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Spot

Spot is an agile, autonomous robot with four hydraulic legs and a sensor head that is able to move across rough terrain while maintaining its balance. The robot is designed by Boston Dynamics, the robotics company purchased by Google in 2013. Spot is a smaller version of Boston Dynamics's well known BigDog, a quadrupedal robot designed to navigate rough terrain. Compared to the BigDog which weighs 240 lbs, Spot weighs 160 lbs.

Spot is incredibly hard to knock off his feet; even a strong kick to the side isn’t enough to take him down. Like a real dog on a slipper surface, Spot scrambles, but regains his postures very quickly. Like his big brother, Spot can handle the rough terrain and slopes with ease. Climbing stairs is not a problem either. In some ways, Spot looks more like an animal than a machine.

According to Boston Dynamics, Spot could eventually help with search and rescue, mapping, or accessing disaster zones.

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  • Part of Speech: proper noun
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  • Industry/Domain: Robots
  • Category: Handling
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