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Unitree's new $100,000 industrial robot gives us an insight into the near future of robots in the workplace.
(www.inceptivemind.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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Futurology
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Unitree has a much cheaper ($2,300) consumer version of this quadruped robot - the Unitree Go2. At first examination, the disparity in prices might seem quite shocking. But consider, once social security and health costs are factored in, the industrial robot comes in at only 18 months' pay for an average worker. It's "free" work for robot employers after that. Looking at it that way, it starts to seem much more reasonably priced.
Every interaction of these quadruped robots makes them more capable. With the right human supervision, a team of these robots could do the work of several people. It's interesting to wonder what the B3, and B4 versions will be capable of.
Link to the product page
I imagine in some applications this is a godsend. The US military was talking about using quadrupedal robots as pack mules, and that makes a world of sense. However, I'd guess they're not very smart and tend to damage anything that gets caught up in them as per usual industrial robots. In a controlled environment wheeled robots are probably cheaper too, so that limits the applicability a bit.