Boston Dynamics lets Spot robot charge itself and starts selling robot arm
The four-legged Spot robot has received a new version with the Spot Enterprise that gets improved hardware and a charging dock. Like many robot vacuums, Spot can now charge itself when it’s empty. That way, the robot can work longer without human interaction.
The Spot Enterprise robot with charging dock is primarily intended for companies and organizations that want to use the robot for ‘longer inspection tasks and data collection missions’, according to Boston Dynamics. The Enterprise variant will receive upgraded hardware in the areas of security, communication ‘and behavior in remote environments’. With these upgrades, Spot should be able to work autonomously for longer and get a greater WiFi range. Also, the payload ports need to be more flexible and users can download larger data sets from the Spot robot more quickly.
According to The Verge, the Spot Enterprise will get an improved CPU and the charging dock will have a fiducial marker so Spot can navigate to the dock. When the robot is close enough, it will lower onto the dock to charge. The dock also has an Ethernet connection to upload the collected Spot data faster and more reliably.
In addition to the charging dock, Boston Dynamics gives robot operators one more reason not to get near the robot. The company introduces Scout, software that allows you to control the Spot remotely via the browser. With Scout, drivers can tell the Spot robot to start autonomous missions, or they can manually take control of the robot. Together with Spots (thermal image) camera, drivers can, for example, monitor an environment remotely.
Boston Dynamics also announces that Spots arm is for sale. The company has previously shown that Spot can perform tasks with the arm itself, but shows in a new video that the robot has learned new tricks. Today, the robot can garden, draw with crayons and jump rope with two other robots. The company is not offering prices for the products announced today, but says interested parties should contact the company’s sales department. The original Spot robot costs $74,500. Since the Enterprise version has better specs and comes with a charging dock, the price will probably be higher. By now, Boston Dynamics has built more than four hundred Spots.