Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert today shared the following for Spot, the company’s quadruped robot that can climb stairs and traverse uneven terrain. In a few months, Boston Dynamics will begin selling Spot with a robotic arm to companies interested in mobile handling systems. And eventually, the company wants to sell Spot for use at home.
Last week, Boston Dynamics opened commercial Spot sales, marking the company’s first online sales offering and the first time that companies can buy their robots directly. Businesses can purchase the Spot Explorer Developer Kit for $ 74,500 directly from the company’s website (that price will have to drop if Spot appears in the home). Spot’s modular platform (mounting rails, payload ports, and SDK) is what sets it apart from other robots. The company is now selling add-ons ranging from $ 1,650 for an additional charger to $ 34,570 for a camera and lidar system. But the robotic arm, which Boston Dynamics has sparked for years, is not yet for sale.
Raibert shared the latest news at the Collision from Home conference today. The first part of his talk was a replay of his previous appearances, including at the Web Summit in November (see our in-depth interview). But with commercial Spot sales starting and COVID-19 opening the door further for autonomous technologies like drones and robots, Raibert had much more to add.
Today, Boston Dynamics customers use Spot to keep employees out of harm’s way, doing dangerous jobs so humans don’t have to. But Raibert imagines Spot caring for the disabled and the elderly, and helping the general public at home with daily chores. He also emphasized that Boston Dynamics expects other companies to step in to build the Spot ecosystem.
“Part of the idea of Spot as a platform is that we are not going to do all the development,” said Raibert. “We are going to work with other people who have their own ideas.”
Spot with a robot arm
Spot has front, rear, and side cameras that help you navigate, travel autonomously, move omnidirectionally, go up and down stairs, and traverse terrain. The robot travels at about 3 miles per hour, which is about human walking speed, and it even has what engineers call a “chicken head” mode. That means you can decouple your hand movement from your body, similar to how many animals can stabilize one part while the rest of the body moves. You can see the Boston Dynamics demo years ago in this video, 48 seconds in:
This undocking functionality of the body is key to having a useful mobile robot with one arm.
“Next thing in the future Spot is that we will make it available with a robot arm in a few months,” said Raibert. “We have working prototypes, but we do not yet have them available as a product. Once you have an arm on a robot, it becomes a mobile manipulation system. It really opens up vast horizons about the things robots can do. I think robot mobility will contribute to robot prowess in ways we just don’t get with today’s fixed factory automation. “
Spot in the house
When a company buys a Spot, it has to accept the terms and conditions, as for any other major product purchase. One of the key lines in the terms says: “Spot is an amazing robot, but it is not certified as safe for use at home or for use around children or others who may not appreciate the risks associated with its operation.”
But that will not be the case forever.
“We also have a project that I am sure many of you will be very interested in, and that is cleaning your house,” Raibert explained. “Now Spot is not yet available for home use, but one day it will be. I think you will love the idea that the robot can be put in a room and use its vision system to identify your children’s clothes that have been out there, or maybe their clothes out there. And then look around, go and grab it and put it in the laundry basket, like this robot is doing on this prototype. ”
That robotic arm is particularly useful, without pun, for the laundry use case. Raibert said Spot is already able to do such a laundry cleaning on its own, without an engineer directing it through the process. Spot relies on cloud computer vision to determine whether a particular object you are looking at should be placed in the basket or left where it is.
Raibert also showed Spot delivering packages to a house, noting that the robot could potentially be used for the last 50-100 meters on the shipping trip.
“I don’t know about you, but when I receive a package today, I am concerned if the driver of the car was careful enough to wash his hands and wear his mask and all that. And I don’t really get close to him. Wouldn’t it be nice if a robot was making deliveries so I wouldn’t worry?
