Boston Dynamics’ “robot dog” arrives at French Army school

Boston Dynamics robots are still talking, for their skills or their viral videos. This time, the results are not so positive. Two weeks ago, a French military school used several robots from the American firm, including the autonomous “robot dog”. In law. He did this as part of applied research exercises, but the performance of the quadruped was not as expected.

It was used in applied research exercises to conduct combat maneuvers with soldiers in training. Military school Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan used Spot, along with four other ground robots, to train Military tactical maneuvers with a group of 80 students from the EMIA (École Militaire Interarmas).

Information transcended by the French media West France, which indicated that the other devices used belong to other companies and are called Caravantius Barracuda, Op 20 y himself. The French school shared images on Twitter showing Spot with other aircraft on the ground participating in the combat exercise.

The French press article underlines that the viral robot carried out reconnaissance work. But a second lieutenant declares that the aircraft does not have sufficient autonomy for this type of operation and “breaks down in the middle of the assault”.

This is the first time that the Spot has been used for a military maneuver in France, although the device has already been tested by the NYPD to “assess its capabilities against other models used by our emergency service unit. and our bomb squad ”. said in February on Twitter.

Spot is an autonomous and quadruped robot of great agility capable of climb stairs and adapt to any type of terrain, and which is mainly used for data collection and surveys. This is how it is used to create 3D maps and fault diagnosis on oil platforms located in the middle of the ocean.

Currently, the Boston Dynamics robot is on sale in the United States to companies in the same country for a price of 74,500 USD Yes takes six to eight weeks to arrive.

While there are videos of Spot patrolling public parks in Singapore last year, or dancing alone and alongside other robots from the American firm, there are other plans for the evolution of the quadruped as well.

In December 2020, as part of the annual conference of American Geophysical Union (AGU) researchers of the NASA/JPL-Caltech, unveiled a new robot to explore and learn about the hidden corners of Mars that involves the use of autonomous Spot-based quadrupeds.

The prototype of “martian dog” his name is Au-Spot and it is already in the training phase, it is an agile system that seeks to explore surfaces that are difficult to access. The robots are light, compact and move quickly compared to Perseverance (currently on the red planet): they have 2.6% volume, 4.6% more mass than this vehicle and are 38 times faster, as explained in the presentation.

One of the reasons why it was thought to use this type of device is that due to its structure, it has increased ability to move easily over rough terrain, have greater resilience and maneuverability than Rovers currently used by NASA.

These vehicles are mostly confined to flat surfaces, but many areas of Mars, which are scientifically interesting, are only accessible after crossing very rough and sloping terrain. Walking robot dogs are suitable for this type of surface and, if they fall, they can be easily picked up.

(With information from PORTALTIC)

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