Boston Dynamics spends months training its Atlas robots to perform one minute of parkour almost perfectly
- Reference: 1629268572
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/08/18/boston_dynamics_parkour/
- Source link:
At first glance, it’s simultaneously impressive and bizarre. The pair of fridge-sized machines move fluidly, jumping over blocks, stepping up platforms, and walking over wooden planks before backflipping and striking a self-congratulatory pose. You can watch them in action below:
[1]Youtube Video
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This apparently took engineers months to get right. Each jump an Atlas pulls off was not individually preprogrammed, Boston Dynamics insisted. Instead, the robots learned in simulations how to use a small number of provided “template behaviors" to get around a course. That is to say, as far as we can tell, the robots were given a set of basic actions by their creators, and then learned how to use those actions to get from A to B from what they could see around them.
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Each Atlas perceives its physical environment using cameras, and so as long as the real world resembles its virtual training world, it should, in theory, be able to select and execute the necessary moves to complete whatever course is in front of it. If all the blocks and planks were completely rearranged, the Atlas may need to be retrained.
“There are a lot of pretty exciting behaviors here, and some of them are not totally reliable yet,” [5]said Ben Stephens, the Atlas controls lead.
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“Every behavior here has a small chance of failure. It’s almost 90 seconds of continuous jumping, jogging, turning, vaulting, and flipping, so those probabilities add up.”
The robots were untethered for their acrobatic maneuvers, and Boston Dynamics didn't release any information about their battery life.
[7]Robots still suck. It's all they can do to stand up – never mind rise up
[8]Hyundai takes 80 per cent stake in terrifying Black Mirror robo-hound firm Boston Dynamics
[9]What's that, Lt Lassie? Three terrorists have fallen down a well? Strap on these AR goggles and we'll find 'em
[10]Meet the dog that's all byte and no bark: Boston Dynamics touts robo-pooch Spot with $75k-a-pop price tag
Although Atlas appears to be more nimble and daring than before in each promo video, Boston Dynamics hasn’t managed to make any serious money off its parkour-performing robot. Atlas is a research platform and not a commercial product yet, the manufacturer said.
Instead of producing machines to perform specific tasks, Boston Dynamics is investing in humanoid robots that can learn to automatically make do in the environment around them. If engineers can get the bots to move as naturally as humans, they’ll be useful for a wide range of tasks, the biz reckons.
“Humanoids are interesting from a couple perspectives,” said Scott Kuindersma, the Atlas team lead. “First, they capture our vision of a go-anywhere, do-anything robot of the future. They may not be the best design for any particular task, but if you wanted to build one platform that could perform a wide variety of physical tasks, we already know that a human form factor is capable of doing that.”
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“From a technical perspective, humanoids present several challenges that we welcome as a research team,” he added. “Their combination of size and complexity creates hardware design tradeoffs related to strength to weight ratio, runtime, range of motion, and physical robustness.
"At the same time, our control team has to create algorithms that can reason about the physical complexity of these machines to create a broad set of high energy and coordinated behavior.”
Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 and has switched ownership many times. It started as a spin-off from an academic project at MIT in America before it was acquired by Alphabet in 2013 and passed to Softbank in 2017. Hyundai, the South Korean automobile maker, now has the [12]largest stake in the business.
The Register has asked Boston Dynamics for further details. ®
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YRzaYJ-g3mp08uefu7Bl6AAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YRzaYJ-g3mp08uefu7Bl6AAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YRzaYJ-g3mp08uefu7Bl6AAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] http://blog.bostondynamics.com/atlas-leaps-bounds-and-backflips
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YRzaYJ-g3mp08uefu7Bl6AAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/07/robot_feature/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/22/hyundai_acquires_80_percent_boston_dynamics_stake/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/10/uncle_sam_is_investing_in/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/17/spot_boston_dynamics/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YRzaYJ-g3mp08uefu7Bl6AAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/10/boston_dynamics_hyundai/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Quick learner
Without diminishing the magnitude of this achievement, to call this course 'parkour' is somewhat of an exaggeration. To train a person, even a very small person, to do this same level of course would take a matter of minutes.
Re: Quick learner
To train a person, even a very small person, to do this same level of course would take a matter of minutes.
I will never master the backflip, and I'm not rare in that respect.
Re: Quick learner
on the other foot, you and I have a perfectly natural, reasonable concern, about the continued functioning of our neck vertebrae which generally increases with age and exposure to near misses...
Re: Quick learner
Hell, I'd struggle to master the suave shoulder sweep right at the end...
Re: Quick learner
I was talking about the course, but yes, the backflip is seriously impressive. I'm pretty sure I could do that - just once - as long as I didn't need any motor functions from the neck down afterward.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords..
8-} That was amazing!
Boston Dynamics spends months training its Atlas robots
Now lets see them do that while carrying a combi missile launcher and minigun.
Re: Boston Dynamics spends months training its Atlas robots
...and we both know that's exactly where this is going.
That's so astounding that I can barely believe it's not CGI. It's in the league of landing rocket boosters vertically on sea barges. Had I been in that room I think I would have been spooked out.
wait until you see them (SpaceX) attempt - and hopefully succeed - in catching an even bigger booster out of the air using a couple of robotic arms attached to a huge tower...
And after catching, refuel it, throw a new mission deployment package on top, light the touch paper and ad nauseum.
Cue 'robotic overlords' panic from the internets
When of course while it's super cool and impressive and I love it, it's still a non-intelligent machine that does one thing, like a Roomba, and the huge amount of processing grunt involved isn't pictured.
When you can train it to do the housework....
you'll have my money. Until then, Meh.
(Only joking. This is immensely impressive. With a tonne more ML, it will manage the same objects in a natural environment. I wonder what will come first: completely natural object recognition using ML, or LIDAR based object recognition, or both).
It's difficult to overstate their ability to balance
For us it's natural but being able to use two legs and stay balanced while moving and using force is incredibly difficult. At the same time, it is an extremely practical ability when working outside factories and office space. Imagine how useful this ability would be, for example, for exploring foreign planets, though no doubt the military will have first pick.
And the research project and presumably the relevant patents will be around the necessary components and AI models that are required for this.
Quick learner
> Boston Dynamics spends months training its Atlas robots to perform one minute of parkour almost perfectly
So, it was considerably faster than teaching a person to do the same thing. Assuming both the person and the robot started with no parkour skills at all.