Boston Dynamics' New Atlas robot can't Be pushed round

Robotics employer Boston Dynamics released a brand new video the day before today (Feb. 23) showcasing its upgraded Atlas robot, and the footage functions a slew of spectacular (and extremely unsettling) new abilities.

The humanoid Atlas robotic, which has been overhauled with a sleeker design, can be seen at the beginning of the video on foot round untethered before it opens the front door to Boston Dynamics' workplace and steps outside. The bot is then seen walking on choppy and snowy terrain, maneuvering around trees and correcting its stability numerous instances. [Watch the Atlas Robot Video]

the new-and-progressed robotic is "designed to operate outside and inner homes," Boston Dynamics wrote in an outline of the video posted on YouTube. "it is specialized for cell manipulation. it's far electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It uses sensors in its frame and legs to balance and LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid boundaries, assess the terrain, assist with navigation and control gadgets."

indeed, the video goes on to expose Atlas bending down to pick up 10-pound (four.five kilograms) packing containers and pivoting its torso to area every package on a shelf. In every other example, a human handler uses a hockey stick to push Atlas off stability. The robotic stumbles backwards (however catches itself) earlier than regaining its stability. subsequent, an worker pushes Atlas down from at the back of. The curled-up robotic (mendacity flat on its robot face) is able to push itself up — first to its "palms" and "knees," before righting its torso and then pushing up on its feet— all without assist from a human or a tether. [Robots on the Run! 5 Bots That Can Really Move]

a few commenters on the YouTube video expressed outrage at the guy pushing the robotic with a hockey stick, with a few pronouncing they felt sad for the robot, a few calling the man a bully or even suggesting, possibly with a smile, that he will be blamed for any robot uprisings.

"the guy who kicks the robotic can be absolutely accountable [sic] from the drawing close robot-human wars," wrote Alper ALT.

some other commenter, jonelolguy, wrote: "guy, i without a doubt feel terrible for the robotic."

"Did everyone else experience pretty unhappy once they driven it," wrote Cris Loreto.

those commenters aren't on my own in attributing emotions to robots, in particular ones that appearance lifelike.

Researchers have determined that once people watch a robotic being harmed or snuggled they react in a comparable way to those actions being carried out to a flesh-and-blood human. in a single observe, individuals said they felt terrible feelings when they watched a human hit or drop a small dinosaur robot, and their pores and skin conductance also showed they have been distressed at the "bot abuse." when volunteers watched a robotic being hugged their brain pastime become the same as once they watched human-human affection; nevertheless, brain hobby became stronger for human-human abuse versus human-robotic violence.

"We assume that, in preferred, the robot stimuli elicit the equal emotional processing as the human stimuli," said Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten of the university of Duisburg Essen in Germany, who led that examine. The studies turned into provided in 2013 at the global communique affiliation conference in London.

final summer time, Boston Dynamics upgraded the Atlas robot for the DARPA Robotics challenge Finals, a competition hosted by using the U.S. navy's defense advanced studies tasks enterprise. The most extensive changes at that point were to Atlas' strength supply and hydraulic pump, which enables the robotic stand, stroll round and perform different tasks.

Boston Dynamics, that's owned by using Google, stated the new version of the Atlas robot now stands about 5 ft and nine inches (1.7 meters) tall, which is ready a head shorter than the model of Atlas used in the DARPA Robotics project Finals, and weighs a hundred and eighty pounds (eighty two kg).