[HN Gopher] Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]
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Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]
Author : PotatoNinja
Score : 226 points
Date : 2024-10-30 14:46 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| billconan wrote:
| do they really have this kind of jobs of moving parts from one
| shelf to another in a real factory?
|
| I think a more impressive demo would be last-mile package
| delivery, since it can climb stairs and operate elevators.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Yes they definitely do, see very similar numbered organizers in
| the background of this video [1]. In auto mfg they need to
| reliably build dozens of configurations on one line while
| maintaining impeccable part tracking for auditing and triage
| purposes. Each shelf on the left could be a different version
| of the engine cover for a different trim and the shelf on the
| right will be brought to a station where workers will pick from
| it based on the number the computer tells them for the exact
| vehicle in front of them.
|
| This helps make sure the customer gets what they purchased and
| helps for QC and recalls. If one batch is bad then this system
| allows them to pinpoint down to the exact VINs that were
| affected.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Jlod53BCU&t=60s
| dyauspitr wrote:
| This is a job that currently employs a massive number of humans
| in Amazon warehouses. When you order a product on Amazon, they
| currently have autonomous robots that bring in entire shelves
| of that product up to a person standing at a counter, who picks
| the product from the shelf, puts it into a box and sends it off
| for shipping. This could take all those jobs away.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Cool but this is kind of uncanny
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Awesome and terrifying
| krunck wrote:
| While humanoid robots are neat, if not uncanny, I would love to
| see robots with forms optimized for their work. A large octopus
| with legs would be ideal for this sort of parts handling job.
| slau wrote:
| I think the exact point they're trying to make is that a
| humanoid robot can pick up one shift exactly where a human left
| off. No custom robotics, no workplace changes, etc.
|
| This is _huge_ for the industry. Smarter Every Day visited a
| frisbee factory and they had automated a bunch of things.
| However, every automation point was extremely protected (fenced
| off) so that a bumbling human couldn't walk somewhere and get a
| limb ripped off. If I remember correctly they joked that it was
| OSHA or something, which it turned out to be.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| This ^
|
| The effort required to change a process shouldn't be
| underestimated.
|
| Especially considered that industrial environments are
| already (a) automated for lowest-hanging fruit things (e.g.
| moving stuff around at human height) & (b) optimized around
| human capabilities for the remaining things. Substituting a
| not-humanlike robot would require reconfiguring a lot of
| existing automation around it.
|
| If you have "like a human, but costs less" that can be
| plugged into any existing still-human process? You can
| literally swap them in.
|
| Eventually we'll get to hyperoptimized machines, but an
| easier sales story to say "We automate your existing human
| processes."
| bamboozled wrote:
| I keep hearing this but I just think it's silly, for
| basically any factory, it's trivial to change the
| configuration of a space so a better suited robot can operate
| rather than build robots that can fit into human sized
| spaces.
|
| Yes there will be use cases but it just seems like a problem
| looking for a solution most of the time.
| dartos wrote:
| Well, you can buy a very specialized machine for one task,
| or but a less efficient machine that could handle very many
| tasks.
| FabHK wrote:
| And the latter has (at least in IT, where you had Moore's
| law) generally won out fairly quickly.
| coding123 wrote:
| But in industrialised physical space, it has been the
| former, especially when things scale to produce 1000
| objects per minute.
| ndm000 wrote:
| When steam and coal engines gave way to gas and electric
| engines in factories, it took decades before factories were
| reconfigured to adjust to the smaller sized engines that
| didn't require one major axle running through the entire
| factory. As a consequence the first gas engines were huge -
| over time they shrunk. I bet the same will happen with
| robotics, where humanoid will be the primary form factor at
| first for general tasks, then more efficient forms will
| emerge as processes are updated.
| berkes wrote:
| These efficient forms are there. In use. Proven. Have been
| for decades.
|
| Cranes, carts, lorries, conveyor belts (with vision), my
| robot vacuum cleaner, my bread baking machine, a car wash,
| a dishwasher, the ticket gates at the underground, the
| coffee machine at our office and so on.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Yet, there are still millions of humans working in
| factories.
|
| There is value to the human form, our versatility and
| adaptability.
|
| A machine that replicated a human would have incredible
| economic value (though not for the people whose jobs it
| replaced). A machine that exceeded a human in
| versatility, e.g. by having more arms, even more so.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| I think you're right, but the humanoid phase in manufacture
| will probably be an intermediate phase, for the reasons
| krunck points out. A 100% adapted to the function robot is
| where productivity is.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| Imagine you're working your 35-hour shift at the
| Fulfillment(tm) Center and all around you there's robotic
| eldritch horrors scurrying through the two-storey high shelves
| nwah1 wrote:
| Factory robots that move in general are kind of gimmicks,
| except for those roomba things for Amazon warehouses.
|
| An assembly line with robotic arms has been standard for a
| long time now. And having many such arms working at the same
| time is normal. And each robotic arm will be doing one
| extremely narrowly defined task.
|
| Anything involving autonomous judgment and mobility
| introduces uncertainty.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| Neuralink-equipped wageslaves mind-projecting into robo-
| octopuses, traversing the storehouse-grid with the aid of
| their many-suckered appendages. Navigating via implicitly
| interfacing with the warehouse's AI overseer.
| Log_out_ wrote:
| sudo Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
| imtringued wrote:
| Even if you don't have an assembly line and more of a job
| shop. A stacker crane is a better transportation method and
| you can build each station to be able to load from the
| crane directly. So the only case where you need a robot arm
| is to take a part and put it in a fixture.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ah yes, man made horrors on the edge of my comprehension.
| sfjailbird wrote:
| The legs do seem like a huge overcomplication. I can't think of
| many situations where they would be worth the added
| cost/complexity (compared to simple wheels). Sure they can walk
| stairs, but a place that employs freaking robots could easily
| make it robot accessible too, it would seem.
| robswc wrote:
| Totally agree here... but I have no robotics experience to
| back it up.
|
| Seems at the very least it could have little quad wheel
| things so it doesn't have to worry about balance as much.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Did you see previous Atlas videos where this things jumps,
| does backflips and runs up stairs? The whole point is to make
| it operate in spaces designed for humans.
| DonnyV wrote:
| Optimization isn't efficient on the grand scale of things.
