A video was recently posted on Youtube by Boston Dynamic, an American engineering, and robotics design company, showing a crew of robots pulling a full-size box truck up a slight incline. The vehicle, that likely weighs at least 10,000 pounds was being pulled by 10 robot dogs, hitched together like metallic sled dogs and marching with militaristic precision - to get the vehicle rolling.
Boston Dynamics appears to delight in dropping simple yet startling videos without warning, showing stunning advances in robotic technology without much context or comment, much like the robots-pulling-a-truck video. The video , which currently has 2.4 million views to date, left many YouTube viewers uneasy.
SpotMini is a 66-pound machine; it is 2 feet 9 inches tall and remains the quietest robot the company has built. It is electrically powered and can run for 90 minutes on a single charge. The machine can carry a 30-pound payload and relies on a variety of sensors to navigate the outside world. It also has the ability to handle objects using its arm autonomously. According to the company, it can performs some tasks on its own, such as navigating a previously mapped warehouse, but it relies on its human owners for "high-level guidance."
Boston Dynamics has been in the news announcing that SpotMini will be hitting the market for months. Marc Raibert, Boston Dynamics' founder, during his presentation at the CeBIT Computer expo in Hanover, Germany, last year told an audience that his company was testing SpotMini with potential customers from four industries: security, delivery, construction and home assistance (Inverse). Raibert also stated that he hopes for his company's robots to one day be used for "warehouse logistics" or to clean up dangerous environments such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster site to lessen human exposure to radiation.
"This robot will be available next year," he said at the time, referring to SpotMini. "We've built 10 by hand, we're building 100 with manufacturers at the end of this year, and in the middle of 2019, we're going to begin production at the rate of about 1,000 a year."
"We designed this robot to be small enough so that it could fit inside of an office or a factory or a warehouse, or even some day a home," Raibert said.
