Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas humanoid robot pulls off backflip with cartwheel

Boston Dynamics' new Atlas robot is slowly gaining the capabilities of its hydraulic-based predecessor named Atlas HD. In a new video, Boston Dynamics and the RAI Institute show Atlas performing a backflip coming out of a cartwheel, and the humanoid robot doesn’t take damage or lose its balance while doing so.

As is typical of Boston Dynamics, the company also shows how it got there. You can see the robot falling during the complex maneuver, but these falls are not much of a problem. The robot can usually catch itself during the stunts.

Teaching Atlas to run faster appears to be a bit more difficult, as the robot loses a few components after crashing onto its face or just runs into pallets. Nevertheless, the researchers got Atlas to walk with a more natural gait. Until now, the robot often looked awkward while walking rather slowly. For commercial use cases, this hasn’t mattered much thus far.

Atlas has now been launched in a modified version as an enterprise product. This version doesn’t look quite as elegant as the research version of Atlas, which has apparently reached the end of the line. The tests that are showcased in the video were supposedly "one final push to test the limits".