Hyundai will use Boston Dynamics robots in order to connect the metaverse with the physical world, according to the presentation made at CES 2022.
We weren’t sure what to anticipate from the pair after Hyundai acquired robot maker Boston Dynamics last year. The automaker’s ideas for cutting-edge robotics technology became a lot more evident in the wake of CES 2022 when it laid out a vision for the metaverse in which robots could be utilized to connect the physical and virtual worlds.
The metaverse, a virtual social environment with an emphasis on online interaction, became popular in 2021 after Facebook changed its name to Meta. Robots will act as “digital twins” to allow you to experience another location by being your eyes and ears in the metaverse. The company gave an example in its statement:
“For example, when a user accesses a digital twin of their home in the metaverse while away from their physical home, they will be able to feed and hug a pet in Korea through the use of an avatar robot.”
Hyundai CES 2022: People will explore Mars with a Boston Dynamics Spot robot
In the video Hyundai presented during its CES 2022 presentation, the company demonstrated how it sees things working.
An adorable little girl and her father are shown exploring Mars in the metaverse, using a Boston Dynamics Spot robot that would actually be on the planet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-BR0CpgliU
To enable the replication of those sensory elements on Earth, the robot could record data such as wind speed in a sandstorm and rock temperature.
Chang Song, the president of Hyundai Motor Group stated that:
“The idea behind Metamobility is that space, time and distance will all become irrelevant. By connecting robots to the metaverse, we will be able to move freely between both the real world and virtual reality. Going one step further from the immersive ‘be there’ proxy experience that the metaverse provides, robots will become an extension of our own physical senses, allowing us to reshape and enrich our daily lives with Metamobility.”
Hyundai doesn’t go into much detail about how these systems function, but it’s suggested that this all takes place on future metaverse platforms without the limitations of current VR headsets. At the moment, their main objective is to assist us to understand how robots will play a part in improving these future metaverse environments.
