Boston Dynamics Updates Spot Robot Lineup

[ThePointblank]

After Boston Dynamics dropped a video before the new year of their robots dancing, Boston Dynamics is moving to expand their Spot product lineup in response to customer feedback.

 

Via IEEE Spectrum, Engadget and the livestream from Boston Dynamics's Youtube page:

 

https://www.engadget.com/boston-dynamics-spot-enterprise-self-charging-spot-arm-153956229.html

 

Quote

Boston Dynamics is expanding its lineup of robotic dogs with a model that can self-charge. Spot Enterprise comes with a charging dock that allows the robot to replenish its batteries without the help of humans. As such, it can operate in remote or dangerous areas for longer.

 

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/boston-dynamics-spot-robot-arm

 

Quote

Boston Dynamics has been working on an arm for its Spot quadruped for at least five years now. There have been plenty of teasers along the way, including this 45-second clip from early 2018 of Spot using its arm to open a door, which at 85 million views seems to be Boston Dynamics’ most popular video ever by a huge margin. Obviously, there’s a substantial amount of interest in turning Spot from a highly dynamic but mostly passive sensor platform into a mobile manipulator that can interact with its environment.

 

The announcements are as follows:

1. A new Spot Enterprise package, which includes the robot and a docking station where Spot can autonomously dock at for recharging. Boston Dynamics has said that Spot can recharge back to full capacity at the charging station within 2 hours. Spot Enterprise also has upgraded WiFi capabilities, a Ethernet port for quick offloading of data at the charging station, and has increased the flexibility of the robot's payload ports;
2. A new browser-based control system called Scout, where an operator can remotely operate Spot either manually via a mouse and keyboard or a joystick, or telling Spot to run pre-scripted autonomous actions with a web-based user interface in addition to the tablet-based control interface. Scout is high latency tolerant, as you don’t have to drive the robot directly. The system is pre-installed on a provided 1U server that only requires power and network access to install and operate. They've also included the ability for Spot to detect when it has lost communications signal, and for it to automatically retrace its steps until it reestablishes communications;
3. Spot Arm, which is an arm attachment to the basic Spot robot, allowing the robot to grasp, lift, carry, place and drag a range of objects manually or semi-autonomously. The video demonstration shows Spot conducting a number of tasks, such as cleaning up a room, gardening, jumping over a skipping rope with three Spots, use non-ADA compliant door knobs, dragging cinder blocks, opening or closing valves, turn handles and knobs and pull levers, which will allow it to open doors;
4. And a new imaging payload, which combines a camera with 30x optical zoom and an IR camera, and a microphone

 

In all, this should make Spot even more popular in a variety of industries where people don't need to constantly be to monitor the worksite, as long as there is an internet connection.

 

[Doobeedoo]

Next in lineup; T-series.

[Tristerin]

With the value of the dollar dropping so significantly and the average cost of land, housing, etc continues to rapidly increase pushing that value further...who can even afford this stuff but the super wealthy, or super credit stupid?

[Velcade]

 

Imagine you break into a junk yard and see this thing dragging a concrete block toward you.  It's the last thing you see...

[jasonvp]

Spot's "arm" (looks more like a head at the end of a long neck ) was shown to us back in December.  Hopefully everyone saw this from BD:

 

 

When you understand how difficult it is to mimic the complexities of the human foot for that kind of balance, you'll grok just how amazing that entire video is.  And how terrifying.

[wanderingfool2]

7 hours ago, jasonvp said:

When you understand how difficult it is to mimic the complexities of the human foot for that kind of balance, you'll grok just how amazing that entire video is.  And how terrifying.

Honestly, I don't think it's the complexity that is amazing.  What I do find amazing is how far miniaturization/accuracy has increased (and in part the battery technology).

 

Asimo has been around for quite some time, but really I think it was the fact of compactness and the fact that early builds had to be tethered to deliver the power.

[aom]

11 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Honestly, I don't think it's the complexity that is amazing.  What I do find amazing is how far miniaturization/accuracy has increased (and in part the battery technology).

 

Asimo has been around for quite some time, but really I think it was the fact of compactness and the fact that early builds had to be tethered to deliver the power.

yeah no, the complexity is by far the hardest thing that is demonstrated in this video. Asimo is cool for what it is but can't do shit compared to what is shown in the video. The dynamic movement, the ability to balance on one foot, being able to jump in a meaningful manner, the ability for it to do complex movements that require it to carry momentum over from previous states, etc. The actual hardware itself (actuators, batteries, materials, etc.) aren't drastically different from 20 years ago. The amount of computing power, planning algorithms, advancements in computer vision, etc. and absolute talent concentrated at BD. is what has.

