Boston Dynamics, Toyota Research Institute Team on Humanoid Robots

Boston Dynamics and Toyota Research Institute (TRI) have teamed in a research partnership to accelerate the development of general-purpose humanoid robots. The companies plan to use TRI’s Large Behavior Models (LBMs) and the Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid robot. 

The research partnership would be co-led by Scott Kuindersma, senior director of robotics research at Boston Dynamics, and Russ Tedrake, vice president of robotics research at Toyota Research Institute.

Boston Dynamics said the project will combine the physical capabilities of its electric Atlas robot, along with its ability to be programmed and teleoperated to allow researchers to deploy it across a range of tasks to collect performance data that will be used to support the training of advanced LBMS to show that “large, pre-trained models can enable the rapid acquisition of new robust, dexterous, whole-body skills”

Additionally, Boston Dynamics and TRI plan to conduct research to address key training questions for humanoid robots, explore how research models can leverage whole-body sensing and understand human-robot interaction along with safety and assurance measures to support these new capabilities.

“There has never been a more exciting time for the robotics industry, and we look forward to working with TRI to accelerate the development of general-purpose humanoids,” said Robert Playter, Boston Dynamics CEO. “This partnership is an example of two companies with a strong research-and-development foundation coming together to work on many complex challenges and build useful robots that solve real-world problems.”

Related:Boston Dynamics Unveils Electric Version of Atlas Humanoid Robot

Gill Pratt, chief scientist for Toyota and CEO of TRI, said recent advances in AI and machine learning hold tremendous potential for advancing physical intelligence. 

“The opportunity to implement TRI’s state-of-the-art AI technology on Boston Dynamics’ hardware is game-changing for each of our organizations as we work to amplify people and improve quality of life,” Pratt said.