3 ms·

Just submitted this as well. This is remarkable. Boston Dynamics has some catchup to do.

elil17 9mo ago
To be fair to BD, Atlas can lift 50 kg and a Unitree G1 can lift about 2 kg. An Atlas could literally pick up and throw a G1. They are very different robots with very different goals, so it should be no surprise that the G1 appears much more agile.
- verdverm 9mo ago
  The H2 is what everyone is talking about now some specs here: https://www.unitree.com/H2 https://www.unitree.com/H2 claimed 3h battery life, can hold about 10% of its weight (7kg, with arms)
  - alex43578 9mo ago
    So Atlas can lift 7x the capacity. Even Digit, the tote-consolidating robot, can do 35lbs. Unitree's demos are a lot of fun, and the antics of releasing the G1 to the public has certainly captured people's attention, but a "working" robot won't look, act, or develop from the G1 or even H2.
    - kasperni 9mo ago
      Unitree has plenty other industrial robots. https://www.unitree.com/ https://www.unitree.com/ -> Click Robots
      - elil17 9mo ago
        I wasn't trying to say that Unitree is somehow deficient. I'm sure they could build Atlas if they wanted. My point was that BD could probably build a robot with the shown acrobatic capabilities, but they choose not to because their goal is to build robots that carry heavy loads for industrial applications.
        skeledrew 9mo ago
        They also wouldn't be getting any funding for doing such fun demos, even if they wanted to.
    - verdverm 9mo ago
      I don't need a robot to lift more than 15lbs in order to do all my maid work Focussing on load capacity is missing the forest for the trees
      - elil17 9mo ago
        The point is that a robot with higher load capacity is necessarily less agile. BD's target market is industrial so their robots are necessarily larger and less agile. The fact that Unitree's robots appear so acrobatic reflects that they are likely on par with BD in terms of capabilities but have a different target market.
- d--b 9mo ago
  Yeah, when the G1s dance with kids, I realized how small they actually were. Definitely not the same category.
- dash2 9mo ago
  Isn’t it easier to make an agile robot big than to make a big robot agile?
  - chmod775 9mo ago
    One big issue is the "joints". It's always a trade-off between mass, strength, speed, precision, and dexterity. State of the art is matching or exceeding organic joints on 2-3 axis, while being an order of magnitude below human/animal performance on the two other axis. Human individual fingers can withstand internal loads of hundreds of newtons, (possibly a thousand for brief periods if you're a star rock-climber), while at the same being capable of tasks such as writing, which require high speeds and (sub-)millimeter precision, while also enjoying 4 degrees of freedom (5 for the thumb), and they're stuffed full of sensory organs to boot. Oh and they're also self-healing, so taking some damage during use is no problem and they will actually adapt to the task they're used for over time. Everything we can make compared to this is laughably primitive. If you make an agile robot big, it now weighs more, which means its joints now need to handle greater loads, which makes it necessary to make them much bulkier and heavier. A lot of this is just inherent limitations of electric motors and having to convert rotational energy. This gets heavy fast. Decent synthetic electrically-driven muscle fibers would go a long way.
pankajdoharey 9mo ago
Boston dynamics is far behind plus the robots are so cheap , even their dog is cheaper than BD. I dont think their humanoid can even catch up to this price. I am sure US Army and for the chinese counterpart Chinese army will be their biggest customers. But i wonder how will this workout in situations like Plane hijack, fire fighting and other such places where human lives cant be risked to save more human lives. (Please Dont downvote because your american patriotism is poked try replying.)
- verdverm 9mo ago
  commenting on downvoting is against HN rules and typically comes with a compounding effect I personally agree with the rest, recommend you remove that last bit about downvoting and sneering if you can still edit
nialv7 9mo ago
i'd say atlas is roughly on par capability-wise. see their recent video: [1]. but boston has different priorities. [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UNorxwlZlFk https://youtube.com/watch?v=UNorxwlZlFk

To be fair to BD, Atlas can lift 50 kg and a Unitree G1 can lift about 2 kg. An Atlas could literally pick up and throw a G1. They are very different robots with very different goals, so it should be no surprise that the G1 appears much more agile.

verdverm 9mo ago
The H2 is what everyone is talking about now some specs here: https://www.unitree.com/H2 https://www.unitree.com/H2 claimed 3h battery life, can hold about 10% of its weight (7kg, with arms)
- alex43578 9mo ago
  So Atlas can lift 7x the capacity. Even Digit, the tote-consolidating robot, can do 35lbs. Unitree's demos are a lot of fun, and the antics of releasing the G1 to the public has certainly captured people's attention, but a "working" robot won't look, act, or develop from the G1 or even H2.
  - kasperni 9mo ago
    Unitree has plenty other industrial robots. https://www.unitree.com/ https://www.unitree.com/ -> Click Robots
    - elil17 9mo ago
      I wasn't trying to say that Unitree is somehow deficient. I'm sure they could build Atlas if they wanted. My point was that BD could probably build a robot with the shown acrobatic capabilities, but they choose not to because their goal is to build robots that carry heavy loads for industrial applications.
      - skeledrew 9mo ago
        They also wouldn't be getting any funding for doing such fun demos, even if they wanted to.
  - verdverm 9mo ago
    I don't need a robot to lift more than 15lbs in order to do all my maid work Focussing on load capacity is missing the forest for the trees
    - elil17 9mo ago
      The point is that a robot with higher load capacity is necessarily less agile. BD's target market is industrial so their robots are necessarily larger and less agile. The fact that Unitree's robots appear so acrobatic reflects that they are likely on par with BD in terms of capabilities but have a different target market.
d--b 9mo ago
Yeah, when the G1s dance with kids, I realized how small they actually were. Definitely not the same category.
dash2 9mo ago
Isn’t it easier to make an agile robot big than to make a big robot agile?
- chmod775 9mo ago
  One big issue is the "joints". It's always a trade-off between mass, strength, speed, precision, and dexterity. State of the art is matching or exceeding organic joints on 2-3 axis, while being an order of magnitude below human/animal performance on the two other axis. Human individual fingers can withstand internal loads of hundreds of newtons, (possibly a thousand for brief periods if you're a star rock-climber), while at the same being capable of tasks such as writing, which require high speeds and (sub-)millimeter precision, while also enjoying 4 degrees of freedom (5 for the thumb), and they're stuffed full of sensory organs to boot. Oh and they're also self-healing, so taking some damage during use is no problem and they will actually adapt to the task they're used for over time. Everything we can make compared to this is laughably primitive. If you make an agile robot big, it now weighs more, which means its joints now need to handle greater loads, which makes it necessary to make them much bulkier and heavier. A lot of this is just inherent limitations of electric motors and having to convert rotational energy. This gets heavy fast. Decent synthetic electrically-driven muscle fibers would go a long way.

pankajdoharey 9mo ago

Boston dynamics is far behind plus the robots are so cheap , even their dog is cheaper than BD. I dont think their humanoid can even catch up to this price. I am sure US Army and for the chinese counterpart Chinese army will be their biggest customers. But i wonder how will this workout in situations like Plane hijack, fire fighting and other such places where human lives cant be risked to save more human lives. (Please Dont downvote because your american patriotism is poked try replying.)

verdverm 9mo ago
commenting on downvoting is against HN rules and typically comes with a compounding effect I personally agree with the rest, recommend you remove that last bit about downvoting and sneering if you can still edit

nialv7 9mo ago

i'd say atlas is roughly on par capability-wise. see their recent video: [1]. but boston has different priorities. [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UNorxwlZlFk https://youtube.com/watch?v=UNorxwlZlFk