At Ford Factories, Boston Dynamics’s Robot Dog Spot Is Teaming up With a New Robotic Friend
Through its new robotic collaborations, the infamously creepy dog-shaped robots could soon ride on wheels and launch their own drones
By Jared Newman
A couple years ago, the internet had a mild freakout when the robotics company Boston Dynamics showed off a dog-like robot opening the door for one of its pals. Twitter commentators called the demonstration “terrifying,” “the end of us all,” and a sign that “we’re all dead.”
But that little bit of robot collaboration was just the beginning for Spot, the robot Boston Dynamics has been leasing out for industrial use since last fall. Now that Spot is out in the real world, Boston Dynamics has received “more than a few” requests to have it team up with other robots, says Michael Perry, Boston Dynamics’s vice president of business development. The company is now allowing other businesses to purchase Spot outright, and has provided tools so they can integrate it with entire robot fleets.
“It’s not just Spot riding on a wheeled robot, but we’ve had some customers looking at Spot carrying a drone, and the drone flies off the back of the robot, does inspection of something that’s high up…
