Boston Dynamics Atlas (Hydraulic)

Boston Dynamics' 2013–2024 hydraulic humanoid robot, famous for parkour and backflip videos.

The hydraulic Atlas was originally built by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, and was unveiled publicly in July 2013: about 1.88 meters tall and 150 kg at the time, and still tethered to an external power cable. After 2016 it was replaced by a smaller, battery-powered version, using hydraulic actuators to deliver high power for running, jumping, backflips, parkour, and carrying boxes. Its motion relied mainly on model-based control, such as model predictive control, and offline-designed maneuvers, demonstrating the upper limit of dynamic balance for humanoid robots at the time. It always remained a research platform and was never commercialized, and was retired in April 2024, replaced that same month by the newly released electric Atlas.

ExampleIn the 2021 “Parkour Atlas” video, two Atlas units vault over boxes in sequence, clear obstacles, and perform backflips.

Also called

HD Atlas, Atlas HD

Related

Boston Dynamics Atlas (Electric) · Boston Dynamics · Hydraulic Actuation · DARPA Robotics Challenge · Model Predictive Control · Bipedal Locomotion

Sources

Atlas shrugged: Boston Dynamics retires its hydraulic humanoid robot (TechCrunch)
Atlas (robot) - Wikipedia

As of

2024-04