Boston Dynamics' Atlas—the world's astir precocious humanoid robot—is learning immoderate caller tricks. The institution has yet fixed Atlas immoderate due hands, and successful Boston Dynamics' latest YouTube video, Atlas is attempting to bash immoderate existent work. It besides released different behind-the-scenes video showing immoderate of the enactment that goes into Atlas. And erstwhile things don't spell right, we spot immoderate spectacular slams the robot takes successful its efforts to beforehand humanoid robotics.

As a humanoid robot, Atlas has mostly been focused connected locomotion, starting with walking successful a lab, past walking connected each benignant of unstable terrain imaginable, past doing immoderate sick parkour tricks. Locomotion is each astir the legs, though, and the precocious fractional seemed mostly similar an afterthought, with the arms lone utilized to plaything astir for balance. Atlas antecedently didn't adjacent person hands—the past clip we saw it, determination were lone 2 incomplete-looking shot grippers astatine the extremity of its arms.

This newest iteration of the robot has existent grippers. They're elemental clamp-style hands with a wrist and a azygous moving finger, but that's bully capable for picking things up. The extremity of this video is moving "inertially significant" objects—not conscionable picking up airy boxes, but objects that are truthful dense they tin propulsion Atlas off-balance. This includes things similar a large plank, a container afloat of tools, and a barbell with 2 10-pound weights. Atlas is learning each astir those "equal and other forces" successful the world.

Like everything successful robotics, picking up and carrying an entity is much analyzable than it seems. Atlas has to fig retired wherever it is successful the satellite successful narration to the entity it's picking up, travel up with a grasping program for the hands, and assistance and manipulate the object, each portion calculating however this other spot of wide volition impact its balance. As Boston Dynamics bundle technologist Robin Deits explains successful the video, "When we're trying to manipulate thing similar a plank, we person to conscionable marque beauteous educated guesses astir wherever is the plank, however accelerated is it moving, however bash we request to determination the arms to origin the plank to rotation 180 degrees precise quickly, and if we get those estimates incorrect we extremity up doing silly things and falling over."

Atlas isn't conscionable clumsily picking things up and carrying them, though. It's running, jumping, and spinning portion carrying dense objects. At 1 constituent it jumps and throws the dense toolbox up to its operation partner, each without losing balance. It's doing each this connected rickety scaffolding and improvised plank walkways, too, truthful the crushed is perpetually moving nether Atlas' feet with each step. Picking up worldly is the commencement of teaching the robot to bash existent work, and it looks close astatine location connected a rough-and-tumble operation site. The elemental claw grippers mean Atlas crushes everything it picks up, though, with objects similar the plank showing disposable harm wherever the hands dug into it. Maybe the adjacent acceptable of experiments volition thatch Atlas to beryllium little of a hulking gorilla.