Boston Dynamics Latest Robot Is a ‘Mechanical Ostrich’ that Loads Pallets

The latest robot developed by Boston Dynamics is a large ostrich-looking machine that is used to load heavy shipping pallets.

Ars Technica reports that new video of the latest robot developed by Boston Dynamics has been released; this time the company’s latest mechanical helper is a large ostrich-like robot that can load items onto shipping pallets. The robot is a redesign of the company’s “Handle” robot which was revealed in 2017 and was the company’s first “wheel-legged” robot.

Boston Dynamics explained why they chose a wheel design over traditional feet on the robot stating: “Wheels are fast and efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere: by combining wheels and legs, Handle has the best of both worlds.” The Handle robot reportedly has a top speed of 9mph.

Ars Technica described how the new Handle robot has been redesigned and changed from the original, writing:

The new Handle is no longer humanoid. While it still has wheel-legs with backward-bending knees, it’s now more bird-like than human. The two arms have been replaced with a single arm mounted at the top of the bot, making it look like a long neck. The original Handle’s top-heavy design has been changed, and now a lot of the robot’s mass lives in a large, wildly swinging rear (butt? tail?) that acts as a counterweight as the robot lifts things and moves around.

On top of the neck-arm are what look like some visual sensors and a grid of vacuum suction cups that allow the robot to pick up boxes weighing up to 33 pounds and arrange them on pallets. In the video above, two Handle bots move around completely untethered, picking up boxes from a shelf, neatly stacking them onto a pallet, and unloading them onto a conveyor belt. The YouTube description notes this is all done autonomously, and, if you label everything with matrix barcodes (the QR code-looking paper labels in the video), the robots can even mix SKUs and fulfill orders.

Breitbart News will continue to report on Boston Dynamics robots.