Robotics company Boston Dynamics has shared a new video of its latest-generation humanoid robot, Atlas, doing forward rolls, cartwheels, and army crawls.
In a particularly made-to-go-viral moment, the lanky robot throws in a flashy breakdancing move known as the coffee grinder, effortlessly spinning one of its legs below its torso like a slick street performer.
It’s an impressive show, demonstrating Atlas’ considerable agility — and how far humanoid robotics have come.
But Boston Dynamics isn’t operating in a vacuum anymore, as the competition is really starting to heat up when it comes to light-footed bipedal robots. Case in point, Chinese robotics company Unitree recently showed off its G1 robot pulling some gnarly kung fu moves in a video last month. Earlier this week, Unitree followed up with a video of G1 performing a standing side flip.
The latest stunt involving Atlas was the result of a collaboration between Boston Dynamics and the Robotics and AI Institute (RAI), which, as its name suggests, aims to solve robotics problems through machine learning.
The breakdancing skills were the result of “reinforcement learning policies developed using a motion capture suit,” according to a Boston Dynamics tweet. In other words, a human breakdancer seems to have taught Atlas how to pull off the coffee grinder. (Futurism has reached out to the company for clarification).
The robotics company’s collaboration with the RAI also allowed its Spot robot dog to learn how to run three times as fast. A video shared by the institute last month shows Spot speeding up as it runs on a track.
The news comes just under a year after Boston Dynamics announced the latest iteration of its bipedal Atlas robot. The now fully-electric version (the previous one was hydraulic and electric) was designed from the ground up for real-world applications, per the company’s website, boasting a stronger, and broader range of motion than previous generations.
That kind of flexibility can land the robot right in the middle of the uncanny valley. In April, the company showed off the robot slowly standing up by flipping its legs over and onto itself in an unnervingly inhuman fashion.
It’s not just flashy dance moves and horror movie contortions that Atlas has been working on. A video shared in February shows the robot placing auto parts in cabinets, suggesting a future of being employed in a warehouse.
However, whether Atlas will ever make it into mass production remains to be seen. As the Boston Globe reported in December, the company laid off five percent of its human workforce, with CEO Robert Player admitting that the company is “burning through cash at a rate that exceeds our commercial progress to date.”
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