It was just yesterday that we talked about how Japan’s Honda wants to create a disaster response robot that will be based on their own humanoid ASIMO robot that has well, pretty much remained useless in the eye of the masses when it comes to practicality, other than to amuse us that this robot walks in a rather lifelike gait, and can handle stairs, too – something which is not easy for a humanoid robot to do. Well, a disaster response robot certainly sounds a whole lot more practical in everyday life, and both DARPA and Boston Dynamics have been working on something interesting which will appeal to you Pacific Rim fans – the Atlas humanoid robot.
The Atlas is inorganically evolved from Petman and an intermediate prototype, where it will be one of the participants in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials that is happening later this December. In those trials, it will have to face challenges that would be equal to “tasks similar to what might be required in a disaster response scenario.” Atlas might not weigh 2,000 tons, but it is still a looker at 6′ 2″ in height, carries a slew of sensors and has 28 hydraulically actuated joints.
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