[jasonvp]

9 hours ago, Brinith said:

The dynamic movement, the ability to balance on one foot, being able to jump in a meaningful manner, the ability for it to do complex movements that require it to carry momentum over from previous states, etc. The actual hardware itself (actuators, batteries, materials, etc.) aren't drastically different from 20 years ago. The amount of computing power, planning algorithms, advancements in computer vision, etc. and absolute talent concentrated at BD. is what has.

Thank you.  BD has a video from three or so years ago, where Atlas was doing back flips.  The actual interesting bit isn't the back flip, but the mechanics of watching it realize it's off balance when landing and quickly correcting.  Just like a human would do.  Asimo can't do that.

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

10 hours ago, Brinith said:

yeah no, the complexity is by far the hardest thing that is demonstrated in this video. Asimo is cool for what it is but can't do shit compared to what is shown in the video. The dynamic movement, the ability to balance on one foot, being able to jump in a meaningful manner, the ability for it to do complex movements that require it to carry momentum over from previous states, etc. The actual hardware itself (actuators, batteries, materials, etc.) aren't drastically different from 20 years ago. The amount of computing power, planning algorithms, advancements in computer vision, etc. and absolute talent concentrated at BD. is what has.

Not disagreeing that there's a bunch of talent and some powerful algorithms running in the background.  As a whole, the achievement by BD is great.  The amount of computing power I agree with, but that has more to do with miniaturization (as it created efficiencies).  My point in regards to Asimo was that technology itself has progressed to allow it to be compact.  An example being, the battery on Asimo was at least 3 times less watt hours than Atlas (basing it off of Asimo like robot by Honda 6 years after the last Asimo prototype).  Actually, you can tell the advancement of the material/hardware itself just by the fact at how quickly Atlas can move compared to Asimo.

 

A major achievement as well comes from 3D printing, which allowed them to do rapid prototyping of different parts.  Along with the fact that onboard processors are actually able to crunch the numbers (miniaturization of things such as accelerometers and gyroscopes).  A lot has changed since 2011 that allows them to create such robots.

 

Again, it's a major achievement by BD.

[owwnoooo]

Is this tech news? ...... im not sure if it is

[-rascal-]

Its all fun and games until the .50cal and minigun robo dogs in Division 2 become a reality.

 

 

 

[Tristerin]

31 minutes ago, comander said:

If a $40,000 robot allows you to reduce headcount by one $30k/year  worker (who is ~40k after taxes and benefits), this pays for itself in one year. Think medicine, food or package delivery. UPS and Fedex probably have their minds spinning over these things. 

 

Similar story for anything involving putting lives at risk (policing, military, rescue, etc.)

 

We might not quite be there yet in terms of technology but a police force deploying a half dozen of these with explosives is a pretty easy way to deter a lot of activities. 

Correct - and who will then have money to spend?  The super wealthy, or the credit stupid.  

 

However nothing in me believes this will launch even CLOSE to $40k price tag.  Its emerging tech, will require subscriptions for support, probably leases only at first.  

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

4 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Correct - and who will then have money to spend?  The super wealthy, or the credit stupid.  

 

However nothing in me believes this will launch even CLOSE to $40k price tag.  Its emerging tech, will require subscriptions for support, probably leases only at first.  

 

 

yea, Spot was released at $75k.  Although admittedly, as time goes on the price could drop down to more reasonable levels...could even see it getting to like $20k-$30k cost (before accessories and attachments).

 

There isn't anything wrong with replacing workers with robots, in my opinion.  It just helps drive the industry forward, just like how the automated loom got rid of the weavers (but it in turn generated different types of jobs).  With warehouse work while things like spot/automation in general might make it obsolete, it also can reduce costs to consumers,  (e.g. Look at what Amazon did to shipping)

[GDRRiley]

they mentioned so far they've sold ~400 robots with packages meaning maybe 100k per robot meaning about 40 million in 1 year
now its cool to see what this will become, happy to see after all this darp money they are getting somewhere.

now if only the LS3 had gone somewhere

 

[williamcll]

On 2/3/2021 at 8:15 PM, DriftMan said:

And all this after being sold to Hyundai, interesting

Imagine if Hyundai sells a robot horse.

[poochyena]

6 hours ago, Tristerin said:

Correct - and who will then have money to spend?

me

[StDragon]

I wonder if Amazon uses these to pick up accidently dropped items on the warehouse floor. 

[StDragon]

9 minutes ago, comander said:

Why wouldn't the future have people trading cars for robot servants?

In the future, we'll all have Basic Intelligent Technological Computing Hybrid Exoskeleton Slaves.

I'm sure we can shorten it with an acronym....