New Video Shows a Creepily Human-Like Robot Doing a Backflip

A new version of a humanoid disaster robot, called Atlas, can do half-turns in the air and even a backflip.

Credit: Boston Dynamics

A new video shows a robot performing amazing acrobatic feats, from backflips to half-turn jumps.
The eerily humanoid robot, called Atlas, is 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) tall and weighs 165 pounds (75 kilograms), and uses Lidar and stereovision to navigate in its surroundings, according to Boston Dynamics, which makes the robot. Atlas is designed to be able to take on emergency situations where human life would normally be put at risk, such as going into buildings that have crumbled after an earthquake, or dealing with patients who have deadly, highly infectious diseases, according  to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In the video, the newest version of the humanoid does a kind of jump training called plyometrics, leaping between raised platforms, doing a 180-degree turn in the air on raised platforms and performing a backflip off a platform. Though he may not give American gymnast Simone Biles a run for her money right now, the robot does manage to stick the landing. [Machine Dreams: 22 Human-Like Androids from Sci-Fi]