We’ve followed Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot almost since its very first introduction. We’ve seen it go from a robot being kicked about to its new frame and skill set upgrade. But there’s always something new to install. In this case, it’s a more impressive pair of hands for greater manipulation and control.
Better mechanical hands aren’t much use with no ability behind them. The folks at Boston Dynamics have demoed the new four-fingered appendages (old cartoonists were right, apparently) used both autonomously and tele-operated.
Handy Atlas
The major upgrade for Atlas is the switch from seven degrees of freedom to thirteen degrees. Human beings, by contrast, have 27 degrees of movement to play with. Even so, the new hand is already producing some impressive results for the dextrous robot.
Boston Dynamics’ demo video (above) shows the robot manipulating a drumstick while working autonomously. It also juggles golf balls in one hand. The company details some of the software training that made these operations possible. Stick a human behind the robot’s control systems, and it gets even more impressive. And disconcerting, since those actions will probably become autonomous eventually.
It’s almost scary seeing Atlas control a hand drill by loading a bit, tightening the chuck, and then drilling a hole in a small piece of wood. Your trip down the uncanny valley will be arrested a little by knowing that the operation was controlled by a human. Given how far the robot has come, however, it won’t be long before it’s able to perform actions like that on its own.
Atlas’ hand upgrade is supposedly to help it prevent damage by improving obstacle avoidance. Just watch how the fingers can splay in the close-up sections in the video above. They’ll also confer new abilities when in the workplace. Our first thought on the upgrade, besides ‘this is terrifying’, was that robots like this would be ideal for setting up a remote base on the moon or Mars. For humans, obviously. What would robots want with their own off-world base?
