Boston Dynamic's Dog Robot Can Now Run Autonomously

Each Boston Dynamic's video released to YouTube makes the world both more impressed and more terrified at the potential these robots could have. We've seen these robots open doors for one another, run up steep hills with ease, and evenbackflip.

While the clips in the latest Boston Dynamics video don't initially wow viewers like previous videos, the video certainly makes an impact when you realize most of these movements are now done entirely autonomously. This clip of the SpotMini robot running around the office showcases just how well this quadruped robot can navigate even the trickiest of scenarios. 

For SpotMini to succeed on its own, he (like any other good robo-dog) has to be trained. Boston Dynamics engineers manually steered the SpotMini throughout the office so that it could collect visual data from its cameras. But once that data was collected, the SpotMini was left to its own devices. 

"During the autonomous run, SpotMini uses data from the cameras to localize itself in the map and to detect and avoid obstacles," the Boston Dynamics team wrote in the video's caption. "Once the operator presses 'GO' at the beginning of the video, the robot is on its own. Total walk time for this route is just over 6 minutes. (The QR codes visible in the video are used to measure performance, not for navigation.)