Lifeboat Foundation

Robot enthusiasts were sending up cheers this month to the team advancing Atlas into an even more human-like walker through obstacles including a bunch of cinder blocks and a balance beam. They have turned Atlas into the very credible hulk, who wins the spotlight with its display of walking, which was recorded May 1.

The video is “IHMC Atlas Autonomous Path Planning Across Narrow Terrain.” Don’t miss the key word “narrow.” This is why the walk is being eyed as a big deal.

Narrow terrain is difficult due to the need to do tricky cross-over steps, tricky, in that there is limited range of motion in the hip joint, said the video notes. There was “a small polygon of support when one foot is directly in front of the other.”