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New Atlas’s January 10, 2013 roundup named ten noteworthy robots and robotics projects from 2012. They ranged from space and hazardous-site work to logistics, manufacturing, telepresence, competition and art—not contenders in a shared ranking or a current buying guide.
What the 2012 roundup covered
The selection reflects how broad robotics had become: military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) drew substantial attention, while research, industrial, service and artistic projects also featured. New Atlas did not provide common scoring criteria, so the examples are best compared by their intended tasks and environments rather than treated as a definitive order. New Atlas’s January 2013 retrospective called them “ten noteworthy examples from the past year.”
Robots and projects featured
Robonaut 2: work aboard the space station
NASA and General Motors built Robonaut 2 (R2). It arrived at the International Space Station in 2011 and began doing work aboard the station in 2012, according to New Atlas.
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Cheetah: a fast, tethered test
Boston Dynamics’ legged Cheetah was reported to reach 28.3 mph (45.5 km/h) in a test using an off-board hydraulic pump and a boom to keep the robot steady. That is the figure New Atlas reported in 2013, not evidence of untethered field speed.
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LS3: carrying equipment over terrain
The Legged Squad Support System (LS3) was described as able to carry 400 pounds (181 kg) of gear for up to 20 miles (32 km), and to follow a person over difficult terrain. These are New Atlas’s period-reported figures, not independent test results established here.
Fukushima: inspection and response
The roundup described remotely operated robots from Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Hitachi for inspection and rubble removal in the Fukushima disaster response. It also mentioned a radiation-shielded version of Cyberdyne’s HAL exoskeleton. These details describe the retrospective’s account of the period, not present-day deployment.
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Schaft: a DARPA Robotics Challenge entrant
Schaft’s robot appeared in the article in connection with new entrants for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The roundup’s mention places it among the research and challenge-focused projects of the year, rather than a consumer or industrial product comparison.
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For RoboCup’s TeenSize category, New Atlas discussed the University of Bonn’s Team NimbRo platform and a RoboBuilder option, noting the small field of qualifying teams in 2012.
Baxter: automation for smaller manufacturers
Rethink Robotics presented Baxter as a pick-and-place system aimed at smaller manufacturers. Its place in the roundup illustrates a different role from the research prototypes: industrial automation.
MH-2: telepresence from a shoulder
Yamagata University’s MH-2 was a small telepresence robot designed to ride on a person’s shoulder, offering a way to represent someone remotely from that vantage point.
Toyota HSR: retrieving objects in a room
Toyota’s Human Support Robot (HSR) was described as a wheeled prototype that could help a person retrieve objects in a room, with tablet control.
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Kogoro Kurata’s large, mecha-inspired Kuratas project pushed at the category’s edges. New Atlas itself questioned whether it was necessarily a “true robot,” making the distinction between robot, art project and piloted machine part of the story.
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How to read the claims today
This is a historical editorial selection, not a current product directory. The examples differ in purpose, environment, control and maturity: some were research or competition projects, while Baxter was presented as an industrial offering and Kuratas blurred the line between robot and art project. The roundup supplies no shared evaluation method, and its numerical claims should remain attributed to New Atlas rather than presented as independently verified measurements.
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