| PCWorld | - |
Google
has acquired Boston Dynamics, a company that builds robots that mimic
the movements of humans and animals with stunning dexterity and speed.
Google buys maker of fascinating, creepy robots
”We are looking forward to this next chapter in robotics and in what we can accomplish as part of the Google team,” Boston Dynamics co-founder Marc Raibert said via email.
Boston Dynamics is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the past six months, according to The New York Times, which first reported the news on Friday. Earlier this month, the Times reported that Google has named former Android chief Andy Rubin as the company’s lead for its robotics projects.
On its YouTube channel, Boston Dynamics has videos of its impressive robots, including WildCat, a four-legged robot designed to run fast in all terrains, Cheetah, which tops 28 miles-per-hour, and Petman, a human-like robot that balances himself as he walks, squats and does calisthenics, and simulates human physiology by controlling its temperature, humidity and sweating, according to the company.
Other robots developed by Boston Dynamics include the insect-like Rise, which climbs vertical surfaces, and SquishBot, described as “a shape-changing chemical robot” that can move “through tight space.” The company also developed the DI-Guy software tools for simulating human reactions and movements in different scenarios and events.
The company’s videos, which have been viewed millions of times, often prompt viewers to comment that the robots’ amazing agility and mobility also trigger in them memories of sci-fi horror stories and movies like the Terminator series, in which robots become evil and turn against humans.
”Something about Google buying Boston Dynamics reminds me of Skynet,” commented a YouTube user on Saturday after viewing the WildCat video, in reference to the evil artificial intelligence computer system of the Terminator movies.
Boston Dynamics, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, was founded in 1992 by Raibert and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its customers include all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, U.S. government contractors and private-sector companies.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Google buys maker of fascinating, creepy robots
Google Adds to Its Menagerie of Robots
Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot named WildCat can gallop at high speeds.
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: December 14, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO — BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat and Atlas have joined Google’s growing robot menagerie.
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On Twitter: @nytimesbits.
On Twitter: @nytimesbits.
Boston Dynamics
A robot named BigDog, which can walk over rough
terrain, can also stay upright in response to a well-placed human kick.
Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed the acquisition of
Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile
research robots for the Pentagon. The company, based in Waltham, Mass.,
has gained an international reputation for machines that walk with an
uncanny sense of balance and even — cheetahlike — run faster than the
fastest humans.
It is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the last
half-year. Executives at the Internet giant are circumspect about what
exactly they plan to do with their robot collection. But Boston Dynamics
and its animal kingdom-themed machines bring significant cachet to
Google’s robotic efforts, which are being led by Andy Rubin, the Google executive who spearheaded the development of Android, the world’s most widely used smartphone software.
The deal is also the clearest indication yet that Google is intent on
building a new class of autonomous systems that might do anything from
warehouse work to package delivery and even elder care.
Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 by Marc Raibert, a former professor
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has not sold robots
commercially, but has pushed the limits of mobile and off-road robotics
technology, mostly for Pentagon clients like the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. Early on, the company also did
consulting work for Sony on consumer robots like the Aibo robotic dog.
Boston Dynamics’ walking robots have a reputation for being
extraordinarily agile, able to walk over rough terrain and handle
surfaces that in some cases are challenging even for humans.
A video
of one of its robots named BigDog shows a noisy, gas-powered,
four-legged, walking robot that climbs hills, travels through snow,
skitters precariously on ice and even manages to stay upright in
response to a well-placed human kick. BigDog development started in 2003
in partnership with the British robot maker Foster-Miller, NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and Harvard.
The video has been viewed more than 15 million times since it was posted on YouTube in 2008.
More recently, Boston Dynamics distributed a video of a four-legged robot named WildCat, galloping in high-speed circles in a parking lot.
Although the videos frequently inspire comments that the robots will
evolve into scary killing machines straight out of the “Terminator”
movies, Dr. Raibert has said in the past that he does not consider his
company to be a military contractor — it is merely trying to advance
robotics technology. Google executives said the company would honor
existing military contracts, but that it did not plan to move toward
becoming a military contractor on its own.
Under a $10.8 million contract, Boston Dynamics is currently supplying
Darpa with a set of humanoid robots named Atlas to participate in the
Darpa Robotics Challenge, a two-year contest with a $2 million prize.
The contest’s goal is creating a class of robots that can operate in
natural disasters and catastrophes like the nuclear power plant meltdown
in Fukushima, Japan.
“Competitions like the Darpa Robotics Challenge stretch participants to
try to solve problems that matter and we hope to learn from the teams’
insights around disaster relief,” Mr. Rubin said in a statement released
by Google.
Boston Dynamics has also designed robots that can climb walls and trees
as well as other two- and four-legged walking robots, a neat match to
Mr. Rubin’s notion that “computers are starting to sprout legs and move
around in the environment.”
A recent video
shows a robot named Cheetah running on a treadmill. This year, the
robot was clocked running 29 miles per hour, surpassing the previous
legged robot land speed record of 13.1 m.p.h., set in 1999. That’s about
one mile per hour faster than Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter dash. But it’s far short of a real cheetah, which can hit 65 m.p.h.
Google’s other robotics acquisitions include companies in the United
States and Japan that have pioneered a range of technologies including
software for advanced robot arms, grasping technology and computer
vision. Mr. Rubin has also said that he is interested in advancing
sensor technology.
Mr. Rubin has called his robotics effort a “moonshot,” but has declined
to describe specific products that might come from the project. He has,
however, also said that he does not expect initial product development
to go on for years, indicating that Google commercial robots of some
nature could be available in the next several years.
Google declined to say how much it paid for its newest robotics
acquisition and said that it did not plan to release financial
information on any of the other companies it has recently bought.
Dr. Raibert is known as the father of walking robots in the United
States. He originally created the Leg Lab, a research laboratory to
explore walking machines at Carnegie Mellon University in 1980. He then
moved the laboratory to M.I.T. before leaving academia to build
engineering systems for the military and Sony.
His research in walking robots began with a pogo-stick project called
“the hopper,” which he used to test basic concepts.
“I am excited by Andy and Google’s ability to think very, very big,” Dr.
Raibert said, “with the resources to make it happen.”
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