| Think of these robots more as exchangeable worker units. Lets
| say the warehouse isn't accepting many packages that day. So
| you don't need as many robots at the loading dock. But we have
| a lot of product that needs to be inventoried or shelved. Send
| a couple over and have them start doing it right away.
|
| You actually end up running a warehouse with less robots
| because they can easily be repurposed for other duties.
| y04nn wrote:
| Bipedalism is great to evolve on uneven terrain. Here it seems
| to just slow the process. Also, it uses its second hand for
| balance instead of achieving work, a counter weight would be as
| effective. In a factory, where the floor is flat, a human sized
| self moving robot 2 or 3 wheels would be way more effective,
| longer arms with more joins that are not mimicking humans one
| could also be better. There is already a lot of
| automation/robots in industry and it never look like a human.
| Even in our houses the best approach to automation never look
| like a human (eg. vacuum cleaner). I think that the only part
| of our body that would worth copying is the hand.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Humans are precariously tall. Good for spotting threats but
| not for navigating terrain. Four legs are better, with a
| lower center of gravity. Look at mountain goats for example.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| We already have highly specialized robots. They're usually
| built for specific situations and are expensive and immobile.
| The goal here is to provide a robot that can fill as many roles
| as possible and the best template for that is humans around
| which the entire world has been built.
| Animats wrote:
| I liked the Tesla snake robot for charging.[1] But it upset
| many people.
|
| It looks complicated but is a rather simple mechanical design.
| There are several motors in the base pulling on cables. The arm
| itself is just segments, disks, and cables. So all the
| complexity is in the base, and you can surround that with a
| metal or concrete box to prevent damage. Arm replacement
| wouldn't be too expensive.
|
| Tesla is now touting wireless car charging, but that's a lot of
| power to transmit through air.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI
| berkes wrote:
| Or just a bunch of conveyor belts, magnets, clips etc. A
| "boring" but proven, optimized, sorting machine really.
|
| Though the demo is awesome, the use case is bad. This "problem"
| of sorting and moving parts around, has long been "solved". It
| can be forever optimized, sure. But humanoid robots are
| definitely not that optimization.
| mempko wrote:
| Compare this to the human controlled puppets Tesla demonstrated.
| Tesla made a big show of something Disney could do years ago.
| While Boston Dynamics is quietly building the real thing and
| showing us footage of it actually working.
| letmevoteplease wrote:
| Tesla has footage of Optimus working autonomously. Not bad
| progress for something that has been under development for two
| years.
|
| https://x.com/Tesla_Optimus/status/1846797392521167223
| guerrilla wrote:
| Correction: Tesla says* they have footage of Optimus working
| autonomously
| kvark wrote:
| You are comparing a live demo with many bots interacting with
| humans, versus a recording of a single bot in a factory by
| itself.
| nofunsir wrote:
| But, Space man bad!
| bottlepalm wrote:
| The difference is Disney doesn't have any factories. I'd bet
| good money Tesla has Optimus doing real work in their
| factories, at scale, long before anyone else.
| threeseed wrote:
| Boston Dynamics has been deploying Spot at scale for years
| now:
|
| https://bostondynamics.com/industry/manufacturing
|
| And it's one thing to have a cute demo showcased under ideal
| scenarios and another to have it deployed in mission critical
| environments around real people.
| fragmede wrote:
| A mobile camera that can open doors is quite useful, but
| that's not on the same level as robot auto worker that
| could stamp out parts on a press.
| threeseed wrote:
| This statement makes no sense.
|
| We have had robots stamping parts for years. There is no
| need for a humanoid style configuration. Meanwhile what
| is needed and far more complex are robots that can
| interact with unpredictable people in unpredictable
| environments.
|
| Boston Dynamics has already demonstrated they can do
| this.
| fragmede wrote:
| I'm not sure what part doesn't make sense. Can you
| clarify where you got confused?
|
| Machine presses still have human operators somewhere,
| even though theres machines and robot arms involved. eg
| the end of that figure one video.
|
| Sure, a dog sized object autonomously not running into
| objects, some of which can move is an achievement, but
| it's still just a remote control camera.
| baw-bag wrote:
| You would just change the machine that the human uses. If
| a task is too difficult and hence needs a human
| yesterday, and if there is a solution that a humanoid
| robot can now do today then you would simply get rid of
| all of the humanoid robotics surrounding the core
| problem. Even if that means bolting the humanoid to the
| floor just to use that single part you need.
| worik wrote:
| > I'd bet good money Tesla has Optimus doing real work in
| their factories, at scale, long before anyone else.
|
| On what do you base that?
|
| Tesla is so far behind BD, who are behind the Chinese
|
| My money is on the Chinese
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Were they human controlled or just human voiced?
| meindnoch wrote:
| See, this is a real video. Compare it with the obvious cgi fake
| that was put out a few months ago by Figure:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QZB5baNw I still can't believe
| how noone has called them out on that one.
| owenpalmer wrote:
| How do you know the figure 1 demo was fake?
| meindnoch wrote:
| Motion is the telltale sign. It's too smooth in their video.
| Real physical mechanisms shake a bit, the actuators have a
| bit of backlash, the whole structure wobbles a bit when a
| limb is moved due to torque, etc. The micro-movements are
| missing from the Figure 01 video, because they are hard to
| simulate convincingly. Basically, their robot moves like
| Optimis Prime in a Transformers movie. Unnatural, and un-
| physical.
|
| You might not be able to see it if you don't know what to
| look for, just like how some people seem unable to notice
| when that ugly motion interpolation is turned on their TV
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| wg0 wrote:
| Well, anything could be fake these days even the Boston
| Dynamic's video could be fake in this day and age but...
|
| I tend to believe both videos probably are not fake. With
| speech recognition, text to speech AGI and the advancements in
| machine learning as applied to robotics, it is not impossible
| for many or any committed enough group of engineers with
| financial means to make some notable progress on that front.
|
| So it is not just skills but money too.
| meindnoch wrote:
| But Figure 01 do have real videos of their robot walking.
| Compare the wobbliness in those videos vs the one I've
| linked. The difference is easily noticeable. One moves like a
| physical thing, the other moves like a scripted rigid body
| simulation from a game cutscene.
|
| Also, I didn't say what they demoed was impossible (other
| than the unnaturally smooth motion). There's probably good
| reason they went with a cgi video, but we don't know.
