The latest robot news on Atlas and SpotMini

SpotMini 2017. © Boston Dynamics.

Today, Boston Dynamics released two YouTube videos showing the progress made by its Atlas and SpotMini robots. SpotMini’s is more interesting: you see the four-legged bot cruising around autonomously on a designated route across an office and a laboratory. Prior to the test, the robot is manually driven over the space so it can create a space map using visual data from the cameras mounted on its front, back and sides. During the autonomous run, SpotMini uses its camera data to locate itself on the map and to discern and avoid obstacles. Once the user hits “GO” at the start of the video, the robot is left to fend for itself. The total time for this jaunt is a bit over six minutes (the QR codes visible in the video are used to measure performance, not for navigation).

⇨ Circuit Breaker, “Boston Dynamics’ robots are learning how to run outside and navigate autonomously.”