"Effortlessly Lifting a 23kg Refrigerator"... Hyundai's Atlas Robot Ready for Industrial Deployment

Boston Dynamics Unveils Humanoid Robot Video
Real-World Implementation Achieved Within Weeks Through Simulation-Based Reinforcement Learning

Boston Dynamics, a robotics affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, has announced that its humanoid robot "Atlas" has successfully lifted and transported a small refrigerator weighing as much as 23 kg, using its knees and both arms like a human. This achievement demonstrates that Atlas has reached a significant level of object-handling capability ahead of its deployment in industrial sites in the second half of the year.

On the 18th (local time), Boston Dynamics released a video on their YouTube channel showing the humanoid robot "Atlas" moving a small refrigerator in its entirety.
Captured from Boston Dynamics' YouTube video

On the 18th (local time), Boston Dynamics released a video on its YouTube channel showing Atlas delivering a refrigerator in its entirety. To lift the small refrigerator, Atlas bent its knees partially and used both arms to securely raise it, maintaining its balance while carrying the fridge to a table positioned at the rear.

Next, Atlas rotated only its upper body by 180 degrees and successfully placed the refrigerator carefully onto the table. The video concludes with a developer opening the fridge door and taking out a can of beverage to drink.

Boston Dynamics explained that this video "demonstrates advances in reinforcement learning and full-body control technology," and described it as "an important turning point that shows Atlas is moving beyond lab-level demonstrations to performing tasks even in industrial environments with many variables."

To execute such movements, highly advanced full-body control technology is required to maintain balance while lifting objects of varying sizes and weights. In addition, even though information such as the mass or center of gravity of external objects is not provided in advance, the robot must be able to compensate for uncertainty through sensor-based state estimation.

On the 18th (local time), Boston Dynamics released a video on their YouTube channel showing the humanoid robot "Atlas" carrying a small refrigerator in its entirety. Screenshot from Boston Dynamics YouTube video

Boston Dynamics explained that overcoming these technical challenges and performing movement and manipulation as a seamlessly integrated action, as shown in the video, proves Atlas has secured a high level of task execution ability in real-world industrial settings.

The company also provided a detailed explanation of the video on its blog. Atlas rapidly learned the required movements through large-scale simulation-based reinforcement learning, and was able to implement them in real environments within a few weeks.

Reinforcement learning was conducted by repeatedly experiencing success and failure in a virtual space, developing the task planning and execution abilities necessary for real-world environments and deriving optimal movements. Based on this, Atlas was able to plan a series of tasks—approaching, recognizing, lifting, and moving the refrigerator—and execute each step sequentially with the necessary locomotion skills.

According to Boston Dynamics, through simulation learning, Atlas succeeded in transporting not only the 23 kg refrigerator but also units weighing up to 45 kg.

Notably, the Atlas featured in the video is a development model designed with commercialization in mind, offering higher performance and compatibility. The actuators used in Atlas have been standardized into two types, and both arms and legs share the same structure, allowing for interchangeable parts. As a result, cost efficiency based on economies of scale can also be anticipated.

On the 18th (local time), Boston Dynamics released a video on its YouTube channel showing the humanoid robot "Atlas" carrying a small refrigerator whole. Screenshot from Boston Dynamics YouTube video

In addition, Boston Dynamics released a behind-the-scenes video showing what kind of training the development model of Atlas underwent to succeed in the refrigerator transport task. In this video, Atlas is shown rotating 360 degrees while balancing on one foot and even completing a backflip. These movements, which involve separately controlling the upper and lower body, require advanced control technology that minimizes interference between joints while maintaining continuity of movement.

Boston Dynamics emphasized that actions such as handstands and backflips are key to evaluating Atlas’s flexibility and balance, as well as to developing the ability to recover from slips or falls.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.