Humanoid Robots Gain Greater Agility

Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot, Atlas, is now able to perform backflips. Nothing can replace a look at YouTube’s video showing the robot walk, run, jump and doing a backflip. We live in a world designed for humans so it makes sense to make humanoid robots designed to open doors, carry objects and perform tasks human would do. Over the last two years, humanoid robots have become lighter, faster, more dextrous and stable. Atlas won the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge and improved significantly since then. While it can perform a backflip, walk on snow, move boxes and get up if falls, some simple manipulations for a human are still challenging for him.

Toyota announced the T-HR3, a third generation humanoid robot able to mimic your movements. It is 1.5m tall, weighs 75kg, has 32 degrees of torque-controlled freedom and two 10 fingered hands. The T-HR3 is controlled by a human in a “Master Maneuvering System” replicating his movements and giving him 3D vision and haptic feedback. This robot was displayed at the International Robot Exhibition 2017 in Tokyo. According to Toyota, the T-HR3 was developed to explore the possibility of assisting humans in the home, medical facilities, disaster areas, construction sites, and in space.