Boston Dynamics' four-legged robot can find its way around an office
SpotMini can map areas with cameras mounted on its frame.
Boston Dynamics is showing off more of the SpotMini robot's skills. In a new video posted today, the company demonstrates how the little quadruped can navigate around an office and lab facility all on its own, avoiding obstacles and even climbing stairs. Using cameras on its front, back and sides, SpotMini can map an area and then use that information to navigate through it later on. The robot was manually driven on a path ahead of this test, which allowed it to build a map of the space, and it then used its cameras to localize itself within that map. In the video below, you can see SpotMini take a six-minute walk, which it did autonomously after its operator gave it a go command.
Boston Dynamics has previously horrified us all with videos of the SpotMini opening doors for its robot pals and for itself in the face of a lot of human resistance -- tests that, while creepy to watch, provide a lot of useful information about the robot's abilities and limitations.
