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Boston Dynamics posted a pair of videos showcasing its Atlas robots completing a complex obstacle course that requires balancing on beams and arches.
The company’s Atlas robotics program is a platform for its engineers to conduct research and development on sensory and perceptual systems.
In a sandbox environment, Boston Dynamics tasked two of its Atlas robots to do parkour through various obstacles.
The parkour routine involved one of two robots going up and down a series of tilted plywood panels, skipping a large space and up and down a staircase. The second robot, meanwhile, was programmed to jump on a balance beam and follow the same steps as the first robot but in reverse. The two robots then had to complete the routine by performing synchronized backflips.
The parkour routine can be viewed on YouTube.
While implementing these behaviors, the Atlas robots crashed a lot, Boston Dynamics said in a separate video “inside the lab.” Boston Dynamics added when performing the routine repeatedly, robots currently get the vault portion of the routine about half the time. On some races, the Atlas robot loses its balance and falls backwards after jumping over the arch, he explained.
The routine itself is a choreographed routine, but what the company said makes this routine different from previous iterations is that the robots had to adapt the behaviors in their repertoire based on what they saw.
“Atlas’s movements are guided by perception now, and they weren’t then,” explained Scott Kuindersma, Atlas team leader, in an accompanying blog post.
“For example, the previous routine and the dance videos were aimed at capturing our ability to create a variety of dynamic movements and string them together into a routine that we could perform over and over again. In this case, the robot’s control system must still make many critical adjustments on the fly to maintain balance and posture goals, but the robot was not sensing and reacting to its surroundings. ”
According to Boston Dynamics, this meant engineers could create a smaller number of model behaviors and did not need to pre-program jump moves for all possible platforms.
Previously, Atlas robots were essentially blind during demonstrations and could only be successful when overcoming obstacles in unchanged environments.
As both robots completed the course, engineers at Boston Dynamics said the design could still be improved upon, as one of the robots stuttered while pumping its arm in celebration after the routine.
While performing this pumping motion, the Atlas robot tripped a bit, Boston Dynamics said.
“We hadn’t had this post-backflip behavior before today, so it was really an experience,” said Kuindersma.
“If you watch the video closely, it looks a bit awkward. We’re going to trade behavior that we’ve tested before, so we have some confidence that it will work.”
Two months ago, the robotics company was acquired by Hyundai. The South Korean conglomerate acquired an 80% controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $ 1.1 billion.
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