Boston Dynamics' "Spot" robot is getting some upgrades. The robot dog officially went on sale to the public last year for a cool $74,500. For the first time in the company's 29-year history, Boston Dynamics actually started selling robots to the general public, and it's pretty incredible that you can actually just head to the Boston Dynamics website, press the "add to cart" button, and have a robot dog shipped to your home. The company says it has sold over 400 Spot units to date, and the robots are out there doing real work, usually monitoring hazardous worksites like "nuclear plants, offshore oil fields, construction sites, and mines."
After a year of working with businesses and getting feedback, Boston Dynamics is launching a new Spot revision, the long-awaited arm attachment, and some new features.
The Spot Arm
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Spot is ARMED! Run! [credit: Boston Dynamics ]
When Spot came out last year, it featured Boston Dynamics' industry-leading, incredibly stable four-legged locomotion, but in terms of usage, the robot was basically the world's most advanced mobile webcam. Mostly, you could just bolt things onto Spot and have it walk around—usually a camera, lidar, or some other sensor. Now, with the new "Spot Arm"—a six-degree-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 Dynamic's 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 tons of fun activities like three Spots playing jump rope, planting a tree, and drawing the Boston Dynamics logo with a piece of chalk.
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source https://arstechnica.com/?p=1739032