| nofunsir wrote:
| I often call out the cgi "enhancements" that I notice on Boston
| Dynamics videos. This one doesn't seem to have any that I can
| tell. On others, however, when I point them out, I get
| borderline religious vitriol pushback.
|
| From what I've observed, (so preface the following with "It
| seems to me that:") BD obviously has a well-honed "playback"
| tool. They have the ability to command the robot to operate in
| a new environment, record its own movements to sub-millimeter
| accuracy, and record the environment (it has a live 3d point
| map after all.). Then, they load in the recorded
| environment+motion data, and play it back as a 3D scene.
| Naturally, this would be needed to analyze the performance and
| make software and hardware iterations. However, this data is
| likely also used to re-create a digital scene for the purposes
| of cgi enhancement of a performance that's intended to be
| recorded and released to Youtube. Similar to how Favreau uses a
| giant screen to approximate the lighting on the chroma-keyed
| subjects[1] as they perform, this data -- a giant shiny
| rectangle goes here, a window and a flashing blue light bulb
| there, these steps over here -- combined with accurate camera
| motion data, is then used to create a digital model with the
| exact shadows that one would need to create a more realistic
| "fake video" in the first place. The trick is that Boston
| Dynamics then takes the original take (or iterations of takes
| of it running the exact same sequence), and iterate a cgi-
| enhanced version of their "cool dance video" that the marketing
| team then signs off on. "Ohh yeah, that's what our vision is.
| We don't want them to see shaky appendages, or micro-stutters.
| Add in some extra scuff marks, too! Perfect. Upload it."
|
| [1] https://illumin.usc.edu/the-volume-how-the-mandalorian-
| revol....
| threeseed wrote:
| > I get borderline religious vitriol pushback
|
| I can see that. Because you're posting incoherent scenarios
| with no evidence.
|
| Meanwhile we have Spot being deployed in Australian mines for
| surveillance where the environment is constantly changing.
| Not sure how they would accomplish this if everything they do
| is CGI.
| nofunsir wrote:
| I did not say everything they do is CGI. Your response is
| prime example. Just doubting Boston Dynamic's MARKETING
| brings out the strawman fallacies. Simply proves the
| marketing is working. I don't doubt the robots exist. How
| stupid do you think the average HN commenter is?
| SirMaster wrote:
| But can it do a backflip?
| Miniminix wrote:
| Could it look less like the T800 from Terminator ?
| jamala1 wrote:
| Chinese Unitree's demos are better by now imo.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dFTc4W8wm0
| hobofan wrote:
| What? The humanoid robot in the video is walking on the most
| even surface possible. Boston Dynamics has a more impressive
| walking video from 11 years ago (obviously restricted by the
| hardware at the time):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8
|
| Yes, human-looking gait is nice, but it isn't worth anything if
| it can't translate to real-world settings.
| modeless wrote:
| Unitree is catching up to Boston Dynamics in locomotion, but
| has not surpassed them yet I think. Unitree's real advantage is
| the much lower cost of their hardware and their ability to mass
| produce their robots.
|
| But IMO manipulation is harder than locomotion, both in
| hardware and software, and neither company is convincingly
| ahead there. I think the uncut laundry demo from Physical
| Intelligence a few days ago is better than anything shown by
| Unitree or BD for manipulation. https://www.physicalintelligenc
| e.company/blog/pi0#:~:text=Af....
| jemmyw wrote:
| I don't really want a robot wandering around doing laundry. I
| think what most people want is a box you dump clothes in and
| they come out folded, an extra machine next to the dryer.
| That would be a genuine time saver. I hate scaling Mount
| Foldmore.
| golol wrote:
| Well the robot is that machine....and much more.
| modeless wrote:
| I don't want more machines taking up space in my home. I
| don't want a bunch of special purpose "smart" devices with
| buggy software and dedicated apps requiring logins and
| firmware updates to plug security holes. I want one robot
| that can do it all. I'd get rid of my security system,
| cameras, smart thermostat, dishwasher, clothes washer,
| stand mixer, toaster, etc etc.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I put the laundry on this morning, came into the kitchen
| and got a bread mix going, made some toast while that was
| mixing. The dishwasher was just finishing. Having to wait
| for one machine to serially finish doing each job not
| quite as well as a dedicated machine, before doing the
| next job, doesn't sound ideal. Plus when the dishwasher
| breaks I can still have toast.
| modeless wrote:
| The robot can do the dishes and the laundry while you
| aren't even there. No need for that to happen during
| breakfast! It can start making breakfast before you even
| wake up, if you want.
| 9dev wrote:
| The horror!
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Clearly it's not easy to solve the folding machine problem
| because otherwise we would have one of those already. I
| absolutely wouldn't mind a robot helper walking around the
| house and going what my maid currently does.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| Not at the level of dumping a basket of dryer clothes into
| a folding machine but getting close:
|
| https://foldimate.website/
| jemmyw wrote:
| I took a look. It seems that the original company folded
| (ha) in 2021 and I'm not sure who owns it now or what the
| level of support would be like.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Why do robot companies insist on beating up their robots?
| torlok wrote:
| Because that's what you'll do when you have a bad day, and
| this piece of trash gets stuck for the 5th time this week.
| captaindiego wrote:
| They put a lot of work into the control algorithms that
| allow the robots to move. From a control theory
| perspective, being hit is a disturbance that the control
| system is able to reject to maintain the intended
| pose/motion.
| modeless wrote:
| It also shows the strength of the hardware. Unitree sells
| the hardware so it's a hardware demo as much as a
| software one.
| throwaway313373 wrote:
| You have to make sure that robots know their place. Today
| you treat them too gently, tomorrow you have a robot
| uprising destroying the whole humanity on your hands.
|
| Haven't the last century of sci-fi books and movies taught
| you this?
| emchammer wrote:
| LMAO Boston Dynamics used to have a guy randomly coming into
| the frame and giving the robot a kick and show it could
| recover, Unitree goes all-out kung fu on them.
| toxik wrote:
| Unitree products feel like oversized toys, not serious research
| platforms.
| yumraj wrote:
| Something rubs me the wrong way when the dog is hit and kicked,
| and we don't have a dog. I know it's a robot but the same could
| be demonstrated without clear violence.
|
| Maybe it's just me..
| ribcage wrote:
| Unfortunately some humans are just violent in nature. Or
| perhaps most. When robots become as intelligent as humans,
| some people might enjoy abusing them like they once enjoyed
| abusing people of different skin color.
