Watch 10 SpotMini Robots Haul a Truck | News & Opinion

Boston Dynamics’ little quadruped robot is stronger than it looks, and when they work as a group they can pull some serious weight.

Since 2016, Boston Dynamics has been working on a nimble little robot called SpotMini. Three years on and it’s now a robot capable of working in a group to pull a truck.

SpotMini has repeatedly impressed us ever since it got a new look in 2017. We’ve seen it navigate an office flawlessly, open doors thanks to a an arm attachment, and all while receiving abuse from its makers in an attempt to make it fail. It can even climb stairs!

Now Boston Dynamics is preparing for the next stage of the SpotMini’s development, and the robotics company decided to highlight that by getting multiple SpotMinis to pull a truck:

As you can see in the video above, 10 SpotMini robots are acting like dogs pulling a sled, only their sled is a very heavy truck.

The task was carried out in the Boston Dynamics’ car park, which has a one degree incline making the task a little bit harder. The truck was in neutral and a driver was behind the wheel just in case anything went awry.

So why did Boston Dynamics carry out this demonstration? Apparently, SpotMini robots are now coming off the production line and “will be available for a range of applications soon.” In other words, mass production is happening and these robots are going to be sold in large quantities.

We don’t know specifically how they will be marketed, but SpotMini has always been developed with working in office, homes, and outdoors in mind. The range of potential jobs is therefore quite large.