What is the quadruped walking robot 'SpotMini' that was talked about as 'funny' going to mass production and what is it used for?

Boston dynamics continues to develop numerous robots such as "bipedal walking Atlas " and an eerie quadruped walking robot " big dog ". We announced that such Boston Dynamics will start production of "practical products" and said that "what kind of use will it be used for?" Is described in the journal " IEEE Spectrum " of the electrical engineering technology A writer Evan Anchorman predicts.

Boston Dynamics Is Getting Ready to Produce Lots of SpotMinis - IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/boston-dynamics-spotminis

Boston Dynamics's quadruped walking robot "SpotMini", which was talked about as "Kimoi" from the beginning, will be marketed in 2019. Originally planned production schedule was 100, but then it was announced that in July 2018 it will produce 1000 units per year.

Boston · Dynamics plans to produce 1000 dog-like quadruped walking robot "SpotMini" annually · GIGAZINE

You can read about what kind of robot SpotMini is from the following article.

You can open doors yourself Boston · Dynamics "SpotMini" can be completed by thinking oneself even if disturbed by human - GIGAZINE

Mark Raibato, CEO of Boston Dynamics, said SpotMini's mass production "We have taken a long time for the future, and now we are trying to make practical products."

Raybert has revealed that SpotMini is being tested in the four fields of "construction", "delivery", "security", "home assistance", and sets forth future goals "to create a flexible platform for various applications It is said. However, I do not know exactly what "practical product" is showing.

When you visualize the contents that Raybert speaks, it looks like this. The blue part is the product and application that Boston · Dynamics wears as of 2018 and the yellow part is "advanced function" aiming for long term.

One of the aims aimed at in the short term span is "entertainment", which can be almost certainly achieved even as SpotMini's movies are already enjoyed by viewers. Also, since it can move in many directions, it can be used in emergency situations such as disaster relief. Meanwhile, it seems that it is subtle whether or not to demonstrate the power as crime prevention purpose from the fact that it may not be able to fully utilize the startability of SpotMini indoors and more complicated autonomy is required.

Also, if you use it as a work robot as introduced in Amazon warehouse, you may have the ability. Boston · Dynamics robot features are phenomenal balance · agility · mobility, and if only working in a fixed place with flat ground, there are other inexpensive robots.

And, in using the robot by delivery service, the technical barrier is the way from the sidewalk to the door of the receiver 's house. Even in terms of perception and exercise planning, the delivery robot needs to do enormous work at the last part, the part moving from the sidewalk to the door. According to Rainbart CEO, the delivery robot seems to be able to carry out 80% of the work, but as you can see from the development of the automatic driving car, it is a very difficult task to supplement the "unable points".

The accident that Uber's automatic driving car splashed a woman and died turned out to be because the software judged the person as "false detection" - GIGAZINE

Construction sites that are intensely changing and complex environments appear to be one of the places where robots play an active part, but there is not much need for advanced autonomy in "to move heavy objects from one place to another". It is unclear whether the effort to develop an autonomous robot for construction site is commensurate with its effect.

Meanwhile, Ackerman says that taking care of the elderly and handicapped will be an important role played by robots in the long run. The autonomous movement and manipulation techniques required for home care are quite complicated and it seems that it will take time to develop a robot that is superior in terms of reliability and cost, but the Boston Dynamics There is a big possibility as a use of a robot.

The robot developed by Boston Dynamics as of 2018 is not a robot having the "advanced function aiming for long term" in the above figure. There is a long way to develop a robot that is still a target. In the future, it is drawing attention whether the robot in the blue part of the following figure moves to the yellow part, or whether a completely new robot will be located in the yellow part.