Boston Dynamics' Robot Dog Gets an Arm Attachment, Self-Charging Capabilities (arstechnica.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After a year of working with businesses and getting feedback, Boston Dynamics is launching a new Spot revision, a long-awaited arm attachment, and some new features. Now, with the new "Spot Arm" -- a six-degrees-of-freedom gripper that can be mounted to the front of the robot -- Spot can actually do stuff and manipulate the environment around it. Boston Dynamics' latest video shows an arm-equipped Spot opening doors, picking up laundry, dragging around a cinderblock, and flipping switches and valves. Since this is a Boston Dynamics video, there's also a ton of fun footage like three Spots playing jump rope, planting a tree, and drawing the Boston Dynamics logo with a piece of chalk. The arm is not just a siloed device on top of Spot; any arm movement is coordinated with the whole body of the robot, just as a human's arm works. Boston Dynamics pointed to a 2013 video of the (much bigger) BigDog robot heaving a cinderblock across the room. This advanced "lift with your legs, put your back into it" whole-body movement is the core of Boston Dynamics' arm locomotion.
In the palm of the gripper is a 4K color camera, a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor for depth imaging, and LEDs for light. The camera is great to not only see what you're trying to pick up but also as a movable inspection camera that offers a lot more flexibility compared to the stationary face- and back-mounted cameras. The arm weighs 17.6 lbs (8kg) and with a half-meter extension can lift 11 lbs (5kg). The gripper's peak clamp force is 130N. That's far below the average human adult grip strength of 300N and puts Spot in the range of a frail senior citizen, but it's good enough to turn a doorknob. It's especially impressive that in this video, Spot demoed opening a smooth, round doorknob, not an easier-to-open ADA-compliant door handle, which is what most robot/door interactions focus on. It can even make sure the door doesn't hit it in the butt on the way out.
Just like for regular movement, controlling the arm via the tablet uses a user-friendly "supervised autonomy" system. You tell the robot what to grab, and it will figure out how to grab it using all the joints of the arm and legs. There's even a special "door opening" mode, where the user points at the doorknob, enters which side of the door the hinge is on, and Spot will do the rest. There's also an API for the arm control, allowing developers to make their own control interface. There's also a new version of Spot called "Spot Enterprise," which features the ability to self-charge via an included charging dock, where Spot can park itself on the charging dock when it is low on power. It takes about two hours to fully charge.
In the palm of the gripper is a 4K color camera, a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor for depth imaging, and LEDs for light. The camera is great to not only see what you're trying to pick up but also as a movable inspection camera that offers a lot more flexibility compared to the stationary face- and back-mounted cameras. The arm weighs 17.6 lbs (8kg) and with a half-meter extension can lift 11 lbs (5kg). The gripper's peak clamp force is 130N. That's far below the average human adult grip strength of 300N and puts Spot in the range of a frail senior citizen, but it's good enough to turn a doorknob. It's especially impressive that in this video, Spot demoed opening a smooth, round doorknob, not an easier-to-open ADA-compliant door handle, which is what most robot/door interactions focus on. It can even make sure the door doesn't hit it in the butt on the way out.
Just like for regular movement, controlling the arm via the tablet uses a user-friendly "supervised autonomy" system. You tell the robot what to grab, and it will figure out how to grab it using all the joints of the arm and legs. There's even a special "door opening" mode, where the user points at the doorknob, enters which side of the door the hinge is on, and Spot will do the rest. There's also an API for the arm control, allowing developers to make their own control interface. There's also a new version of Spot called "Spot Enterprise," which features the ability to self-charge via an included charging dock, where Spot can park itself on the charging dock when it is low on power. It takes about two hours to fully charge.
He's a good boy (Score:2)
...and now he can rub one out.
Does that mean he's a better boy now?
Re:He's a good boy (Score:4, Funny)
Re: He's a good boy (Score:1)
Great I can teach Spot to pick up my dog crap! (Score:3)
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There's a Black Mirror episode that describes this end-game quite succinctly.
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Yep, that's what came to mind for me.
The idea is getting disturbingly close to practical deployability.
If there were 50 of these things armed and roaming a property, damn if I'd want to try and get in with out a really good reason.
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Yep, that's what came to mind for me.
The idea is getting disturbingly close to practical deployability.
If there were 50 of these things armed and roaming a property, damn if I'd want to try and get in with out a really good reason.
They are really really close to making a fully functional mobile female robot - the sticking point is that they are having trouble implementing the nagging algorithm.
Re: Great I can teach Spot to pick up my dog crap! (Score:1)
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I assume they will have nipples that are machineguns?
That's the base model. There are also options for frickin lasers.
Re: Great I can teach Spot to pick up my dog crap (Score:1)
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Code it like this:
if(1 = 1){
nag();
}
So the arm cranks a dynamo for charging? (Score:1)
Re: So the arm cranks a dynamo for charging? (Score:3)
*arm flips bird at second law* *arm resumes cranking*
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Decades ago, I remember reading about what we ought to do to keep computers from taking over (maybe in the "science fact" column of Analog). I think the gist of it was, make sure we can unplug their power.