| amelius wrote:
| It is expected that some humans will not accept robots
| walking among the public. So they have to be vandalism-proof.
|
| However, the guy in the video is attacking the robot in the
| wrong way. He should be using a spray paint can instead of a
| baseball bat.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| what if the robot has little vials of acetone, IPA, etc. to
| wash off its lenses, while switching to mm-wave vision (not
| even dead reackoning) returns the favor to the offending
| human while cleaning its lens...
| noncoml wrote:
| How is its situational awareness? While walking with its elbow
| out carousing the item, would it avoid an object that would be
| out of its view by the time it was about to collide with its
| extended elbow?
| coldcode wrote:
| The video is impressive, but how does it learn? How long does it
| take before it can do something new? I realize this is still very
| much a research project, but I'd love to understand how it works.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Yeah. The robotics is impressive either way but the AI is
| unclear.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| Happy to be corrected, but AI isn't mentioned in the title or
| video anywhere. What's with the expectation of learning new
| tasks? All this would be impressive regardless of that.
| zorex wrote:
| "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://x.com/BostonDynamics/status/1851624026424197434
| 101008 wrote:
| In which aspect is this better than a human?* It's slower,
| energy-wise more expensive (a human with just a sandwich can work
| for hours), less preciss and error-prone. As a Manager, I would
| prefer a person that I can blame (corporative and legally) if
| something goes wrong, that being responsible (legally, mainly!)
| if this robot makes a huge mistake.
|
| * From a business point of view. This is an incredible techinal
| achievement, I don't want to sound like this is not impressive.
| But it seems that every new development seems to focus on how
| they can replace humans or be better at or do things that we
| usually do.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| From a business pov it's obviously better than a human because
| it does not need to feed its family.
| downboots wrote:
| Yet
| fragmede wrote:
| Selling one product and using the profits from that to
| create a second product is how businesses work. So if/when
| Tesla/anybody is selling their humanoid robot and those
| profits pay for going to feed the NVIDIA supercomputer that
| they're using to train models to run on robots, and to fund
| development of robot 2.0, that's exactly where we'll be.
| kyriakos wrote:
| the robot can work 24/7 7 days a week, and if you consider
| paying the human employee at the end of the month and not just
| providing a sandwich per shift then the energy costs are not
| that high.
| 101008 wrote:
| How much time the robot can work without recharging /
| maintenance? What's the throughput for the tasks? In the demo
| it only carried one object and it took it several seconds to
| move it. A person could do that faster, better, etc. It's
| real nice, but if you can convince a factory owner to replace
| people with this you are the best salesman in the world.
| fragmede wrote:
| I'm not a salesman but I imagine if you're trying to sell
| them to a factory owner, you'd play up the problems with
| the worst humans. Humans come in hungover, still drunk, or
| not at all. And don't call in. They complain about every.
| little. thing. "Why do I have to do it this way?" "I don't
| want to do it like that".
|
| They take long bathroom breaks (and think you don't notice,
| because they think you're stupid.) They steal. They fight
| with each other and need managing aka children's therapist
| for their bullshit. Which never stops. You can stop wasting
| your time dealing with the "human touch" and get back to
| what you really want - making more widgets so you can sell
| more widgets so you can make enough money for that kitchen
| remodel/winter/summer home/yacht/European vacation/jet.
|
| Fire them and replace them with RobotWorker. It doesn't get
| drunk and cause fights or HR incidents because it can't
| keep it in it's pants. They'll work all through the night
| and through every holiday, without the same trouble of
| having a second and third shift. You don't need to follow
| OSHA with these things, though you still don't want to
| damage them - there's a support contract but that's
| unnecessary downtime for you, and you don't want that.
| Still, you can just replace a robot's arm. Just imagine the
| lawsuits when that happens to a human employee.
|
| blahblahblah. I'm sure you can come up with more.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Scheduling, vacations and HR also go out the window.
|
| Reliable production numbers are also a thing.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There are just too many of fake humanoid startups that they had
| to show what the actual state of the art looks like. That's all
| there is to it.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > As a Manager, I would prefer a person that I can blame
| (corporative and legally) if something goes wrong, that being
| responsible (legally, mainly!) if this robot makes a huge
| mistake.
|
| Might you not prefer working with a colleague who brings skills
| and knowledge to the work environment, understands the
| business, is motivated to improve the operation, and can
| respectfully discuss the challenges that you face as a team?
|
| Someone who, if treated fairly and with respect, may help build
| success as your co-worker and perhaps even community as your
| neighbour?
|
| In exchange for a decent wage and an affordable sandwich, of
| course.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| One immediate use I can see for this robot is racking and
| energizing circuit breakers in electrical switchgear, which is
| one of the most dangerous things an electrician does. Arc flashes
| are very bad for humans, robots can be replaced easily.
|
| Racking 480V three-phase breakers: https://youtu.be/Rytjdqj_Img
| throwaway313373 wrote:
| I'm not sure how robot will be better than a stick made of a
| non-conductive material. Stick is surely simpler and cheaper.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Kind of shows just how far behind Telsa is with their "robot"
| Fricken wrote:
| Tesla fans are happy just to pretend.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| The BD demos are cool and I've been seeing them for probably a
| decade or more now, but what exactly do these robots do?
| Besides for cool demos, where are they actually used?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| They need to become mainstream before they really take off --
| i.e. affordable.
| wg0 wrote:
| Impressive. The machine learning application in these domains is
| the real game changer.
|
| PS: Isn't that the Lord of the Lithium, the Guardian of the
| Tunnels has the robot prototypes that not only serve drinks but
| do the small talk with full self driving AGI already?
| fakedang wrote:
| AGI - A Guy in India
| opless wrote:
| Or Indonesia
| karussell wrote:
| Is the noise coming from the robot? I thought they retired the
| hydraulics version?
| zorex wrote:
| It's coming from the high pressure fans located in the chest.
| Atlas is fully electric.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I think whenever I see humanoid robots like this: What is the
| battery life? I imagine this will be a critical limitation on
| these, until further notice.
| drooby wrote:
| The battery life of a human is 6-8 hours. Those pesky humans
| also want "rights". Takes a long time to make a new human too.
|
| So that's the competition.
| exe34 wrote:
| you can also swap out batteries for the robots
| fragmede wrote:
| this robot has arms and legs and apparently some measure of
| autonomy now as well. It can change it's own batteries!
