Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon or the space company Blue Origin, had the opportunity to live the fantasy of many: controlling the giant Korean robot Method-2 from its cockpit.
This Sunday, March 19, 2017, during Amazon’s annual robotics conference, the company’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, made a spectacle of entering the cockpit of a giant robot four meters high designed by the Korean company Hankook Mirae Technology. This private conference is called MARS for Machine learning, home Automation, Robotics and Space exploration.
As The Verge points out, this giant robot, dubbed Method-2, was introduced last December and is the subject of speculation that it is fake. His true existence is therefore now proven even if his abilities are still quite vague. Indeed, if Jeff Bezos had fun controlling the arms of the robot, we did not see him walking and it was attached to the ceiling.
@JeffBezos “Why do I feel so much like #sigourneyweaver ? » @amazon #MARS2017 #openpodbaydoors pic.twitter.com/HRRzmQtZbh
— Caleb Harper (@calebgrowsfood) March 20, 2017
This Method-2, which weighs 1.6 tons, is currently being developed to perform certain tasks, including the dismantling and cleaning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant which was damaged in 2011. » A modified version of this robot is already in the works and is being developed to help restore the Fukushima rugged area. I can’t say more at the moment » explained last January the designer of the machine, Vitaly Bulgarov.
If it is still far from being operational as evidenced in particular by the absence of demonstration videos for manipulating objects, but we are nevertheless entitled to rejoice that such a machine is indeed in the process of development if its future use concerns manipulations and operations on rough terrain, where man is currently ineffective.