• Boston Dynamics has once again shown off the capabilities of its Atlas robot, this time in a fake construction site.
• The robot performs the simple task of fetching a tool bag but as Boston Dynamics points out, this is more complex than it seems.
• This simple performance is the result of years of work from the firm and there is more work to be done.

With artificial intelligence making a number of waves in the tech world, Boston Dynamics has leveraged the conversation to highlight the capabilities of its Atlas robot in a fake construction site.

On Wednesday, the automaton starred in a new video showcasing not only its agility but its ability to solve problems. You can see the demonstration in the tweet embedded below.

To sum it up, we see a worker requesting Atlas deliver its tool. While this is a simple task, in order to fulfil the request the robot needs to create a bridge using a piece of wood in order to reach the structure where the worker is located. The video concludes when Atlas pushes a box down, creating a platform which it can jump down to and end its performance with an inverted 540-degree flip.

How complex can fetching and then handing off a bag of tools be though? As it turns out, incredibly complex.

“Parkour and dancing were interesting examples of pretty extreme locomotion, and now we’re trying to build upon that research to also do meaningful manipulation. It’s important to us that the robot can perform these tasks with a certain amount of human speed. People are very good at these tasks, so that has required some pretty big upgrades to the control software,” explains Atlas controls lead, Ben Stephens.

As Robin Deits, a software engineer at Boston Dynamics explains further, parkour helps the firm understand the physical limitations of the robot while dancing allows it to understand what fine motor skills the robot is capable of. Each project the firm completes helps it build on previous successes and improve the capabilities of the robots.

“Now, manipulation is forcing us to take that information and interpret it in terms of how we can get the hands to do something specific. What’s important about the Atlas project is that we don’t let go of any of those other things we’ve learned,” Deits explains in a blog post.

In the video above, the simple act of picking up a plank and jumping around is surprisingly convoluted as Atlas’ computers need to account for the additional weight and momentum the plank introduces. Even pushing the box down is tough as enough force needs to be applied to the box without Atlas also going down with it.

“Even the flip at the end of the routine is much more difficult than previous acrobatics because the twist adds asymmetry that doesn’t exist in a regular backflip. Not only is the math more complicated, but in trial runs, Atlas kept getting tangled in its own limbs as it tucked its arms and legs, forcing engineers to troubleshoot and improve the control system so that it was able to choose strategies that avoided self collisions,” Boston Dynamics explains.

It’s all really impressive despite how simple the outcome is. To be clear, this is also incredibly important work that will ultimately make robots more functional and useful in the real world.

You can learn more about the various pieces of tech that came together to make the video above possible in the video below.