Boston Dynamics Officially Unveils Its Wheel-Leg Robot: "Best of Both Worlds"

When Boston Dynamics introduced its massively upgraded Atlas last year, we said the robot could "do things we've never seen other robots doing before, making it one of the most advanced humanoids in existence." But now, after seeing the video that Boston Dynamics just released to officially unveil its newest creation, Handle, a sort of Atlas on wheels, we'll just say it again: Handle can do things we've never seen other robots doing before, making it one of the most advanced humanoids in existence. "Wheels are a great invention," Marc Raibert, founder and president of Boston Dynamics, tells IEEE Spectrum, adding that Handle, which uses a wheel-leg hybrid system, "can have the best of both worlds." You probably saw footage of Handle a few weeks ago, when Raibert gave a talk in California and someone filmed the screen with a phone and posted it on YouTube. When we asked Boston Dynamics about the leaked video, the company said it wasn't ready to discuss the new robot and suggested that we wait.