BOSTON (dpa-AFX) - The world's most famous humanoid robot is getting an upgrade. The US company Boston Robotics presented a new version of its Atlas model, which now has electric drives instead of hydraulics in its mechanical arms and legs. This has made Atlas stronger, more flexible and more agile, emphasized Boston Dynamics at the presentation of the new robot on Wednesday. The South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai, to which the company now belongs, wants to use the machine in production on a trial basis.

The various Atlas generations have repeatedly caused a stir in recent years. From time to time, Boston Dynamics published videos in which the robots ran, jumped and danced. The new version is much slimmer, stands out with a ring light head and can rotate many joints through 360 degrees. This allows Atlas to make movements that humans are not capable of. The aim is for the machine to move as efficiently as possible in order to perform its tasks, emphasized Boston Dynamics. They do not want to be slowed down by the limitations of a human body.

In a fresh montage to mark the departure of the old Atlas model, another reason why electric motors are superior became clear: You can see hydraulic fluid occasionally squirting out of the joints during crashes.

Boston Dynamics was a pioneer in humanoid robots with Atlas, and there are now several companies that are developing such machines and want to bring them into everyday life. In January, for example, the start-up Figure agreed with BMW to supply robots for use in car production in the US state of South Carolina. Mercedes wants to test robots from Apptronik in production. At electric car manufacturer Tesla, tech billionaire Elon Musk is having a robot called Optimus developed and says it could eventually become more important than vehicle production./so/DP/stk