This past week Boston Dynamics released a YouTube video on the latest version of their Atlas robot. It is 5’9″ tall, weighs 180 pounds and is capable of walking (in snowy hilly terrain!), opening doors, lifting objects and … getting back up after being pushed onto its hands and knees. Atlas looks like a cross between C-3PO and RoboCop. The size, weight and shape of a mostly humanoid robot but with enough strength that you wonder for a moment if it’s going to deck the guy who pushed it down. As we see critical parts of Star Wars becoming reality, I’m left wondering if I should be awed and impressed or freaked out about the rise of the machines?

About the Author

Michael Braasch is the Thomas Professor of Electrical Engineering at Ohio University (OU), a Principal Investigator with the Avionics Engineering Center (also at OU) and is the co-founder of GPSoft LLC (a software company specializing in navigation-related toolboxes for MATLAB). He has been conducting aircraft navigation research for 30 years and is an internationally recognized expert in GPS and inertial navigation.