Are there developers like boston dynamics in Russia?

Question

Robotics

Hello.
Are there companies in Russia that are developing walking robots at a sufficiently high level?

Answer 1

         "By type" is. The problem lies in the country. Such developments are required to have state support. Not even because of the military theme, but because of the banal funding and science intensity. It should sit on a budget inflated to gigantism. Because it is very expensive to make knots for this in our country and there are few places where you can do it. This is 100% defense industry and those under its wing. And to buy all electronics abroad, which means you need either a lot of money at customs, or a military roof.
         Our main advances in this area have the status of a startup or a small, very narrow LLC that works as a counterparty for some plump Central Research Institute (RTK, for example) and at its leisure develops an arm or knee for such walkers on its own initiative. Actually, this status is just due to the complete backwardness in terms of technological and materiel in this matter. The components and technologies are foreign, expensive and complex, and only the military-industrial complex can also provide funding and production (well, where else are these robots? The pension fund will not pull). Plus and minus give zero. The stability of such companies is testing their luck. Lost (for any reason) the tender for the project - you are sitting without a job, and therefore without money. And finding a customer for technical whistles for tens or even hundreds of millions is not an easy task.
         Another simpler option is small short-lived projects, with the expectation of a civilian consumer. Well, it's all bad here. In the best case, expensive toys for fans and children from 16 years old are obtained, in the worst case, nothing happens and the project is bent even before prototyping.
At the same time, with everything, the maximum of professionalism can be seen in articles on Habré and thematic forums on robotics. Where people, as a hobby, build similar things in the evenings in a simplified version, and write an article instead of a dissertation. Let it go to series? Don't pay off. Who needs it in this form, if you can buy ready-made from China 3-4 times cheaper?
         There is, or rather was, another option - a foreign budget, and accommodation with us. A branch, let's say, or just a subdivision. Now, you understand, the oxygen to such companies was cut off before reaching asphyxia. Nothing can be brought from there, nothing can be taken away from here. Any movement into the realm of high military technology is perceived as an enemy reconnaissance activity and is immediately thwarted by ignorance and a concrete wall of apathy from all parties involved.
         Therefore, all engineers and researchers literate in this industry are invited and departed to work where the most important thing in this work is - return, employer's interest and sane financial support. Evgeniy_lmunfortunately right. In our country, it is difficult for an intelligent engineer or scientist to get a job even in the industry that the state needs. The defense industry is also rotten through and through with our national disease, and all the fodder places where you will be given the green light to fulfill your potential and advance something like that are packed for a generation to come. And where you can do it on your own, you will give 70% of your creative energy to jumping over sticks in your wheels. Or you have to be really a genius, but then they will offer such conditions that no snares will hold you here.
         In other words: we simply do not have the conditions for such activities on the indicated scale. In our country, there is only one customer who can afford such things, and this is the Moscow Region, but it is not very interested and cannot provide the necessary approach to development. And yet it is tightly welded to conservatism. At least invite a group of foreign specialists to lead projects as part of the state defense order. Can you imagine this? I've only seen this in an alternate universe.

Answer 2

And what do you think, given the fact that all smart Russian engineers work in boston dynamics and other similar offices?