So much for that idea.
We can go so much further.. (Score:1)
Be afraid. Be very afraid. (Score:2)
William the Wolf caries a gun and can identify targets automatically.
But more worrying is the upcoming Charlie the Chimp that can perform quite complex tasks completely automatically.
But far more frightening than any of these is Nick the Nerd. Nick has no arms or legs, he is just a huge computer. Connected to the internet he watches everything. The eye from the tower.
The future is most certainly not what it used to be. We ain't seen nothing yet.
Re: Be afraid. Be very afraid. (Score:1)
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Where are the Hobbits when you need them?
Serious good for elderly (Score:3)
Re:Serious good for elderly (Score:5, Interesting)
Thousands of people are institutionalized every year who could stay in their homes with just a minimal amount of assistance. Help getting out of the bed or chair, bringing the phone or remote control, reminding them of medications and maybe bringing them with some water, monitoring of vital signs, calling for assistance in the case of a fall or medical emergency. Home health aids are expensive, can only stay a couple hours a day or two a week, and burnout is extreme in that industry. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities are even more expensive. If you could lease a Spot capable of assisting elderly people for $100,000/year the insurance companies would be lined up around the block.
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Your price target is likely too high, but at $30k per year for something that can monitor and manage a person, and maybe limited physical assistance and you would have a big winner. If it can cook you might double it.
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Well, it can answer the door for the delivery guy, does that count? :-)
Something that's overlooked is that pets improve the mental health of seniors, reducing depression and loneliness. Studies show that effect holds true for robotic pets as well. I'd dress Spot up in a dog suit, or maybe (considering its arm/head) a llama outfit. Hell, if I had one I'd take it on a walk through the neighborhood every day just so the little kids could pet it.
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>Well, it can answer the door for the delivery guy, does that count? :-)
More importantly, will it chase door to door salesman and bite a chunk off the seat of their trousers?
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And once the next 3 or 4 product generations blow by, think of what the capabilities will be. Two arms, better cameras, situational awareness, abilities like cooking, cleaning, and even patient care using algorithms trained on data sets. There will be one of these in every household with an elderly person. Hell, even non-elderly households could use one of these to
Re:Serious good for elderly (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of the companies are trying to make human form factor patient care robots, which I think is a mistake. People will expect a human-looking robot to have human-ish capabilities, which they won't for a very long time yet. On the other hand no one assumes that a dog would be as capable as a human.
Does it keep track of your toileting? (Score:3)
Speaking from personal observation, I think that persons are under-institutionalized rather than over-institutionalized because it is not fully understood what a skilled nursing home is providing.
Among the things they do is keep daily logs of vital signs, which includes your production of #2. This seems low tech, but it prevents a person from being plugged up, which is a serious condition if not life-threatening condition, especially with Parkinson's and other progressive neurological disorders which af
Re: Serious good for elderly (Score:1)
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In our house, the problem isn't bringing the phone--we can still walk. The problem is finding the phone. I'm not in favor of cameras in every room, but if there were, I could imagine asking the computer that runs them where the phone is.
(I realize that there are ways to tell a phone to beep, even if it's on airplane mode. But there are lots of other things that go missing often enough.)
Re:Serious good for elderly (Score:4, Insightful)
The elderly can make use of this in many ways. I hope medicare covers it.
These things would be a game-changer for anyone who is moderately to severely disabled. It would permit a lot of people to live independently if they wanted to.
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Re: Serious good for elderly (Score:1)
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Buy a cup. (Score:5, Funny)
I for one welcome our new dick-punching robot dog overlords.
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Six degrees of freedom (Score:2)
All joking aside it's always fun watching these videos and see how the technology is progressing.
Just FYI (Score:3)
The arm is integrated into the robot and can only be attached by Boston Dynamics. So you must have a dedicated Spot with the arm. You can't just swap it out for other systems.
Re:Just FYI (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't just swap it out for other systems.
Lol, famous last words, especially when spoken here.
Dextrous hand (Score:3)
What it needs is a dextrous hand. Otherwise it's pretty useless. It need to be able to grip, open doors, open boxes, move chess pieces, pick up coins, use a screwdriver. Basically do everything a higher primate's hand can do -- at minimum.
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I want the first robotic pit bull (Score:3)
The real test for robotic dog (Score:2)
That's not an arm (Score:2)
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It's an emu.
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I think it looks more like a llama.
The obvious pointless thing to do (Score:2)
... with one of these is to take it for a walk in the park.
How hard a programming problem would it be to get Spot to behave appropriately(*) at the end of a leash?
(*) read: the way a well-trained biological dog would behave
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They call it "grabbing", but I'll call it "biting" (Score:1)
Sure, I'll buy one... (Score:1)
Sure, I'll buy one... When the price comes down to $50.