|
| Which, humans do at least once a day, among tending to
| other biological needs as well. So the question is what's a
| useful run time if there's a bank of swappable batteries it
| can run back to refill from? Even if it had to go and swap
| batteries every two hours, for a factory robot that
| wouldn't be insurmountable.
| recursive wrote:
| > The battery life of a human is 6-8 hours. So that's the
| competition.
|
| How many naps are you taking? Normal uptime is at least 16
| hours. In special circumstances, much more is possible.
|
| I'd be amazed if the robots are more than 2. Slightly
| surprised if they're over 1.
|
| It's not exactly comparable.
| criley2 wrote:
| Humans have an uptime of 16 hours, but generally speaking
| can only operate professionally for an 8 hour span. The
| other 8 hours are spent mostly doing personal maintenance
| and refueling their physical and mental capabilities.
|
| Oh, and humans have traditionally banded together to punish
| those who ask for more than 8 hours a day or 5 days a week,
| and have even historically gotten very murdery over the
| subject. Buyer beware!
| recursive wrote:
| The comparison does get kind of non-sensical.
|
| How much PTO does the robot use? Are they a culture fit?
| Do they have any insights for process improvement?
|
| If robots can replace humans for the most monotonous
| tasks, I'm all for it, _as long as it doesn 't hurt
| living conditions for those humans_.
|
| But all these robots are only shown to us in very
| carefully controlled conditions. If a human was doing
| what we saw this robot doing in a factory, they'd
| probably get disciplined unless they increased their
| speed by 400%. This is state of the art, I presume.
|
| Maybe this kind of thing will be useful some day, but it
| feels like that day is a long way off.
| fragmede wrote:
| Definitely controlled, but a pole to the "chest" of Atlas
| shows it's relatively stable on its feet and capable of
| recovery, though we have no idea how many takes that
| took.
|
| As far as speed, it depends on what the limitations are.
| We know electric motors in general are capable of moving
| faster, so presumably the limits are with computation, to
| which I'd point out that Moore's law is still hanging on.
| Compared to Honda's Asimo in 2000 BD's Atlas robot in
| 2016 was nothing short of phenomenal progress, but that
| took 16 years.
|
| Hopefully it doesn't take another 16, but we'll see. Once
| there are useful commercially available humanoid robots
| on the market, progress is likely to accelerate.
| novok wrote:
| If the compute needed is linear, then 4x means it's not
| far off. I would foresee it in a decade. This speed is
| also fast enough for household robots as it is.
| devvvvvvv wrote:
| > as long as it doesn't hurt living conditions for those
| humans
|
| Literally how would it not? Losing your job hurts your
| living condition, it's not like the warehouse workers
| will just be given cushier tasks.
| recursive wrote:
| I don't pretend to know all the effects of automation.
| The industrial revolution seems like it turned out OK.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I do not think you'll get anything close to that with these
| robots.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > Those pesky humans also want "rights".
|
| Yep, you're not allowed to own them, only rent them. And
| there's no right to repair if you have a defective unit.
| echoangle wrote:
| But the units actively want to repair themselves, that has
| to be better than right to repair, right?
| mrshadowgoose wrote:
| Yup, it's a real shame that batteries can't be swapped.
| Retric wrote:
| Swapping batteries is often suggested, but rarely actually
| used in practice due to a wide range of logistical issues
| like thermal management, cost, etc.
| fragmede wrote:
| Humanoid robots are often suggested, but rarely actually
| used in practice due to a wide range of issues. When they
| come to market, they will bring with them new technologies,
| like power management, humanoid robots, etc.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| It's logistically harder, but it's already common in some
| industries. Check the Gogoro e-scooter network in Taiwan.
| raldi wrote:
| In many situations, I would imagine an overhead power cable
| would be feasible.
| modeless wrote:
| Humans recharge for 1/3 of the day. That's achievable with
| batteries. The rest schedule might be a bit different.
| jajko wrote:
| Well yes but we can perform 16 hours straight then. If you
| look at what elite alpinists can do (or more like are rarely
| forced to do) it can be easily 72 hours full on brutal effort
| on physical and mental limits, with 0 margin for mistake, no
| food or water. Not so much case here now I presume.
|
| Not that that would be a bummer here nor the baseline, but
| humans can be properly amazing and we keep stretching the
| possible further and further.
| modeless wrote:
| It would actually be illegal for a job to be that
| demanding.
| beAbU wrote:
| Are building alpinist robots here?
|
| A company might happily have 4 hour shifts to facilitate
| charging the robot workforce, if that means they dont need
| to deal with unionizing, smoke-breaking, hung over, late
| coming, slow working and generally unpleasant humans in
| their workforce.
| jayd16 wrote:
| If they put the charge port in the ear then they can just train
| it with a video library of humans pulling around corded phones.
| amelius wrote:
| Once we can let the robots build the robots, it doesn't matter
| really how many robots are charging at any point.
| lvl155 wrote:
| Still find it comical that Masayoshi sold it to Hyundai instead
| of Tesla. BD was the perfect fit for Tesla at the time.
|
| Now not so much and I am glad BD isn't under Tesla umbrella.
| snek_case wrote:
| So in 2013 Google bought Boston Dynamics, then later sold them
| in 2017. The rumor is that BD didn't play nice with the rest of
| Google. They wanted to just keep doing whatever they wanted and
| not be told what to do.
|
| I think that if Tesla had bought BD, it may have been more
| trouble than it's worth. They might have had to fire a lot of
| the staff, and then I'm not sure what they would have been left
| with. Tesla is trying to optimize for production cost and mass
| manufacturing whereas BD doesn't care about cost. It also seems
| to me like BD hasn't done much in the AI realm. They've focused
| a lot more on the locomotion and have been using classic
| robotics techniques.
| modeless wrote:
| Did Tesla want to buy BD? Haven't heard that before.
| artninja1988 wrote:
| Why does it jump so awkwardly when the part doesn't fit and it
| has to readjust?
| readyplayernull wrote:
| If (armIsStuck) forceZ = normalForceZ * 5; // don't remove this
| line!!! Bob found that's enough to release the arm when it gets
| stuck.
| markisus wrote:
| This sounds about right, having spent my share of time
| prepping robot systems for big PR and investor demos.
