Explainers
Boston Dynamics' electric Atlas explained: specs, battery swaps and Hyundai
Short answer: Atlas is Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot. In April 2024 the company retired the hydraulic Atlas famous for parkour videos and unveiled a fully electric Atlas designed for real work, starting with its owner Hyundai's car plants. Boston Dynamics now markets Atlas as an enterprise industrial humanoid for material handling, and lists a 4-hour battery that the robot swaps itself, 56 degrees of freedom and a lift of up to 50 kg.
Hydraulic to electric. In its April 2024 blog post Boston Dynamics said the electric Atlas would be stronger and have a broader range of motion than any previous generation, and that it would test applications with a small group of customers, beginning with Hyundai, over the following few years. Why the industry has moved to electric joints is covered in our actuators explainer.
Published specs. On its Atlas product page Boston Dynamics lists a height of 1.9 m (6.2 ft) and weight of 90 kg (198 lb), plus: battery life of 4 hours; weight capacity of 50 kg (110 lb) instantaneous and 30 kg (66 lb) sustained; 56 degrees of freedom; a reach of 2.3 m (7.5 ft); and continuous range of motion in its joints. Those are the company's own figures. What a degree of freedom means is explained in degrees of freedom explained.
Working without stopping. Boston Dynamics says Atlas autonomously walks to a charging station and swaps out its own battery before returning to work. It also says Atlas needs minimal supervision for material handling, supports barcode scanning and workflow integrations, and connects to factory and warehouse systems through its Orbit software. When one Atlas learns a skill, the company says it can be deployed across the fleet.
How it compares. For context on battery life across makers, see published humanoid runtimes. Boston Dynamics has not published a price for Atlas; our price comparison lists the makers that have.
Boston Dynamics later showed a research testbed that puts Atlas on wheels to push its motors.