Announcement: Boston Dynamics grows spot developer toolkit.
We’re excited to announce two new efforts that will make our quadruped robotic platform, Spot, a flexible tool for robotic developers.
Since the Spot Early Adopter Program started in late September, customers across the world have had success building software applications and custom payloads on the platform in industries ranging from construction, energy utility, public safety, mining, and entertainment. Joining that group of early adopters today is Adam Savage of Tested. This morning, he released the first video of his “Year with Spot” campaign. Over the course of the year, the entertainer and engineer will develop and deploy custom hardware and software on Spot that demonstrates the flexibility of the platform through a variety of entertaining applications. With the SDK and Spot’s hardware interfaces, developers like Adam’s team at Tested can create custom methods of controlling the robot, integrate sensor information into data analysis tools, and design payloads which expand the capabilities of the base robot platform.
OPEN SOURCING SPOT’S SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KIT
At Boston Dynamics, we want to build on the momentum of these developers. Starting today, the Spot Software Development Kit (SDK) will be publicly available to view on Github, so that interested developers can see what’s available on the platform as soon as possible. The SDK enables a broad range of developers and non-traditional roboticists to communicate with the robot and develop custom applications that enable Spot to do useful tasks across a wide range of industries. From VR control to automated registration of laser-scanning, connecting Spot’s data to cloud work order services, using Edge computing to help Spot semantically understand its environment, and much more, the possibilities of integrations on Spot are many.
Developers will still need to become part of the Early Adopter Program to lease the robot to execute their code, but all interested parties can now view the SDK and existing early adopters can open source their own code. We’ll continue to update the SDK as we add capabilities with new software releases.
ACTUATE, BOSTON DYNAMIC’S FIRST USER CONFERENCE
Now that we’ve fostered this community of developers, we’d like to create an opportunity to bring them together. In addition to open-sourcing our SDK, we’re announcing our first-ever user conference, Actuate. Set to take place May 12-13 in Boston, Massachusetts, the annual event will bring together the global ecosystem of Spot sensor providers, software developers, and end-users for two days of industry presentations, hands-on workshops, and networking geared towards putting Spot to work on sites around the world.
“Spot’s early adopters have had robots in hand and on-site for a few months now, and we’re seeing an early adopter community come together to build solutions on the platform,” said Boston Dynamics VP of Business Development Michael Perry. “There’s no better way to facilitate getting customers the tools they need to create exciting new applications for the robot than connecting the already vibrant and creative community already leveraging Spot.”
Actuate 2020 will be invite-only for existing ecosystem members. Those interested in attending, but not yet early adopters, can fill out the Spot sales form to speak to our team about joining the Early Adopter Program. We hope to make this event more open in the next few years and would be happy to learn more about your interest in joining.
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