Handle

A two-wheeled balancing robot with a tall body including a jointed extendable arm with a pattern of red suction cups on the end.
Handle combines legs and wheels. Photo: Boston Dynamics

Handle is a mobile robot that combines the rough-terrain capability of legs with the efficiency of wheels. It is designed for material-handling applications, and features a manipulator arm capable of picking up heavy boxes. It has also a swinging "tail" that helps it balance and move dynamically in tight spaces.

Creator

Boston Dynamics

Year
2019
Country
United States đŸ‡ș🇾
Categories
Features
Handle moving boxes at a warehouse. Video: Boston Dynamics

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Did you know?

Famous for its walking robots, Boston Dynamics surprised the world when it introduced a robot with wheels.

A two-wheeled robot with a long body, and a jointed extendable arm ending in a pad of red suction cups picks up a box from a pallet of many boxes.
Handle loves boxes. Photo: Boston Dynamics

History

Boston Dynamics introduced the first version of Handle in early 2017, describing it as an R&D robot. The design featured two wheels instead of feet, and the robot could travel at 15 km/h (9 mph) and jump 1.2 meter (4 feet) vertically. The robot used electric power to operate both electric and hydraulic actuators, and it relied on the same dynamics, balance, and mobile manipulation principles found in the legged robots built by Boston Dynamics. In April 2019, the company unveiled a new version of Handle. The new robot is designed as a mobile manipulation platform for logistics applications, and it can pick up heavy loads while occupying a small footprint, allowing it to maneuver in tight spaces. Handle can autonomously assemble and disassemble pallets and handling boxes in a warehouse. Boston Dynamics says wheels increase the range that the robot can cover on a battery charge, compared to traditional bipedal robot locomotion, and a wheeled system also helps reduce the number of degrees of freedom, making the robot less complex than some of the quadruped and biped robots that preceded it.

A two wheeled robot balances while holding a package between two balled robotic arms.
The initial version of the robot had a torso and two arms. Photo: Boston Dynamics

Specs

Overview

Autonomously performs mixed SKU pallet building and depalletizing after initialization and localizing against the pallets. On-board vision system tracks marked pallets for navigation and finds individual boxes for grasping and placing. When placing a box onto a pallet, capable of using force control to nestle each box up against its neighbors. Gripper: vacuum. Payload capacity: up to 15 kg (33 lb). Maximum reach: 2.8 meters (9.2 ft). Works with pallets that are 1.2 m deep and 1.7 m tall (48 inches deep and 68 inches tall).

Status

Inactive

Year

2019

Website
Height
200 cm
Weight
150 kg
Sensors

Depth cameras

Actuators

Electric motors

Degrees of Freedom (DoF)
10
Software

Custom OS and control

Power

On-board battery