The company that used to play Huahuo has now gone to the sea to make money!

Over the decades, Boston Dynamics has shown the world a dazzling image - as a company famous for robot stunts, from a "big dog" who can walk in the snow to a "Atlas" who can do difficult movements. But recently, this company has faced one of the biggest challenges to date: commercialization. At the Promat just held, Boston Power released its second fully commercialized product, Stretch. Boston Power has not been focused on commercial marketing for a long time, and they have truly started commercial development. Softbank is undoubtedly the biggest driver.

Boston Dynamics was originally spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and prior to this, the research nature was greater than the commercial nature. In 2013, Boston Power Company was acquired by Google, and four years later, SoftBank took over Boston Power from Valley Singer on undisclosed terms. Faced with such a huge global robot market, Boston Power, which possesses various technologies, also plans to commercialize its products and successively launch wheeled robot Handle, quadruped robot Spot, and this time the protagonist Stretch.

Creating a robot is easy enough to shoot videos, but having it perform tens of thousands of tasks and work around the clock is another matter. Stretch is Boston Power's second truly commercial robot, specifically designed for the handling needs of warehouse customers. This project shares the same design genes as Spot and the humanoid robot Atlas, but the system aims to accomplish one task: moving goods in the warehouse. Its direct ancestor was Handle, the robot that Boston Dynamics first attempted to perform this task.

According to Kevin Blankespoor, General Manager of the Boston Power Warehouse Robotics Group, with the precedent of Atlas humanoid robots, they found that a significant portion of the Atlas team had been stripped off to create a two wheeled robot handle, which was an attractive match to handle boxes in the warehouse. After conducting some experiments with customers using handles, Boston Power applied these experiences to Stretches, but the inspiration began with Atlas, And many hardware highlights of Atlas and Spot are on Stretch.

Stretch is a mobile robot with a joystick on the back to control the robot's movement. When the robot reaches the working area, it can complete automatic handling and other tasks. Stretch's arms can withstand a weight of 50 pounds and are suitable for unloading goods from box trucks and loading them onto shelves in logistics warehouses.

Repeatability must be one of the biggest issues in entering the business field. Kevin Blankespoor said, "Stretch has enough hardware reliability and software robustness, so it can handle all the accidents you get - this is an order of magnitude increase in workload. This is what we have done to Stretch. Stretch will never be a highlight, but Stretch is effective." In the future, improving market penetration and using with existing products is the core work of Boston Power Warehouse Robot Group.

Another robot planned for commercial use, Spot, is a quadruped robot. Currently, Spot has started commercial trials with its partners. BP, a British oil company, is attempting to use Spot to keep workers away from potentially hazardous work environments and improve employee safety. There are thousands of pounds of pressurized combustible materials there, "Ballard said. High pressure oil and natural gas can pose risks to people working in close proximity. If we could have a robot with appropriate sensors, we would be more willing to do so

The recent launch of Boston Power has been speculated to be related to the company's financial situation. In the past 10 years, Boston Power has undergone three changes in ownership, and this speculation is not unreasonable. For many years, Boston Power has been committed to researching new robot products, and its research and development investment is expected to be large. In addition, the growth rate of the robot market in recent years has been extremely fast. As a leading robotics company, it is reasonable to choose to commercialize its products. After polishing the three products, Handle, Stretch, and Spot, in the commercial market for a period of time, Boston Power can obtain enough data to invest in the research and development of the next product, and after commercialization, the company will have more revenue for research and development, which is also a win-win approach for a technology company.