Boston Dynamics, an engineering and robotics design company, has unveiled a new short video in which it showcased its humanoid-like robot Atlas helping a worker at a mock construction site.
In the latest video, the Atlas robot grabs a large wooden plank that it uses to bridge a gap between itself and the worker, then grabs a tool bag and deftly tosses it up to a construction worker waiting at the top of some scaffolding.
After completing its task, the humanoid robot pushes a big wooden box from the platform without losing balance and then effortlessly pulls off a backflip with a twist.
Of course, the video was probably rehearsed in detail and carefully programmed ahead of time. It should also be noted that the Atlas robot is now purely a research model that aims to push the limits of robotics and is not commercially available.
Atlas is a bipedal humanoid robot primarily developed by Boston Dynamics, with funding and oversight from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The 1.5-meter-tall robot with 28 hydraulic joints, initially designed to perform a variety of search and rescue tasks, was unveiled to the public on July 11, 2013.