By Evan Ackerman -
The payload of a robot is a well-defined number that usually refers to how much mass its actuators or mobility system can comfortably support. The payload of a human works in a similar way, except that sometimes we can cheat, by offloading the mass of an object to the ground, and moving it purely by overcoming friction and shoving it along. For very heavy objects, doing this involves using the weight and stability of our whole bodies as well as our muscles, and robots are learning to do this, too.
READ MORE ON IEEE|SPECTRUM
