Boston Dynamics brings its legged robots to the FIFA World Cup

Boston Dynamics Inc. has taught its Atlas humanoid to kick a soccer ball while its Spot robots support security operations at tournament venues. Hyundai Motor Co., which acquired Boston Dynamics in 2021, has expanded its 27-year partnership with FIFA World Cup. While other humanoid robots have participated in the RoboCup league, Hyundai is leaving the competition to humans while demonstrating how its robots can learn, move, and do actual work.

Alberto Rodriguez, director of robot behavior, and Merry Frayne, senior director of product for Spot at Boston Dynamics, spoke with The Robot Report about the company’s involvement with this year’s World Cup. Rodriguez noted that the World Cup was too good of an opportunity to pass on, and Hyundai proposed a focused campaign based on soccer. On the technical side, soccer has extreme behaviors, and the time was right to challenge the new generation of Atlas to imitate iconic trick shots of leading players.

For the School of Football campaign, Boston Dynamics developed the Ghost Rabona kick. Rodriguez explained that while Atlas has performed many athletic maneuvers like jumps and flips, interactions with an object (the ball) and the ground are more complex. Practicing motions for quick footwork is more complex than a backflip. The technologies to capture motion and design behaviors today make it easier to explore a superhuman range of motion, and for the most complex trick shots, they can use motion capture.

Source: The Robot Report