Founded in 1992, Boston Dynamics is among the companies of robotic engineering capable of producing the most advanced robots on the market: its first project it was BigDog, in 2005, a quadrupedal robot developed in collaboration with Foster-Miller, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Harvard University's Concord Field Station. The project, financed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was born with the aim of designing and developing a robot that could accompany the soldiers on too rough terrain while carrying heavy loads.
The BigDog projectclosed in 2015 and it hasn't never debuted on the battlefield due to excessive engine noise, guaranteed a global notoriety to the Boston company.
Since 2020, Boston Dynamics has been controlled by Hyundai Motor Company, that is, the department of the South Korean multinational Hyundai specialized in automotive constructionthe company said the acquisition will allow the Japanese company to enter a new phase.
The robots produced by Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics' commercial lineup currently includes two marketed products (Spot and Stretch) and other robots developed mostly for research and development (R&D) purposes; the latter category includes Atlas, a humanoid robot capable of performing extraordinary evolutions and movements.
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Spot, the quadruped robot
Spot it is probably the most famous robot produced by the Boston company. It is a compact quadruped robot And agile who is able to wander in internal ambients, such as offices or homes, and exteriors. It can search abandoned buildings, open doors, climb stairs, manage differences in level: thanks to the flexibility of use which characterizes it lends itself to multiple uses.
Thanks to its characteristics, it presents itself as an evolution of exploratory robots (wheeled robots, tracked robots, drones, etc.) which can be used to explore environments in which human exploration can be limited and/or dangerous. The Spot robot can be controlled remotely to allow a human operator to decide the robot's movements and direction but can also move independently, in fact it can learn routes and scale them again autonomously by checking various parameters such as anomalous temperatures or anomalous events.
The robot it is modular and can integrate different sensors and devices that are can be purchased separately, this flexibility of equipment allows the robot to adapt to different roles and objectives, Spot can in fact equip:
- a camera to 360° to transform him into a perfect inspector robot;
- a thermal imaging camera to detect unexpected temperature variations (inspection of technical rooms or other);
- forms Of 5G/LTE mobile connectivity;
- sensor LIDAR to map and scan a 100 meter radius around the robot;
- robotic arm to grasp and manipulate objects.
Stretch, the logistics robot
Stretch it is a robot designed for logistics. Can work continuously and move hundreds of pallets of goods within department stores in order to increase the number of orders processed. This robot is capable of make decisions independently moving within the warehouse, Boston Dynamics developed Stretch to be operational within a factory or warehouse within days of delivery.
The robot is equipped with cameras to scan the shelves and notice any fallen or moved packages, it is also able to grab packages of different sizes, colors and weights.
Atlas, the humanoid robot
Atlas it is probably the most dynamic bipedal robot in the world. Boston Dynamics develops it as a project of research and development to study how to overcome the limits of human mobility in robot movements.
This robot is capable of jumping, dancing, climbing on objects and carry out somersaults forwards and backwards. It can also to interact with objects and modify the path (for example by grabbing and moving objects that prevent it from reaching its arrival point) and manage situations in which the robot finds itself in a state of precarious balance by reorganizing its posture.
To test Atlas, Boston Dynamics laboratories are organized true and its own parkour courses in which the robot must use i various sensors which he is equipped with to overcome all the pitfalls that the team implements on the course.
The Atlas robot costs approximately $75,000.
