Boston DynamicsĀ has been busy working on an entrant forĀ DARPAās Virtual Robotics Challenge, a contest aimed to create robots that can help in disaster situations. Of course, they could also be used by the militaryā¦
Now, Boston Dynamics hasĀ revealedĀ its entrant: A 6-foot-tall humanoid robot called Atlas.Ā Compared to the bumbling, tottering, and slow humanoid robots that have hit the media before, you may be shocked at how resilient Atlas is. The machine has sophistication that approaches the stuff of science fiction. It can cope with unexpected trip hazards, survive being knocked off balance by a 20-pound weight, and if the tricks of itsĀ developmentalĀ predecessor,Ā Petman, are anything to go by, it can climb over obstacles and autonomously navigate to a certain degree.
We saw Boston Dynamicsā Petman prototype some while ago, behaving merely as a pair of self-balancing legs that were designed to emulate real human walking gait so they could act as a repeating āwearing-outā test bed for equipment designed for people. Check these lovely legs out:
And then look at this image. Itās what BD now plans to turn Petman intoāa full humanoid robot. Given BDās military-research ties, andĀ cash injectionsĀ from DARPA, itās impossible to ignore how its plans to skin the metallic Petman droid in a plastic casing remind us of the famous rubber-clad āskinjobsā from James CameronāsĀ imagination. Judgment Day, anyone?
Give it a few years though and a robot like Atlas may be pulling survivors from tumbled buildings in post-earthquake scenarios. And possibly terrifying the crap out of enemy soldiers on the battlefield.
