Building Dynamic Robots

EECS Colloquium

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Banatao Auditorium, 310 Sutardja Dai Hall
4:00 – 5:00 pm

Marc Raibert

Founder and CEO
Boston Dynamics

Abstract:

Dynamics opens a world of opportunity for robotics.  Robots that move dynamically can go where other robots can’t go, handle larger payloads with smaller footprint and smaller robot mass, and move faster to get work done more quickly.  This talk will give a status report on Boston Dynamics’ work in this area, both its long-term effort to develop robots of the future and shorter-term efforts to build products that capitalize on existing robot capability.

Biography

Marc Raibert is founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, a company that creates some of the world’s most advanced dynamic robots, such as BigDog, Atlas, Spot and Handle.  These robots are inspired by the remarkable ability of animals to move with agility, dexterity, perception and intelligence.  A key ingredient of these robots is their dynamic behavior, which contributes to their life-like qualities and their effectiveness in the real-world.  Before starting Boston Dynamics, Raibert was Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT from 1986 to 1995.  Prior to that he was Associate Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon from 1980-1986.  While at CMU and MIT Raibert founded the Leg Laboratory, a lab that helped establish the scientific basis for highly dynamic robots and that set the stage for the work done at Boston Dynamics.  Raibert is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.