Boston Dynamics has equipped its Atlas humanoid with wheels , allowing the robot to rapidly roll across flat terrain while still using its articulated legs to navigate obstacles and uneven surfaces. "The 'experiment' combined classical model-based motor control with whole-body reinforcement learning to maintain dynamic stability across unstructured, real-world terrain," reports The Robot Report. From the report: In addition to learning how to move with wheels for feet, Atlas also performs pirouettes and various aggressive actuation maneuvers. This demonstrates that Atlas can smoothly switch between fast rolling on flat terrain and articulated legged motion over obstacles or irregular surfaces.

[Andy Wu, controls engineer for Atlas at Boston Dynamics] trained the system in sim. The system learned all of the behaviors in sim and executed them in real life, with surprising accuracy, according to Wu.…