Boston Dynamics SpotMini aka Metalhead
Story-line
Black mirror episode Metalhead takes you to a post apocalyptic world where automation has overcome humanity. The entire episode is shot in Black and White — giving it a grim, vintage and a willow look. This BnW portrayal gives a better understanding and a feel about the protagonists’ facial expressions and emotions at the same time magnifying them.
The opening scene starts with three minor level thieves travelling in a car across a deserted Dartmoor type area giving a “Hound of the Baskervilles” vibe. The group of thieves include of two men and a woman named Bella, apparently trying to steal a package with a medicinal value from an abandoned warehouse. This package is going to save Bella’s sister’s husband who’s in a death bed. Ostensibly this medicine is going to delay his death a little bit longer.
One man stays behind and hacks a dumped vehicle outside the warehouse, while the other man and Bella go inside to retrieve the package number 95-DY42. The inside of the warehouse bear resemblance to an Amazon warehouse.
Finally the desired package meets Bella’s eye. Her companion takes a ladder and climbs it to the top of the necessary shelf. There it is ! The package ready to be taken. So he lifts the package. As soon as he lifts the package there is a metallic robot resting beneath it. It looks folded down but the lifting of the package has activated it. It explodes a bomb spreading tiny shrapnels across the area. These are tracking devices which penetrates the skin of Bella and the man, ultimately being accomplices to the Robot in a future chase down. This robot looks like the 4 legged dog type quadruped robot — SpotMini developed in the real world by Boston Dynamics. I’m going to refer this quadruped robot as “Dog” here onwards. The dog has 4 limbs 3 of them have 5 degrees of freedom robotic arm each. One of the front limbs has more degrees of freedom enabling it to grab an object of choice. Here in default this robotic arm consists of a gun.
Dog shoots the man inside the warehouse and starts chasing other 2 across the deserted land. The second man also dies at the hand of the dog, shot to death by a bullet through his head. Bella is the only one that is left, Rest of the episode displays a game of survival for the protagonist Bella.
This episode succeeds in terrifying the viewer out of his seat by showing this quadruped robot’s abilities such as 3-D vision apparently by a LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) Sensor, ability to unlock doors by hacking, driving a vehicle, getting powered by solar power, hacking to nearby radio signals, having an extremely sensitive vision and a hearing system. The terrifying part is all these technological dexterity converges down to one single goal — spreading evil.
In a particular scene the Dog gets stuck inside a vehicle so he breaks his own robotic arm connected to the gun and manages to loco-mote in 3 legged posture in a balanced way. In another scene robot goes inside a house following Bella incorporating a knife instead of his lost arm. Finally Bella excels in destroying the dog by spraying a bucket of paint across the Dog’s visual system altering it’s vision. Then She shoots the Dog by a shotgun after luring it to a to an open area by a distractive music. As always this Black Mirror episode succeeds in showing a futuristic dark side of technology. This time Robotics.
Robotic Arm types and Inverse Kinematics
There are mainly 6 types of robotic arm geometries around the world. They are Polar, Cylindrical, Cartesian, SCARA (Selective Compliance Articulated Robotic Arm) , Parallel Link Arm and Articulated (Jointed) arm. The arm used in the Dog is an articulated type robotic arm. An inverse kinematics algorithm is incorporated to determine the arm’s joint angles for a given end-effector position. The joints and the end effectors are actuated by motors controlled by a motor controlling algorithm.
Boston Dynamics Weird and Remarkable Family of Robots
Quadruped robots are not a fiction that we can only see in a Black Mirror episode, they are real. There’s a whole family of quadruped robots. Also there is a humanoid robot and some mobile robots in this family. They are ,
SpotMini the robot similar to Dog aka Metalhead
The SpotMini is 0.84m in height and with a weight of 30kg. And it can carry a payload of 14 kg. And when talking about how it get energized, It is powered by a battery which can go on for about 90 minutes from a single charge, evidently as shown in the Black Mirror episode, this battery can be developed so that it can be powered by solar power in the future. A special feature of this robot is — it is very quiet with a minimum amount of noise. All actuation of this robot is electric and also it has a 3D vision system. This robot consists of stereo cameras, depth cameras, an IMU ( Inertial Measurement Unit), and position/force sensors in the limbs, helping with navigation and mobile manipulation.The SpotMini overall has 17 joints and has the same mobility of its larger counterpart, Spot/BigDog, but has a 5 degree-of-freedom arm and upgraded perception sensors, adding the ability to pick up and handle objects. Here is a glimpse of the SpotMini robot’s capabilities which is developed by one of the prominent robotics companies in the world, Boston Dynamics.
Ethics, Issac Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics and Future
These 3 rules of robotics by Issac Asimov are considered as the foundation of robotics.
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
It is with utmost importance that it should be considered to protect any form of life. An innovation shouldn’t be made if it harms life. If future innovators and policy makers would consider and weigh in the ethical dilemma of making robots that causes destruction to human life, and always obey Issac Asimov’s rules in programming and manufacturing the robot, the world will be a better place without fear for the robots. If not, with the growth of technology it’s very much likely that a war between artificial intelligence and human life may occur in the future. Another ethical dilemma in this is replacing human workers by robots in industries. Even though this doesn’t directly harm human life, there’s always a percentage of unemployment in the human population which can destroy those families. A clear silver lining separating good and bad cannot be seen in this area which can be speculated as a tremendously grey subject. But my conclusion is that as a human race we should evolve with the technology at the same time protecting our ethics and the value for any form of life.
