Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas performs autonomous parts picking

The robots get hands-on as Boston Dynamics’ humanoid Atlas has now been showcased in a demo space, picking up engine parts between bins.

The company has been posting regular updates about its robot, with the latest coming on October 30. In a YouTube video, Atlas can be seen autonomously moving engine covers between supplier containers and a mobile sequencing dolly.

The robot can be seen moving with the objects with relative ease and in a fully autonomous manner.

To make this possible, Atlas uses a machine learning vision model to detect and localize the environment fixtures and individual bins. A specialized grasping policy is then utilized, along with continuous estimates of the state of manipulated objects to achieve the task successfully.

Atlas is autonomously moving engine covers between supplier containers and a mobile sequencing dolly, using ML to detect and localize the environment fixtures and individual bin. There are no prescribed or teleoperated movements. https://t.co/br63dMoB7C

— Boston Dynamics (@BostonDynamics) October 30, 2024

In the bio, the American engineering and robotics design company explains more: “There are no prescribed or teleoperated movements; all motions are generated autonomously online.

“The robot is able to detect and react to changes in the environment (e.g., moving fixtures) and action failures (e.g., failure to insert the cover, tripping, environment collisions using a combination of vision, force, and proprioceptive sensors.”

The update on its progress comes just over a week after the partnership announcement between Boston Dynamics and the Toyota Research Institute (TRI).

The duo have come together to integrate TRI’s Large Behavior Models with Atlas, aiming to advance general-purpose humanoid robots. It wasn’t made clear whether the partnership is represented within the video update.

It was then in April when the robot company announced Atlas would be going fully electric and had investment from car manufacturer Hyundai.

As the updates keep rolling in, there’s becoming a huge race for autonomous humanoid robots with many companies aiming to produce the best version.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has been developing a humanoid robot to aid manufacturing, known as ‘Optimus.’ This is planned for commercial availability in 2026 and is intended to perform dangerous and repetitive tasks.

Others are in the running too including Nvidia and industry veterans 1X. The industry in China is also said to have seen a boom this year, with over two dozen companies showcasing humanoid robots at the World Robot Conference in Beijing in August.

Featured Image: Screenshot via Boston Dynamics YouTube video

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