It’s built like a man, but it’s not – it’s a humanoid robot

When some­one says, ​“humanoid robot,” your first thought might be some­thing like the red-eyed mon­sters you see in The Ter­mi­na­tor. That is not typ­i­cal­ly the case. Though they are made of met­al and some­times much larg­er than us, these robots work for us, not against us.

One of the newest humanoid robot designs is from DARPA, and its name is ATLAS. Accord­ing to a July 2013 arti­cle from Foxnews​.com, ATLAS is one of the most advanced humanoid robots ever built in con­junc­tion with the DARPA Vir­tu­al Robot­ics Chal­lenge. DARPA is a defense con­trac­tor work­ing on humanoid robots for the U.S. Military.

This robot­ic humanoid is six foot, two inch­es tall and weighs in at 330 pounds. Unlike humans, it does not have a six-two ​“wingspan.” Actu­al­ly, its arms are long enough to pick up a car. In a word, this humanoid robot is huge, and just slight­ly foreboding.

ATLAS has a sys­tem of sen­sors and hydraulics that help it maneu­ver and move its limbs through a range of nat­ur­al motions, the arti­cle stat­ed. Just like a human being, this humanoid robot can walk up a flight of stairs, climb over and move around obsta­cles, stay on its feet when hit with 20 pound weights and even stay bal­anced when walk­ing over uneven terrain.

Unlike the robot­ic humanoids that took over in The Ter­mi­na­tor, this humanoid is engi­neered to help. It would be used in real-life dis­as­ter sce­nar­ios to go into areas before it is safe for human first respon­ders. Basi­cal­ly, it would become the ulti­mate first respon­der – not to men­tion, a lot tougher on the bat­tle­field, if it ever comes to that!

While Robots​.com does not have a lot of humanoid robots hang­ing around the ware­house, there are some dual-armed robots that appear to have a humanoid look to them. These robots are basi­cal­ly two arms and a tor­so. Some­times they even have heads to make them appear even more human. Many of these robots are used in assem­bly and pack­ing appli­ca­tions. Their arms can work simul­ta­ne­ous­ly on one task, or they can work inde­pen­dent­ly on dif­fer­ent tasks to speed up production.

Robots​.com, a cer­ti­fied inte­gra­tor for Motoman, Fanuc, ABB, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and KUKA robots, would be hap­py to help you find the right dual-armed robot for your indus­tri­al facil­i­ty. If you would like to know more about the robots we have avail­able for cus­tomiza­tion and pur­chase, con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.