7th February 2024

New video of Atlas bipedal robot

Boston Dynamics has released a new video of the Atlas bipedal robot, showing its latest abilities.

First unveiled to the public in 2013, Atlas has since gained a reputation as one of the most advanced machines of its kind in the world – with agility and intelligence that are often eerily human-like. Over the years, its technological milestones have included greater balance, improved navigation, the ability to perform backflips and do parkour, enhanced dexterity and refined physical interaction.

The team behind its development has now completed yet another upgrade. This allows it to undertake "kinetically challenging" work, which means the robot can lift and interact with objects that are heavier, enough to require many additional calculations and planning to avoid falling over.

In this video, we see Atlas gripping and then carrying some car parts, each weighing about 14 kg (30 lbs). The robot's vision processing is shown, with a perfect 3D scan of the car strut. At one point (0:30), the robot stumbles and nearly bumps into the container, with a corrective movement that surprises the human researchers in the background.

For now, Atlas remains a development platform and is yet to be commercialised, but its range of applications could potentially be diverse. Future versions may be used in disaster response or search and rescue missions, construction and heavy industry, military operations, healthcare, or space exploration.

On a pair of LinkedIn posts, Boston Dynamics' Marc Theermann (Chief Strategy Officer) and Nikolas Noel (VP of Marketing and Communication) commented briefly on this latest development:

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