Boston Dynamics, a company that makes robots, showed off its newest humanoid robot in a scary video that showed it getting up from a deep sleep.
The fully electric “Atlas” humanoid robot lies face down on the floor in the new video, which came out on YouTube on April 17. It then bends its legs backwards past its hips in a way that doesn’t make sense. Then, it uses its strength to get to its feet by rotating its hip joints all the way around.
When Atlas turns its head 360 degrees to face the camera, we can also see how its other fully rotatable joints work. It is “looking” into the lens with a cylinder-shaped light that circles a black glass screen that could be a display.
“The new Atlas builds on decades of research and furthers our commitment to delivering the most capable, useful mobile robots solving the toughest challenges in industry today: with Spot, with Stretch, and now with Atlas,” company staff wrote in the video’s description.
The day before Boston Dynamics released its new video, it uploaded another YouTube video that put together different parts of its older Atlas model. Atlas is a much bigger hydraulic bipedal humanoid robot that has been in development since 2013.
In the video description, company reps wrote, “For almost a decade, Atlas has sparked our imagination, inspired the next generation of roboticists, and jumped over technical barriers in the field.” “Now it’s time for our hydraulic Atlas robot to kick back and relax.”
Atlas was one of the first working humanoid robots. Over the years, it has been in a number of promotional videos, including one where it does backflips and another where it lifts heavy car struts.
But more modern models from other robotics companies have recently made it less important. The Optimus Gen 2 robot from Tesla, the H1 from Unitree, and the Figure 01 machine from Figure all have artificial intelligence (AI) built into them.
Representatives from Boston Dynamics also said that the new Atlas is the most “dynamic humanoid robot.” They also said that the company will soon release new promotional video showing what the robot can do in the lab, the factory, and in our everyday lives.
