You’ve got to consider adding the new 6.5-foot tall robot from the Google-owned robotics firm Boston Dynamics to your list of tech wonders this year. Dubbed “Handle”, this one can probably give any world-class athlete a run for their money.
The robot has four legs, two of them with wheels that make it possible to move as fast as 14.48 kilometers per hour.
As for distance, it can travel 24.14 kilometers on a single battery charge.
“This is the debut presentation of what I think will be a nightmare-inducing robot,” Marc Raibert, founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, said at the Abundance 360 summit in February.
Handle can easily navigate snow, concrete, hills, staircases and other terrain, thanks to the way it has been built. “Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation principles found in the quadruped and biped robots we build,” Boston Dynamics said, “but with only about 10 actuated joints, it is significantly less complex. Wheels are efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere: by combining wheels and legs, Handle can have the best of both worlds.”
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