| stevenhuang wrote:
| The cloth receptacle is being compressed like a spring.
|
| It seems like when the robot thought the object was put away
| (or some safety feedback mechanism of receiving too much force
| feedback activates), it "relaxes" its actuators and goes limp,
| say.
|
| Then the stored force from the spring is released. What we're
| seeing with the jump is the robot rebalancing itself in order
| to remain upright.
| Isamu wrote:
| Interesting 3 finger hand, one finger pivots from inline with the
| other two to become a thumb in opposition.
| motohagiography wrote:
| what a relief it will be to be released from doing manual tasks
| for a living and to be able to finally engage every waking moment
| in an all against all struggle for power.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| In the future we'll all get to be "idea men". (And be famous
| for 15 minutes.)
| bubaumba wrote:
| half of the population has IQ below average. what 'idea' are
| you talking about?
|
| Actually that's getting interesting. For non-physical jobs we
| already got significant boost from LLMs. Robots will be
| another wave when they get cheap enough. For robot like on
| the video $20K price for mechanics looks achievable.
| fracus wrote:
| I'm impressed but I'm also surprised to see the robot stop and
| appear to think. I would have thought the computing and sensors
| wouldn't take so long to form decisions.
| ndm000 wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the slowest part of the system is
| the API call to a legacy warehouse management system that takes
| several seconds to respond to get the next bin to target.
| firecall wrote:
| It's required to pause and give the parts 20 Seconds to Comply!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1uR-OFLGCE
| rkagerer wrote:
| Well at this rate the dishes will be done sometime next week.
| berkes wrote:
| Whereas my current "robot", aka my dishwasher, has them done in
| 20 mins (or 90 mins eco setting).
|
| Specialized automation is there, proven, efficient. It can be
| improved, sure (easier (un)loading?), but I doubt a
| generalized, humanoid robot is the best way towards these
| improvements.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Pretty sure my dishwasher takes a couple hours (maybe always
| on eco?). I could hand-wash them in 15 minutes though -- I
| would just rather not.
|
| I wouldn't really care if the robot was up all night doing
| dishes as long as they were done in the morning. And, you
| know, the robot did their work quietly.
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| You're also saving a ton on water usage using the
| dishwasher vs hand-washing
| Jupe wrote:
| How long before someone can buy a robot to do a manual labor job
| for them? I mean, buy a robot and send it to some company to do a
| daily job where the company pays the robot owner for the use of
| the robot?
| p1esk wrote:
| 2-3 years
| numpad0 wrote:
| 50 years
| dyauspitr wrote:
| The company is just going to buy the robot directly. Why would
| they middle man things like that? Alternatively if they just
| need the robots for shifts, they will rent them out from some
| central provider.
| snek_case wrote:
| I think you would have to start a small business like rent
| your robot to do housecleaning for your neighbors, that being
| said housecleaning will probably quickly become way more
| competitive and you would have to undercut bigger businesses.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| You ask the same question as a sibling, so I will link you to
| my reply to it:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42036078
| beefnugs wrote:
| Funny you mention the only possible future capitalism model
| where we aren't mostly all dead in a ditch... (companies forced
| to pay people for using "their" bot) but it will never happen.
|
| The companies buy the robots, and just shoot the employees in
| the head as they leave the robot store as an act of mercy.
| beAbU wrote:
| Why the hell would any company use my robot and pay me, when it
| can buy its own, or lease a dozen from the manufacturer?
|
| No, the fifth industrial revolution won't leave space for us
| kowly individuals to participate in I'm afraid.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| I don't pretend to hold a crystall ball or magically see the
| future, but arguments could be construed why it would happen:
|
| Let us consider a spectrum of splitting differences, and
| their extremes:
|
| Consider a factory that runs 3 human shifts, and N full-time
| labour positions.
|
| In one extreme the company buys for each 3-human-shift
| position a single robot price.
|
| In another extreme, some workers decide to buy a robot on
| their own, and hope to send it to the factory.
|
| Now consider 3 robots are bought per 3-human shift position,
| i.e. one robot corresponding to each human worker. If the
| robot follows the worker home, it would spend 2 / 3rds of the
| time at home, and one third of the time at work. So a company
| could pay a third of each robot for 3 shifts. What is won by
| whom?
|
| The companies:
|
| 1) paid the same amount of money
|
| 2) don't need space to store a large stock of backup robots
| (suppose your robot broke down and needs a few days to get
| repaired, the company can ask your colleagues from other
| shifts if they want to rent out one of their robots, so
| instead of having 2 robots in the household, some will only
| have 1 for a few days and they will get compensated by
| whoever was responsible for the damage, if it occurred in job
| related conditions or leisure conditions)
|
| From the perspective of the employees:
|
| 1) Instead of paying 100% of the robot price, you only pay
| 66.6%
|
| 2) Instead of blindly hoping to find an employer where you
| can send your robot for work, your employer is organizing
| this for you
|
| From the perspective of the robot makers:
|
| 1) Sales triple
|
| 2) gather real world data 3 times faster than robot makers
| not participating in this type of scheme
|
| 3) just like the factories, having a larger base of robots
| means the shot noise on the stream of incoming robots needing
| a repair is buffered, so capex on the repair centers decrease
|
| From the perspective of jurisdictions, power blocs, and robot
| warfare:
|
| 1) Your economy learns 3 times as fast compared to blind
| ideological jurisdictions that believe the optimum must lie
| at the extremes: either company buys 1 robot, or 3 employees
| each buy their own robot
|
| From a different perspective one can argue much simpler: we
| already see this in action with company cars, robots for
| human transportation operated for work part of the time and
| operated for leisure in the rest of the time, complete with
| myriad of rules and regulations to determine who pays for
| repairs and how or when the damage was incurred.
| firecall wrote:
| Why don't they have 360 vision?
|
| Why does it need to turn its head or it's torso?
|
| Maybe just to make it more humanoid?
