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BOSTON — A pair of leading AI and robotics organizations are working together to create AI robots.
Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and Boston Dynamics, part of Hyundai, are partnering to "accelerate" the development of general-purpose humanoid robots, according to TRI this week.
The partners will use TRI’s large behavior models (LBMs) and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot in their collaboration.
The joint team will also conduct research in several areas: on fundamental training questions for humanoid robots; research models using whole-body sensing; understanding human-robot interaction; and safety and assurance cases to support robotic capabilities.
The research project is set up to "equally" tap the strengths and expertise of each partner.
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Los Altos, California-based TRI and Boston Dynamics expect researchers to deploy the robot for a range of tasks and collect data on its performance.
The partners plan to use the data to support the training of advanced LBMs, using hardware and simulation evaluation to demonstrate that large pre-trained models can enable the acquisition of "dexterous, whole-body skills."
Scott Kuindersma, senior director of Robotics Research at Boston Dynamics, and Russ Tedrake, VP of robotics research at Toyota Research Institute, will co-lead the Boston-based partnership.
“Recent advances in AI and machine learning hold tremendous potential for advancing physical intelligence,” said Gill Pratt, chief scientist at Toyota and CEO of TRI, saying the organizations are working to "amplify people and improve quality of life.”
Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics, said "there has never been a more exciting time for the robotics industry."
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