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Science & Technology

Meet DARPA's Humanoid Robot That Could Someday Save You From A Crumbling Building

2013-07-13

[FASTCOMPANY] Boston Dynamics has been busy working on an entrant for DARPA's Virtual Robotics Challenge, a contest aimed to create robots that can help in disaster situations. Of course, they could also be used by the military...

Now, Boston Dynamics has revealed its entrant: A 6-foot-tall humanoid robot called Atlas.

Compared to the bumbling, tottering, and slow humanoid robots that have hit the media before, you may be shocked at how resilient Atlas is. The machine has sophistication that approaches the stuff of science fiction. It can cope with unexpected trip hazards, survive being knocked off balance by a 20-pound weight, and if the tricks of its developmental predecessor, Petman, are anything to go by, it can climb over obstacles and autonomously navigate to a certain degree.

Give it a few years and a robot like Atlas may be pulling survivors from tumbled buildings in post-earthquake scenarios. And possibly terrifying the crap out of enemy soldiers on the battlefield.

Posted by:Fred

#9 Or, possibly, be the cause of the building crumbling about you....

Posted by: Uncle Phester 2013-07-13 10:58

#8 Wahhahaha. Don't know about you Fred, but....you can have my Ames Iowa manufactured garden shovel when you pry it from my cold......

Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-13 10:31

#7 ...but only those survivors approved for removal by the gov't.

They've got a database.

It's mauve. That has the most power.
---Pointy Haired Boss

Posted by: Fred 2013-07-13 10:25

#6 survive being knocked off balance by a 20-pound weight

Out here we call that a wind gust. Sounds like bucket brigade stuff. Skirmishers at best.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2013-07-13 10:19

#5 If 'Atlas' had been on neighborhood watch, Trayvon would be alive today.

Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-13 09:45

#4 ...properly screen against the donor lists.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-07-13 08:34

#3 Give it a few years and a robot like Atlas may be pulling survivors from tumbled buildings in post-earthquake scenarios.

...but only those survivors approved for removal by the gov't.

Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-13 05:33

#2 Famous Last Words in the software biz: "But I tested it!"

Posted by: SteveS 2013-07-13 01:42

#1 Iff Hollyweird movies are correct, I predict this will not end well for humanity.

Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-07-13 01:00

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