Humanoid robot Atlas learned to breakdance and do cartwheels after watching people

Almost a year ago, Boston Dynamics unveiled the Atlas robot, which uses electric propulsion and replaced the larger model with hydraulic drives of the same name. The company continues to share videos from time to time demonstrating the robot’s abilities. This time, among other things, it performed a break dance — it’s hard to call it a good dancer, but it tries very hard.

Image Source: Boston Dynamics

In the video, the humanoid robot performs various movements that it learned using reinforcement learning based on examples obtained from human motion capture and animation. Atlas learned to run, crawl, roll, and even perform a cartwheel quite successfully. Note that Boston Dynamics previously showed Atlas doing a backflip.

At the end of the video, the robot even demonstrated one of the classic breakdance elements. In the process, some part of his leg flew off. It’s unlikely that this performance will bring a gold Olympic medal, but it’s certainly not the worst performance the world has ever seen.

Earlier this month, Boston Dynamics announced that Atlas had found a job as a sorter on an assembly line. The robot fits in perfectly with the Hyundai auto assembly plant, where it performs the routine task of sorting parts into their appropriate bins. The developers are ready to provide other companies with their robots as well.