthropoids, but Boston Dynamics has left real-world work situations to more commercially focused non-humanoids. A robot discovery dog, and a bizarre rolling, balancing stretch robot.
But the kind of work it's doing in the video above (we can't confirm it yet, but we expect it to be done autonomously) fits very well with the early commercial use cases of companies like Figure: “picking things up and moving them around.” We believe it will generate billions of dollars in revenue.
Ever since South Korean auto giant Hyundai acquired Boston Dynamics in 2020, we've been wondering if the Atlas could go in a more commercial direction. This is definitely the most advanced humanoid robot ever created. The electrically powered and hydraulically actuated joints not only give him unmatched explosive power like a gymnast to handle a wide range of confusing and changing terrain, but they've also developed a kind of grace to the movements that make Optimus. Other newcomers appear to be walking around with full diapers.
Inside the Lab: Importing Atlas from Sim to Scaffolding
This new video definitely adds fuel to that fire. But despite everything about Atlas, there are some things it definitely isn't. It is not designed for streamlined mass production as a commercial product. This is a unique testbed and has been leading the world for over 10 years. But if Boston is really serious about working on humanoids on a large scale, we'd expect to see a completely different design. Probably not a very athletic design. .
Source: Boston Dynamics