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I am surprised by how much we have stuck to the human-shaped
| robot, seems like an octopus or something would be better.
| bagels wrote:
| Would that be better accepted by the public or robot buyer?
| rangestransform wrote:
| The entire built environment to date is designed for humans
|
| It's the same reason why companies are throwing money at a
| self driving car which can coexist with manually driven cars,
| rather than building roads specifically for autonomy
| dexwiz wrote:
| Why build autonomous roads? Just invest in modern railways
| at that point.
| cryptonector wrote:
| What's that got to do with _vision_? They could have given
| it more cameras to avoid having to have a head to turn.
| That was OP 's point.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Six more arms would be considerably heavier. Especially
| wasteful if, often, six of the arms are not even doing
| anything.
| dartos wrote:
| It's probably a cost benefit thing.
|
| How much do you benefit from 360 vision vs front facing camera.
|
| You also get some relative directional information as well with
| the current design.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Anyone who don't know what manufacturing automation looked like
| for past decades should go watch those "factory tours" video or
| two. Then write down what are shared characteristics of manually
| handled objects in it and what are deltas between those videos
| and this. There are just way too many fantasies around here.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQeQWGqfFN0
|
| 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csifG1AM5d8
|
| 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg8YYuLLoM0
| bagels wrote:
| You seem to imply that you have an answer to this. What are the
| shared characteristics of manually handled objects?
| mrtksn wrote:
| IIUC, while this type of mass manufacturing is very efficient,
| it also limits the materials and what the final product can be.
|
| Especially in food manufacturing, they need to add certain
| chemicals in the food ingredients so that the machines can
| process them and that's what separates the cheap mass produced
| food from artisan food.
|
| A humanoid robot might be able to apply traditional processes
| and make artisan, additive free products cheap and available.
|
| If we end up having practically unlimited energy(which we
| actually have, just not harnessed fully yet), we can also have
| small production centers on every corner that produce bespoke
| products using humanoid robots and traditional tools instead of
| having centralized and highly specialized and streamlined mass
| production.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| We have re-invented the tamale stand, but with robots.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Someone is drinking the 'bespoke artisan' koolaid.
|
| Food additives are almost entirely about making products more
| visually appealing or shelf stable. Cellulose to keep cheese
| from sticking, nitrogen to keep meat from oxidizing, etc.
|
| Your 'bespoke artisan' products are mostly improved marketing
| and improved staging (better lighting, less crowded stores,
| more personal service, etc)
| 317070 wrote:
| At first, humanoids will not be used for these inflexible, old-
| style mass manufacturing factories. Humanoids can automate
| where flexibility is needed. E.g. a baker baking 5000 breads a
| day for a local community cannot afford the capital expenditure
| to automate every step in his pipeline with these ABB machines.
| He could afford to automate with one of these new humanoids
| though, as the same machine first does step 1, then step 2 all
| the way to the end of the recipe, in a kitchen which is already
| there.
|
| Same idea with individual production. A toyota factory builds
| you one exact copy of a car in any colour you want (as long as
| it's black). But we might go back to a more individualised
| default in manufacturing, where for example tailor made clothes
| become affordable to most people again.
| berkes wrote:
| > to automate every step in his pipeline with these ABB
| machines.
|
| That's still too much "inside the box" thinking.
|
| That baker doesn't need "automate everything", in fact, no-
| one does.
|
| What "that baker" needs, is to rank work on effort, cross
| sectioned with "costs to automate". And then automate the top
| item or items only.
|
| The baker needs a machine to knead the dough. Special tools
| to cut the dough of twenty cookies at once with minimal
| waste. Trays and tools that can be cleaned in a dishwasher. A
| bread slicing machine. A bakery that can be mopped in one go,
| rather than a fully automated humanoid mopping machine.
|
| This is an analogy for all automation: we don't need to cover
| 100%, be fully autonomous, 100% flexible. We need to automate
| the hardest part, even if that's boring tech. Then the next
| hardest part. And so on.
| blargey wrote:
| Those top items were already automated long ago. What
| remains is a fractal scattering of irregular tasks that
| would be excessively costly to automate with single-task
| machinery that is 0% flexible. -100% flexible, considering
| most machines require the process itself to be bent around
| its limitations, and the costs trickle all the way down to
| the features and properties of the final output.
|
| An omnitasker that can emulate a significant chunk of "all
| the stuff you just give up and have a human spend an hour
| on" is precisely what the baker (and countless others) need
| after hitting that threshold.
| mordymoop wrote:
| Whenever I think about automation, I, of course, think
| about having toddlers in the house.
|
| Toddlers are a transient disruption to the household
| logistics operation. They induce novel challenges. Their
| clothes are have different form factors, and may be dirtied
| in novel and interesting ways. Their nutritional demands
| are only partially-overlapping with the preexisting
| household diet. They introduce hundreds of small toylike
| objects into the environment. Even their dishware is
| smaller, flimsier and more numerous, disrupting any
| existing dish-washing workflows. And the development (or
| purchase) of permanent solutions to these problems is in
| some sense wasteful because the toddlers will stop being
| toddlers before too long, and you will have to pivot again.
|
| The holy trinity of washer, dryer, dishwasher solves a
| relatively high percentage of household labor but the tail
| is very long. The purpose of the above digression on
| toddlers is to illustrate that some household labor
| disruptions are transient and really not worth developing
| specific solutions to permanently resolve.
|
| This household example is both a true example of the
| problem and a metaphor for this type of situation which
| occurs in all human environments. There is always a long
| tail. There are always changes to processes with knock-on
| effects that leave gaps in preexisting workflows. And the
| solution of final resort has always been human manual
| labor. There are always transient solutions that require
| transient workarounds. And this long tail is where it will
| be enormously helpful to have humanoid form factor robots.
| This is true for exactly the same reasons that a young
| parent would appreciate having a humanoid robot in the
| house, to pick up clothes off the floor and fold clean
| ones, gather up toys and put them in their appropriate
| storage bin, and clean the table and floor and nearby walls
| (and possibly ceiling) after meals.
| seydor wrote:
| At this point i consider these as fun show-off non-products.
|
| Boston dyns may be building actual products for the US army, but
| none of their videos is interesting anymore. It s like watching
| Hollywood stunts
| Animats wrote:
| It's a nice piece of machinery. Looks like they finally went all-
| electric and got rid of the hydraulics. The new model is much
| less bulky.
|
| The task it is doing is undemanding. It's just moving things from
| one set of large slots to another. No need for precision
| placement, unstructured bin-picking, or object separation. If it
| could pick up engine covers from the messy pile seen atop one of
| the racks and slot them into the storage unit, that would be more
| impressive. It's cool to see this done with a humanoid, but off
| the shelf industrial robots could do that job. This is the same
| place where Rethink Robotics got stuck. They could do simple
| object movements in mostly-structured situations, but so can lots
| of other simpler approaches.
