Robotics Update: Meet the ANYmal That Can Summon and Take Lifts!

In this short article I'd like to explore a new development in robotics. Can you believe how far robots have come in this decade alone! They used to be a thing of sci-fi and had no place in the world other than the odd factory here or there. Now they are being used for all sorts of things and a team in Zurich has recently come as far as to make one that can summon lifts and use them to travel to distant floors of office buildings!

Get a look at this new robot here if you don't believe me:

I learned about this new development from an article published in The Verge entitled 'I could watch this well-organized robot summon an elevator all day.'

A few interesting points were made in this article that I would like to comment on...

The robot in this video is the Anymal, a quadruped bot built by ETH Zurich. (It looks similar to some of Boston Dynamic’s creations, but that’s just because four legs is a good model for building stable robots. Even when they break down, they’re still left standing up.) The video above is just a tiny update on the bot’s progress, but it’s been under development for more than a year now, with ETH hoping it will one day be used for tasks like search and rescue.

The first thing I thought when I watched the video was that this new robot looked extremely similar to one I had seen developed by Boston Dynamics. I believe the army has had access to a similar model of robot for quite some time now. Apparently getting robots to walk and balance themselves is a lot harder than we would normally think.

And although, yes, it seems odd to laud a 12-second video, creating robots that can navigate indoor spaces is pretty essential. We shouldn’t have to build an entirely new infrastructure for future robots doing things like making deliveries in buildings, or helping the elderly. They should adapt to our environments, not the other way round.

The potential for robotics applications in regard to navigating indoor spaces is huge and the company that wins this race may present an opportunity like amazon has done for online shopping. Be ready to put your money on the line folks!

Here's another video that shows a pretty impressive robot doing it's thing!

What do you guys think about lift taking robots? Would you feel comfortable with these type of robots walking around your office place?

Lets get a discussion going about this! Thanks for reading.

Source:

I could watch this well-organized robot summon an elevator all day - The Verge