That is a very good-looking robot and no doubt very capable. But did I see correctly that it can just turn it legs 180 degrees to move backwards, as well as it's head? Talk about super-human abilities! Bit creepy though
Very cool actuation indeed. I'm not in robotics, so this could be fan fiction, but: I guess they have figured out the physics engines for these things meaningfully, so I guess innovating on hardware can be the next focus? I feel like a lot of the early bots were just to understand the real word implications of the physics they simulated, now that they understand robot physics extremely well and seems to have built a whole OS around that, I suspect they can plug it into any hardware that they want? They have it to the point where they might be somewhat decoupled? If anyone who works in robotics sees this and can say if that is correct thinking or not, I'd be very curious.
I suspect that they have something like that indeed. In robotics, there is the concept of a Whole-body-controller, and I think BD has one of these for their robots, which can be calibrated for each individual robot.
And the tools & skills to make such a controller for new robot variants fairly quick.
Such WBC then makes sure that the robot reaches both it's task goals (eg. grab something, with 1, 2 arms), as well as it's (dynamic) stability goals so it doesn't fall over. They are also capable of choreographing the robot pretty accurately as we say in earlier videos.
But what is most very impressive to me is the robot using the mass and momentum of things it grabs to keep stable or move itself. In one of the videos it grabs a big piece of wood and uses it to turn itself around while jumping. Amazing! Controlling that in terms of dynamics is... wow!
That's what it seems like to me too, and let me tell you, i am right there with you on that last point ragebol, that stuff I also find really really amazing, because it's so thoughtful I guess, and I wish my brain was good enough to hack physics like that. People get real hyped up about GenAI etc, but I'm like a kid waiting for christmas when it comes to robotics, i sense their industry in a positive feedback loop and going to get better and better quicker and quicker. Cool time to be alive for sure. :)