|
| Amazon, despite substantial efforts, still doesn't have full
| robot picking. About two years ago, Amazon announced their
| "Sparrow" picking robot. But that seems to be experimental. It's
| not seen in videos of Amazon warehouses in 2024. Amazon is using
| the Agility humanoid, but only experimentally.[1]
|
| This is how Amazon currently does picking.[2] Racks of product
| come to the picker on robotic platforms. The picking system
| projects a light square on the space in the rack from which the
| picker should take the product. The picker picks the item, waves
| it under a barcode scanner, and drops it in an outgoing bin.
| Repeat for 8 hours. The job requires no more than a room-
| temperature IQ. Machines should think. People should work.
|
| Amazon keeps trying to automate that step.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8IdbodRG14
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsIjagFEv84
| qwertox wrote:
| > The task it is doing is undemanding.
|
| Have you noticed how in second 13 it rotates the lower body
| clockwise while the upper body rotates counter-clockwise in
| order to optimize the movements to archive the goal?
|
| All (bipedal/quadrupedal) robots I've seen behave either like
| an animal or a human, but this one is something else. Imagine
| the inverse kinematics required to perform such a movement, and
| how precise even the slight left foot's clockwise rotation is.
|
| It does these very uncanny movements multiple times in the
| video, this video less about moving that thing from here to
| there than about how it does it. Also the recovery it had when
| it failed to insert one of the objects.
| sfvisser wrote:
| > Have you noticed how in second 13 it rotates the lower body
| clockwise while the upper body rotates counter-clockwise in
| order to optimize the movements to archive the goal?
|
| Could be a fancy optimization of course, but could as well be
| a side effect of a decoupled planning of the locomotion part
| and the upper body pick and place.
|
| Algo _could_ be: plan a path for a lower body motion from
| pose (4dof) A to pose B. And given pose B plan the upper body
| place of the tray in the target. If no constraints are broken
| plan both in parallel so it looks like one smooth behavior.
|
| Obviously, I don't know :)
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| There's something weird in its movement optimization, towards
| the middle it surprises the camera person by needlessly
| walking too close to it, a couple of steps away from the
| destination slots.
|
| Nevertheless, it fascinating how the legs/torso/head spin in
| different directions. It's scary even if you know it is
| physically weaker than its hydraulic cousins.
| tdeck wrote:
| > The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple
| operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same,
| or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his
| understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out
| expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He
| naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and
| generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for
| a human creature to become.
|
| - Adam Smith
| Isamu wrote:
| On the shift from hydraulic to electric: for years Marc Raibert
| and others at Boston Dynamics expressed doubts that a non-
| hydraulic humanoid could be made to perform as well in that
| package.
|
| Because of actuator density- a humanoid has a high number of
| actuators. Also power density, and they did a lot of work in
| molding the hydraulic actuators directly into the arms and legs
| to make them compact. The bulk is all in the backpack pumps,
| power pack, etc.
|
| So this move to all-electric represents real growth in Boston
| Dynamics being able to make compact motors that meet their
| needs of performance.
|
| I am betting this new robot is less capable of the explosive
| dynamics of the old one. I am not expecting dance performances
| and backflips from this one right away. But I am expecting them
| to work toward that kind of performance.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Hydraulics have a massive benefit that the actual actuators
| have amazing power density - and the actual bulky hydraulic
| pump and valves can be far away. Also, the pump can be shared
| with many actuators, making the whole system smaller and
| lighter when you have 50 actuators and only need to use 5 of
| them at full power at a time.
|
| Electrics win for energy efficiency and no-leaky-fluid, and
| also are improving pretty quick.
| mhb wrote:
| In [2], it's very surprising that the system is designed so
| that the worker must use steps to access bins on the
| transporter. Since this seems so obviously and
| counterintuitively bad for the workflow I assume there must be
| a very, very good reason for it. Would be interesting to know
| what it is.
| Animats wrote:
| That surprised me, too, because a previous version of the
| system used smaller bin stacks and no steps.
|
| Amazon could have gone in the other direction. The layout
| could be designed so that the picker sits on a swivel stool
| and never stands at all. That's what they do when they test
| robot picking - there's one human-sized robot arm on a
| turntable mount doing the picking.
|
| Humans would get fat with that layout.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The visualization of a 3d model of the engine cover and the
| points of the racking system highlighted as spheres in the
| visualization shows quite how much task-specific code there
| must be in this demo.
|
| I don't think you'd be able to get this to move other objects
| or to other types of shelves without getting a programmer
| involved for a few days at least.
| osigurdson wrote:
| I love how it waits for ~5 seconds after the job is done. It is
| almost like it is getting rebooted.
| xuhu wrote:
| 99 covers for oil on the wall, 99 covers for oil, Take one down
| and pass it around, ...
|
| It's probably stopping to finish each verse.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I don't know why people are impressed. Robots are hard and this
| is a big step forward but it's still useless. This is far from
| being as functional as automotive manufacturing robots or even
| vacuum cleaners. This is nothing like the goal we're striving for
| with these things. There's very a long way to go until this does
| what we want.
| zorex wrote:
| Why not be impressed? The reasons you gave are enough for the
| majority of people following along. The exciting parts are the
| steps along the way. Once we have something that is actually
| usable and integrated into our everyday lives, it will lose its
| novelty fast.
| christkv wrote:
| How long does the battery last on one?
| Tepix wrote:
| Looking at the cool non-human movement of the head, the upper
| torso and the legs i'm wondering if changing the legs so that
| they are symmetrical, instead of the knees only bending in one
| direction, is a coming improvement. That way it could walk
| forward and backward.
| amelius wrote:
| Humans can walk backward. And you still need to move the
| payload to the other side.
| vegapulse wrote:
| It's improving so fast, The way it walks are kinda strange with
| 360 degree turn, but i guess it's more efficient.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Amazing.
|
| They need to rock and sock each other already though.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| skin reaction: useless!
|
| unfortunately the world is full of sooooo many much smarter
| slaves to exploit
| weard_beard wrote:
| But can you buy them, not pay them, feed them for pennies, keep
| them alive forever, work them 24hrs/365days, and never fear
| they will organize and revolt?
| bubaumba wrote:
| Musk should by them to accelerate Tesla's robots development.
| Then we may have them on Mars by 2030
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