Watch This Boston Dynamics Robot Parkour Like A Pro
Anyone who’s watched the Terminator series feels a little shudder go through them every time they see a robotics company showing off their latest humanoid creation. Massachusetts-based robotics and engineering company Boston Dynamics have released footage of its advanced bipedal model in action, performing an absolutely seamless obstacle course parkour run and its equally parts stunning and scary as hell. You might have seen the Atlas robot on the internet in the past, as Boston Dynamics publicly debut the model back in 2013 when the tech was in its infancy. Videos have popped up every now and again displaying updates, ranging from some cute and innocuous dance moves to impressive displays of coordination and movement. This week, Boston Dynamics posted their latest update on Atlas’ progress, this time a video showcasing a pair of Atlas models doing an insanely smooth parkour routine, ending in an incredible synchronised backflip. It’s safe to say, Atlas’ capabilities are growing and growing as the years go on.
Atlas isn’t the most physically imposing figure, standing at a modest 1.52 meters (a tick under 5 feet), although it extensive hardware has it hitting the scales between 85 and 90kg. Its custom battery and 28 hydraulic joints around its body give it a pretty incredible range of movement, as demonstrated in the routine. The highly-adaptable machine is fitted with a range of cameras and sensors which allow it the ability to mould its behaviours to its environment. This means that, while the parkour routine in the video is pre-planned and extensively choreographed to fit Atlas’ physical capabilities, the movements are only based on ‘templates’ meaning it is Atlas itself who, for example, makes the calculation of how high it needs to jump based on how high the platform in front of it is.
Along with the impressive parkour video, Boston Dynamics also posted a sort of, ‘behind the scenes’ companion video, where several company figures involved with Atlas’ design and development break down just what a difficult task it was getting Atlas to perform the choreographed routine. Somewhat reassuringly, Boston Dynamics concede that while the video they posted displays barely a hitch in the Atlas’ ability, the technology has far from been perfected at this stage and many unsuccessful runs preceded the perfect run. “Every behaviour here has a small chance of failure.” admits Atlas controls lead, Ben Stephens, “it’s almost 90 seconds of continuous jumping, jogging, turning, vaulting, and flipping, so those probabilities add up.”
Boston Dynamics have insisted from the start that Atlas has not been designed for commercial use and purely exists for their own internal research and development purposes. However, the prospect of a machine possessing the physical and technical capacities that Atlas displays in this video will likely do little to curb the fear of impending machine world takeover that lives in those of us who have ever seen Terminator, Ex Machina or I, Robot (someone make sure Will Smith stays in shape, we’re going to need him!).
