Coming back to Boston Dynamics, Atlas is 6ft tall and weighs 150kg. It has been developed with the sole purpose of replacing humans in search and rescue missions and sending into dangerous areas that humans may not survive. With articulated hands, it is capable of using power tools and turning valves and so forth. This entry is a massive step toward mankind's goal of introducing humanoid robots to services currently exclusive to humans, a true Asimov-esque age. Atlas is a combination of of human control and autonomy, as it could never fully understand the details of a mission like a human operator could, but it does control it's balance completely autonomously. This makes the perfect team in situations such as search and rescue within difficult terrain, such as collapsed buildings. There was a tremendously impressive video released by Boston Dynamics recently of Atlas standing on one leg and a weighted ball being swung into him. Let's just say that its balance is second to none, but not a surprise considering Atlas is from the same farm as previous entry, BigDog. As shown below, Atlas will be tested this year at the DARPA Robotics Challenge carrying out certain tasks, such as driving and using power tools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3J-MbM_StI
KJ Lewis is 35 years old, was able to rear three small children into three slightly bigger children and has a relatively untested and unfounded passion for writing.
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