Robots that can walk are now striding to market
They will be able to go where people can, but existing bots cannot
THEY MIGHT appear cutesy, but a pair of robots that turned up recently at the Ford Motor Company’s Van Dyke Transmission Plant, in Detroit, are practical working machines. They may, indeed, point to the future of automation. Putting robots into factories is hardly a new idea—some 2.4m of them are already at work in plants around the world. But most of these are little more than giant arms, bolted firmly to the ground, that weld and paint things. Those few that have the mobility to manage tasks like delivering components do so by scooting along on wheels. The new devices at Van Dyke are rather different sorts of beasts. They can walk.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Walking with robots”
From the August 29th 2020 edition
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