Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid robot has just taken a significant leap toward a future where machines manipulate the world with the same precision and sensitivity as a human being. The new version presented by the company incorporates hands with three fingers, touch sensors and cameras integrated into the palm, allowing the robot to lift everything from heavy objects to fragile items with great control.
For more than a decade, Atlas was known for its physical agility, running, jumping and performing acrobatics, now the focus shifts to the most challenging part of robotics, touch, according to engineer Alberto Rodríguez, “claws are one of the most complex components of a humanoid robot”, and rightly so, every centimeter of this new hand is occupied by actuators, sensors and cameras that must work in harmony to execute smooth and precise movements.
Mechanical engineer Carl Price introduced the second-generation hand, a system with seven degrees of freedom and seven actuators, including a functional thumb. That thumb is what gives Atlas the ability to manipulate carefully, adjusting force depending on the object. He can now safely grasp, rotate, stack and transfer items of different sizes and shapes, from sturdy boxes to delicate objects.
Rodríguez explains, “we discovered that three fingers are the minimum needed to reproduce most human grips, but the revolution doesn't stop at the hardware.” Boson Dynamics is also equipping the Atlas with a new high-performance model developed in collaboration with the Toyota Research Institute. This AI was trained with large data sets of human actions, allowing the robots to learn new behaviors and needs to be reprogrammed manually.
In the released video, Atlas is seen organizing baskets, separating objects and stacking items with impressive naturalness, observing, adjusting and acting autonomously in a continuous cycle of perception and action. That combination of strength, precision and adaptive learning is what puts Atlas at the forefront of the next generation of humanoid robots.
Boston Dynamics plans to bring this technology to factories, warehouses even home environments, paving the way for machines that can truly work side-by-side with humans on tasks that require both finesse and power.
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