On April 17th of this year, Boston Dynamics released the next generation of their atlas humanoid robot. But the day before, they retired their older hydraulic robot with the same name. But this new robot set to replace it is all-electric, much smaller, less heavy, and has a much higher range of motion. These allow it to be superior to the old robot in many ways.
You may also be wondering why all electric is better for this robot. First, having an all-electric robot enables it to be more flexible and move its joints an entire 360 degrees. With these, it also makes it lighter and smaller in comparison to the HD version. Another benefit of using electric motors is that you do not have to worry about leaking hydraulic fluid. These are just a few reasons electric motors are better than hydraulics in this specific application.
Unlike the previous atlas, the new version will likely be used for commercial applications, probably for tasks that would be hard or impossible for a regular human to complete. According to some sources Hyundai is already planning to buy some. It even has a consumer product-like design, with covers around all the major electronic parts, a serial number, and a head with a power light around it.
They have not stated precisely when the robot will be available to buy, or when they will start delivering them. It will probably not be for a while. In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, Robert Playter CEO of Boston Dynamics said, “There’s still a lot of product prototyping and iteration that will come out before we start building massive numbers of these things and shipping them to customers,” so with some adjustments to the design, these may start showing up in factories
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https://newatlas.com/robotics/boston-dynamics-electric-atlas-humanoid-robot/
https://www.theverge.com/24132451/boston-dynamics-atlas-robot-retirement
https://www.cnet.com/tech/boston-dynamics-new-humanoid-robot-is-freaking-people-out/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/atlas-humanoid-robot-ceo-interview
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