Google has acquired Boston Dynamics, a company that specializes in the production of military-grade robots.

No news yet as to what the search giant plans on doing with Boston Dynamic, but with Andy Rubin heading Google’s robotics arm, we may soon be seeing Google bots deployed in war, doing housework, fighting crime on the streets, or babysitting your kids.

Looking at the other side of the coin, this acquisition could prove to be beneficial for Boston Dynamics, as Google could greatly help them in further developing their robots such as BigDog, a quadruped robot designed to explore rough terrains; Petman, an anthropomorphic robot that tests equipment; and Cheetah, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded project involving the fastest-legged robot in the world.

Though Boston Dynamics has previously provided research robots for the Pentagon, we cannot expect Google to deploy military robots anytime soon, as that is not the company’s focus.  It will, however, honor Boston Dynamics’ existing military contracts.

Envy-worthy robot projects

So if not military robots, what could Google possibly offer in the field of robotics?  Below are some robots in development that could inspire Google in its robotic quest.

Humanoid robots

These types of robots have the agility of humans, just like Valkyrie.  Valkyrie is a robot being developed by the NASA Johnson Space Center which has the ability to perform a variety of dynamic, dexterous, and perception-intensive tasks.  NASA plans to deploy Valkyrie in space missions alongside astronauts.

Robots for hazardous operations

Tactical Hazardous Operations Robot or THOR is a robot being developed by Virginia Tech aimed to help in dangerous situations.  The Virginia Tech team plans to emphasize hardware resilience and robot autonomy, coupled with intuitive operation in robots such as THOR so that they can perform tasks on their own.   Great for bomb diffusing or scouting hazardous or radioactive places.

Intelligent robot

Japan’s Schaft Robotics is working on integrating its existing HRP-2 robot with an “Intelligent Robot Kernel” that combines software modules for recognition, planning, motion generation, motion control, and the user interface.  Add natural language to the equation and you can use these robots to replace rude people at help desks.

Real-life Robocops

These are just some ideas as to how Google can approach the field of robotics, but there are other areas to explore such as crime fighting robots and robots that can assist in the care of our elders.

Check out : Real-life Robocops enhancing safety and security

One such robocop is Knightscope’s K5 Autonomous Data Machine, a 5-foot-tall, 300-pound robot designed to stand guard in the wee hours of the night, leaving the strategic work of crimefighting to the authorities.

The K5 uses a combination of autonomy and predictive analytics to provide a commanding but friendly physical presence, whilst gathering important real-time, on-site data from whatever it’s supposed to be guarding.

It’s equipped with all the necessary security mod-cons, including a video camera, thermal imaging sensors, a laser range finder, radar, air quality sensors, a microphone, GPS, a night-vision camera, and biological, chemical and radiation detection systems.

“Data collected through these sensors is processed through our predictive analytics engine, combined with existing business, government and crowd-sourced social data sets, and subsequently assigned an alert level that determines when the community and the authorities should be notified of a concern,” states Knightscope.

The K5 robots are intended to be deployed in “schools, shopping centers, hotels, auto dealerships, stadiums, casinos, law enforcement agencies, seaports, and airports.” We’ve no idea how much one of these K5 units might cost, but they’re intended for a countrywide rollout.