Stepping into Boston Dynamics’ headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts, one is immediately struck by the blend of industrial practicality and futuristic innovation. The 180,000 square-foot facility, spanning three levels, hums with activity. As Brendan Schulman, the company’s VP of policy & government relations leads the way, robots can be seen navigating corridors and testing areas.
“The robots are walking around the building all day and night,” he explains. “In fact, if you’re here after hours, we kind of let the robots loose, and there’s even more robots walking around.” This constant activity is part of Boston Dynamics’ rigorous testing process.
“The way you get that level of reliability, which we need for an industrial customer, is just [to] run the robots all the time,” he elaborates. “When something goes wrong, analyse what happened. It could be a hardware fault or a software bug, which will help us improve.” The tour reveals a mix of open laboratories, where engineers tinker with robotic limbs and sensors, and restricted areas housing confidential projects.
Cantilevered meeting rooms, extended from a mezzanine, offer a bird’s-eye view of the robotics labs below. In one corner, a group of Spot robots—the company’s famous quadruped creation—stand in various states of assembly. In one facility area, dubbed the ‘robustness lab,’ robots perform repetitive tasks 24 hours a day.
Schulman points out different test lanes: “In this case, it’s stepping over this beam. This one is walking up and down this platform. You’ve got robots walking up and down the stairs.” These autonomous missions continue until something breaks, providing valuable data for improvement. “Once they break, it teaches us how to make the robot even better,” Schulman says.
The iterative approach has led to significant advancements in reliability. Schulman recalls, “When I first started at this company three years ago, you’d hear robots falling down the stairs during the day. Now they’re even more reliable, and it’s been a long time since I heard a robot fall down the stairs.”
As we delve deeper into the facility, Schulman traces the evolution of Boston Dynamics’ robots. The journey from early prototypes to today’s commercial products is a testament to the company’s pursuit of innovation.
“Our best-known robot is Spot,” Schulman says. “We designed Spot as a general-purpose robot, so it’s useful in a variety of different applications.” He explains that Spot’s main use is industrial inspection, but its versatility extends to dangerous environments like nuclear power plant decommissioning and public safety scenarios.
The robots’ capabilities have also grown over time. Schulman points out various payload configurations: “In this case, for example, there’s a pan-tilt-zoom camera on top and a thermal camera. So that’s the kind of robot that might be used for an industrial inspection mission.” Other configurations include acoustic sensors for leak detection and LIDAR for building mapping.
The evolution, however, isn’t limited to the hardware. The transition from hydraulic systems to electric actuators marked a significant shift. “Now you’ve got a battery-operated robot with electric motors,” Schulman explains. “So, instead of hydraulics, you have electronics and batteries, which means this is now suitable for an industrial environment. It’s quiet, safe, rechargeable, easy to operate, and clean.”
The future frontier: AI and humanoid robotics
As we conclude our tour, Schulman offers a glimpse into the future of Boston Dynamics’ robotics. Of course, the company is not resting on its laurels with the success of Spot and Stretch (its warehouse robot). Instead, it’s pushing into new areas, particularly in the realm of humanoid robotics and artificial intelligence.
“We decided we’re going to make that product,” Schulman says, referring to a new version of Atlas, their humanoid robot. “And the reason for that is automotive manufacturing and other industries need more machines because the people aren’t there.”
The move towards humanoid robots represents a significant step in the company’s evolution, potentially allowing it to address more complex tasks in manufacturing and other sectors. However, Schulman is careful to temper expectations about the current capabilities of the robots. “Spot doesn’t have intent,” he clarifies. “If you ask Spot, ‘Hey, go get me a soda,’ [it] can’t do that.”
This statement raises an intriguing question: do we need robots to have intent? Despite significant advancements, Schulman’s comment underscores the current limitations of robotics and AI. It also highlights a fundamental difference between how humans and robots approach tasks.
For many industrial and practical applications, a robot’s lack of intent isn’t a drawback but a feature. Robots excel at performing specific, programmed tasks with precision and reliability. They don’t need to understand why they’re performing a task or have the desire to do it; they simply execute their programming efficiently.
“We’re focusing on making robots that can reliably perform useful tasks in industrial environments,” Schulman explains. “Our customers don’t need a robot that can fetch a soda on command. They need robots to inspect equipment, detect faults, and operate safely around humans.”
The approach aligns with Boston Dynamics’ vision of robots as tools to augment human capabilities rather than replace human cognition. By perfecting specific capabilities rather than trying to replicate human-like intent, the company aims to create more immediately helpful and deployable robots for real-world scenarios.
However, the line between programmed behaviour and something resembling intent may blur as AI advances. For now, Boston Dynamics seems content to leave the question of robot consciousness to the philosophers, focusing instead on creating machines that can reliably perform dull, dirty, or tasks dangerous for humans.
As we conclude our tour, the impression of witnessing the forefront of a robotic revolution lingers. Boston Dynamics’ journey from experimental prototypes to commercial products, and now towards advanced humanoid systems, exemplifies a rapid progress in robotics. It offers a glimpse into a future where robots work alongside humans in industry, tackling tasks too dangerous, complex, or labour-intensive for humans alone.
While Boston Dynamics’ robots aren’t fetching sodas yet, they’re undoubtedly advancing us towards a more automated future and reshaping our expectations of what machines can accomplish.