While the name may sound a bit generic, Boston Dynamic’s robotic creations are anything but. Founded in 1992, the company has become one of the most recognizable robotics firms in the world. Utilizing real-world, flesh and blood inspiration for their creations, Boston Dynamics specializes in the study of robotic locomotion. The resulting robotic creations are often very impressive, and maybe just a bit uncanny in their movements.
Boston Dynamics releases incredible robot footage
The robot uprising might be closer than we think. Now, Boston Dynamics has released a new video of their Atlas robot balancing on one “foot” on a narrow piece of plywood for almost a full thirty seconds, which is way better than many humans. Take a look:
Maybe the most striking thing about the video isn’t necessarily the extended period of time it spends balancing, but the incredibly human-like way the robot tries to regain its balance at the end of the video.
The feat is a “lucky run,” the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) said, the nonprofit that developed the control algorithm for the robot. The robot shaking, trying to maintain its balance, “is caused by poor state estimation since they used only onboard sensors. “Usually the robot is not able to maintain balance for this long,” the team wrote.
Up for sale, Boston Dynamics has created amazing robots
Over the years, Boston Dynamics has designed several robots for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and other important military agencies. Recently, the company’s profile has risen due to several online videos, which generally receive millions of views and a great deal of press coverage, showing off some of their robots in action. The company was acquired by Google in 2013 as part of the search engine giant’s expansion into robotics.
As of recent, however, it seems as if the relationship between Boston Dynamics and Google has soured, as Google has put the company up for sale. While the future of BD is still unknown at this point, given the company’s incredible body of work, someone is bound to be interested in acquiring the company.
