Platform hub

Boston Dynamics

Maker of the Spot quadruped, the Stretch warehouse robot and the electric Atlas humanoid. Spot has a Python SDK under a hardware-restricted licence and a community ROS 2 driver.

Organisation	Boston Dynamics, Inc. (Waltham, Massachusetts; 80% owned by Hyundai Motor Group since June 2021)
Website	bostondynamics.com/
Licensing	Robot software proprietary; Spot SDK under the Boston Dynamics Software Development Kit License (20191101-BDSDK-SL), limited to Boston Dynamics products and software simulators; community spot_ros2 under MIT and BSD-3-Clause
Pricing	Spot, Stretch and Atlas sold through Boston Dynamics sales; no public prices at the time of writing
Updated	14 Nov 2026

Products and offerings #

Name	Kind	Positioning
Spot About 90 minutes average runtime according to Boston Dynamics; optional Spot Arm	quadruped	12-DoF quadruped (3 per leg), payload up to 20.43 kg, 33.8 kg with battery, 1.6 m/s maximum speed
Atlas Production version shown at CES in January 2026; select early adopters only	humanoid	56-DoF electric humanoid, 50 kg instantaneous and 30 kg sustained payload, 2.3 m reach, 90 kg
Stretch	amr	Mobile case-handling robot for warehouses and trucks
Spot SDK Version 5.2.0 at the time of writing	library	Python client library and protocol definitions for controlling Spot and building payloads
Orbit	service	Fleet, site and inspection-data management software for Spot

Who they are

This hub is for teams that buy Spot for inspection or research, and for anyone following the Atlas humanoid. Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 when Marc Raibert spun out of the MIT Leg Lab, according to the company’s about page. Hyundai Motor Group completed its purchase from SoftBank on 21 June 2021 and holds 80%, with a SoftBank affiliate keeping 20%, according to Hyundai. The company sells three robots: Spot, a quadruped for inspection and data capture, Stretch for handling boxes in warehouses, and Atlas.

Atlas needs a careful label. The production version was shown at CES in January 2026, and the first deployments went to Hyundai and Google DeepMind, according to Engadget. The Atlas product page lists 56 DoF, 50 kg instantaneous and 30 kg sustained payload, 2.3 m reach and 90 kg mass, and says the company is starting with “a select number of early adopters”. It is a product in early deployment, not one you can order off a price list.

Tooling and APIs

Spot (12-DoF quadruped, 3 joints per leg) carries up to 20.43 kg and weighs 33.8 kg with its battery, with a 1.6 m/s maximum speed and about 90 minutes average runtime, according to the Spot product page. The joint count comes from the SDK documentation, which names each leg’s hip x, hip y and knee joints. The Spot Arm adds manipulation. The robot reference lists Spot with other legged robots.

The Spot SDK, version 5.2.0 at the time of writing, has three parts: a Python client library, payload developer documentation for mounting hardware, and protocol definitions so that clients in other languages can talk to the robot. Most applications command Spot through high-level services such as robot commands, Autowalk missions and GraphNav navigation. Low-level control exists as the Joint Control API, which is in beta and needs a special-permissions licence on the robot. Orbit is the fleet and site management product layered on top.

ROS 2 support is community-maintained. spot_ros2, developed by the RAI Institute with MASKOR at FH Aachen, targets ROS 2 Humble on Ubuntu 22.04 for amd64 and arm64. Its README says it corresponds to Spot SDK 5.0.1. That is behind the current SDK release, and the driver does not yet target Jazzy or Lyrical. It is MIT-licensed, with BSD-3-Clause for the parts derived from the ROS 1 driver.

Pricing is by quote. The product pages offer contact forms and no prices.

Pain points: SDK, robot software and driver versions must line up. Some features need licence keys or app tokens issued by Boston Dynamics. Network setup for a robot that moves between Wi-Fi zones takes planning.

Migration notes

Quaternions. The Spot API stores rotations as (w, x, y, z), according to the geometry and frames documentation. ROS messages use (x, y, z, w). spot_ros2 converts for you, but your own SDK code must reorder.
Frames. Spot’s inertial frames are odom (kinematic odometry from boot) and vision (odometry fused with visual tracking). body sits at the geometric centre of the hips with x forward. These map onto REP 105 odom and base_link. Both inertial frames start where the robot boots, so neither is a global map frame. That has to come from your own localisation, and the SLAM and mapping topic covers the options.
Naming. Spot transforms are written vision_tform_body, meaning the pose of body expressed in vision. In tf2 terms that is parent vision, child body.
From other quadrupeds. If you come from a Unitree EDU robot with open low-level joint access, expect to work through Spot’s high-level commands unless you obtain the Joint Control API licence.

Watch for

Hardware-restricted licence. The SDK licence allows modification and redistribution, but only for use with Boston Dynamics products or software simulators. Use with any other hardware is prohibited, and the SDK must not be merged into software in a way that puts it under different terms. Keep it out of GPL code.
Export control. The licence requires compliance with export control laws. Check with Boston Dynamics before moving a robot or SDK-based product across borders.
Driver lag. spot_ros2 tracks an older SDK and an older ROS distribution. Plan for Humble on Ubuntu 22.04, or budget time to port it.
Maker figures. Payload, speed and runtime are Boston Dynamics’ numbers and vary with load, terrain and temperature. Measure on your own route.