Picture this: a pint-sized humanoid robot with glasses. Okay, there's nothing weird or scary about this, but what if these glasses had a pair of antennas that allowed the robot to communicate with the drone? Oh, and did I mention that the robot holds a joystick and controls the drone? You really can't make this stuff up.
The race to introduce humanoid robots into our lives is heating up, and their sudden ubiquity in public discourse and culture is leading to strange mash-ups like journalists and robots, robots and grandparents, and now robots and drones.
However, most recently the Unitree G1 was used to fly the Antigravity A1 drone. For those unfamiliar with the A1, it's essentially a mixture of a sub-250g drone and your best 360-degree camera.
The quadcopter is actually equipped with two cameras; one looks up and the other looks down. Built-in software combines images so that what you see on Google is 8K360-degree view of the world around the drone.
In TechRadar's first hands-on, camera editor Timothy Coleman wrote, “The piloting experience feels genuinely exciting, if a little boring, while the aerial photos it can capture are quite unique and dynamic.”
He also wrote that when using a motion controller, “it's no exaggeration to say that controlling the A1 is child's play.”
But is this a robot game?
Anti-Gravity provided an awesome clip that looked too polished to be real in my opinion, but they backed it up with a more amateurish clip that actually showed G1 wearing glasses, holding a motion controller, and flying next to a drone. When G1 moved his hand to the left, the drone flew left, and when he moved it to the right, the drone flew to the right.
Naturally, I have some questions.
Although the G1 is equipped with a 3D LiDAR sensor and Intel RealSense Depth camera, it doesn't have stereoscopic eyes like ours. His hands also lack tactile sensors. I have to wonder if G1 can see through these glasses and if he can actually feel the motion controller in his hand.
I've seen the G1 in person, and while it looks cool and is surprisingly maneuverable, 85% of what it does is controlled remotely. This made me wonder if the drone was controlled by the G1 or if the cameraman was controlling it through the G1. I emailed Antigravity these questions and will update this post with their answers.
However, there is a larger issue here. Why?
I think Anti-Gravity did this to prove a point Coleman made above: flying this 360-degree Anti-Gravity A1 drone is so easy that even a robot can do it.
I guess that's true to some extent, but I think it's safe to say that no person wants a robot flying a drone over their heads. So maybe we'll leave the drone work to our hands and faces and let the robots try to figure out how to empty the dishwasher at a faster than snail's pace.
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