Thursday video: SpotMini joins Boston Dynamics' canine family

News

This week’s video features the latest robotic creation from our old friends at Boston Dynamics. Many of our readers will be familiar with the Google-owned company’s work, ranging from the record-breaking Cheetah, to the punishment-taking Atlas.

Last year we brought you footage of Spot, a four-legged bio-inspired robot which itself evolved from the company’s terrifying Big Dog that we saw all the way back in 2009. Boston Dynamics’ newest addition to this canine family is SpotMini, a 30kg all-electric robot that can run for around 90 minutes on a single charge.

SpotMini has a manoeuvrable arm that can pick up and place objects, as well as a range of sensors, including depth cameras, a solid-state gyro (IMU) and proprioception sensors in the limbs.

The company claims this latest iteration is one of the quietest robots it has ever built, and is capable of carrying out some actions autonomously, although it requires human interaction for more complicated tasks. Going by the final scene of the video, you may want to hold off asking this particular robo-pet to bring you a beer from the fridge.

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