Handle Robot Reimagined for Logistics

Boston Dynamics0 HN recommenders · 2019–2024
6.7M views · demo · dated · Uploaded 2019-03-28

A short Boston Dynamics demo of Handle, a wheeled mobile manipulation robot that builds and unloads mixed-box pallets in a warehouse. It uses vision to find boxes and force control to place them against neighbors.

Mostly cited as an example of robots doing warehouse and logistics work in automation discussions.

Watch on YouTube

3 comments from Hacker News

@freeflight2019 · in “Automation to replace every job under the sun, eventually”

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Just like it ain't only "mundane" work that is being replaced [0]. Imho right now most of humanity is still in denial about the consequences of these changes, just like with climate change. But in the long-term automation will leave us with a whole ton of "surplus humans" that will struggle to find any meaningful economic activity to engage in to finance their own survival. Right now a whole economy exists around these mundane jobs: All of the warehouse workers [1], delivery personnel, and a ton of others do their "mundane" jobs in the logistics chain, because that's what they can do. For many people, their driver's license is the only real qualification they have. But in the long term, not even a pilot's license will be a qualification that ensures employment [2]. What happens to these people once autonomous driving becomes adopted on a larger scale? Are they all gonna start working at Boston Dynamics, creating more autonomous tools? Will they all learn to code and start writing apps? Will they become successful artists? I seriously doubt that. Will they work in newly created auxilareily industries? Maybe a few of them, but the "new jobs created" from this will never make up the number of jobs lost because the change to automation is also an increase in efficiency of productivity, meaning that the same work can now be done with way less effort. [0] [LINK] [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK]

@HenryKissinger2021 · in “California port truckers ‘drowning’ in supply chain inefficiencies”

> "All we hear in the news is the lack of congestion on the waterside and we can confirm that, but we are drowning on the landside by long lines and staffing issues at the terminals,” Boston Dynamics has built droids capable of handling cargo.[1][2][3] [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] If humans are in short supply and these supply issues are causing companies to lose money, surely every business handling cargo from the ports will line up to buy some BD droids?

@jack_riminton2024 · in “An electric new era for Atlas”

Prediction: we'll have self-driving cars that can match our driving before we have legged robots that can match our stability, agility etc. Have you not seen Boston Dynamics tilting wheeled robots that work very well? [VIDEO]