Futuristic Robots: Newest BostonDynamics robot SpotMini has learned how to open doors for his ‘friends’

The world’s leader in robotics engineering and design, Boston Dynamics, just unveiled its newest robot that can open doors for itself. Its newest robot called SpotMini, is a dog-like robot that can open doors in the most difficult manner imaginable. The four-legged robot uses its mechanical arm with a pincer on the end to grasp and turn the handle and then hold open the door.

SpotMini is a small four-legged robot that comfortably fits in an office or home. It weighs 25 kg (30 kg if you include the arm). SpotMini is all-electric and can go for about 90 minutes on a charge, depending on what it is doing. SpotMini is the quietest robot we have built. SpotMini inherits all of the mobility of its bigger brother, Spot, while adding the ability to pick up and handle objects using its 5 degree-of-freedom arm and beefed up perception sensors. The sensor suite includes stereo cameras, depth cameras, an IMU, and position/force sensors in the limbs. These sensors help with navigation and mobile manipulation.

Ground-breaking Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company that is best known for the development of BigDog, a quadruped robot designed for the U.S. military with funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and DI-Guy, software for realistic human simulation. Early in the company’s history, it worked with the American Systems Corporation under a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) to replace naval training videos for aircraft launch operations with interactive 3D computer simulations featuring DI-Guy characters.[4] The company is a pioneer in the field of robotics and it is one of the most advanced in its domain.

You can read more about SpotMini here

Below is a photo of SpotMini.