A video went viral in February showcasing a dog like robot opening a door for another robot.
These agile robots are the brainchild of Boston Dynamics, an American Robotics company. Fast forward to this month, Boston Dynamics is all geared up to produce thousands of these robot dogs.
According to a report by Inverse, the company has set a target date of July 2019 to manufacture 1,000 of its SpotMini robot dogs annually.
SpotMini is a smaller variant of Boston Dynamics’ many robots. This four-legged robot weighs around 30 kgs and can comfortably fit in an office or home. It is one of the quietest robots built by the company. SpotMini is completely mobile with a 5 degree-of-freedom arm. It also has multiple perception sensors for navigation and mobile manipulation.
Spot, SpotMini’s elder version stands at close to four feet and weighs about 75 kgs. This four-legged robot is exclusively made for rough terrain mobility and superhuman stability. Its video has been streamed on Youtube nearly 19 million times.
According to founder Marc Raibert, SpotMini is currently being tested for use in construction, delivery, security, and home assistance applications.
The company has already announced plans to launch it in 2019 as their short-term goal. They have currently built almost ten robodogs by hand, and are in plans to build 100 models with contract manufacturers at the end of this year.
In the long run, the company intends SpotMini to eventually become a multi-use platform of sorts.
At TechCrunch’s TC Sessions: Robotics event 2018, Raibert stated that “the goal for us is to become the what Android operating system is for phones: a versatile foundation for limitless applications.”
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