Alphabet owned robot-making company Boston Dynamics is planning to create robots that will exceed animal and human capabilities.
Last week the company took the Atlas, a high mobility, humanoid robot, for a walk in the woods. The robot has been designed to navigate in outdoor and rough terrains.
It is capable of climbing using hands and feet, and it can move through challenging terrains, navigating through congested spaces.
Boston Dynamics founder Mark Raibert showcased a video of goats clambering across a steep slope to the crowd assembled for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Fab Foundation symposium in Boston, revealing that one of the goats was a robot that can navigate through extremely rough terrain.
Raibert said: "We’ve been working hard trying to rival those animals, and as I said, eventually we hope to surpass them, building a whole series of robots that are able to move dynamically [meaning that there is energy in the motion] and balance themselves."
"My goal is to build robots that rival humans and animals or maybe even exceed humans and animals in their ability to move around in the world, manipulate things, perceive what’s around them."
The company aims to develop robots with "hydraulic elements just printed into them" instead of using hydraulics screwed or bolted.
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Previously, two Atlas robots were used to shut down a nuclear reactor at the Darpa Robotics Challenge, reported The Guardian.
