How far are universal humanoid robots from our lives? Dr. Jiang Zhiyong, head of research and development of 21 humanoid robots in China Electronics, believes that at present, a number of humanoid robots released by domestic enterprises are basically in the same level range, and the gap between them is not large, and there is still a long distance from commercially available general intelligent services. In the future, domestic enterprises should continue to carry out technology accumulation and talent investment in order to achieve "from quantity to quality", so that humanoid robots deploying AI brains can become a right-hand assistant in our lives.
Several companies have released humanoid robots
After ChatGPT was released last year, people saw the dawn of general artificial intelligence. The so-called general artificial intelligence means that artificial intelligence can do many things like people, no longer limited to certain specific tasks. The general AI that these software systems promise is not "general enough" for large models, because they are the equivalent of a human brain, but without a body, unable to perform the physical labor that intelligence engages in. And we can see from daily life: intelligence comes from the brain, but it is also inseparable from the body, and people's movement, perception and other abilities are also part of intelligence.
Therefore, science and technology experts such as Wu Zhaohui, Vice minister of science and technology, and Huang Jenxun, CEO of NVIDIA, predict that the next wave of artificial intelligence research and development is "embodied intelligence." The so-called "embodied intelligence" is the combination of artificial intelligence algorithms with the perception, movement and environmental interaction capabilities of robots, so that robots can complete a variety of tasks in industrial and service application scenarios in a smarter and more natural way.
Humanoid robot appeared in China (International) Small motor Technology Seminar and Exhibition.
The industry generally believes that the preferred carrier to achieve "embodied intelligence" is humanoid robots, because compared with other forms of robots, humanoid robots are more suitable for working in human work and living environments, and can directly use a variety of human-invented tools. On the other hand, they appear more amiable when communicating with humans, and are suitable for life service industries such as housekeeping and health care.
This year, a number of domestic enterprises such as IFlytek, Xopeng Automobile, Fourier Intelligence, and Zhiyuan Robot have released independently developed humanoid robots, moving toward the vision of "embodied intelligence" and general robots. As a central enterprise in Shanghai, China Electric Science 21 also released a prototype in research. The humanoid robot is 1.62 meters tall, weighs 60 kilograms, has 39 degrees of freedom, a maximum load of 5 kilograms on one arm and 10 kilograms on both arms, and a maximum walking speed of 5 km/h. It can walk stably on uneven roads such as slopes, gravel and grass, and also has the dexterous operation ability of holding water cups and carrying boxes.
At the 27th China (International) Small Motor Technology Seminar and Exhibition, the black and white, cool shape of the humanoid robot showed the ability to walk, turn and so on, and the bottom plate was very stable, which attracted the audience to take out their mobile phones to take pictures of it.
The humanoid robot demonstrated the ability to walk, turn and so on.
The problem of stable walking and long endurance is to be overcome
Dr. Jiang Zhiyong introduced that the research and development team deployed a visual recognition and perception system and motion planning algorithm in the robot body, so that it has the ability to identify objects and dynamic obstacle avoidance, which can be applied to intelligent logistics, industrial manufacturing, security patrol, emergency rescue and other scenes in the future. At present, the research and development team has completed the computer algorithm simulation work, and the voice module is under development. In the future, it will be able to understand voice commands issued by humans and complete related tasks. For example, if the user says, "Please get me a glass of water," it will go to the water collection point and bring the glass full of water to the user.
From the perspective of the vision of "embodied intelligence" and universal robots, humanoid robot research and development teams need to continue to tackle technical challenges. "Compared with Boston Dynamics, which has nearly 40 years of technology accumulation, domestic enterprises still have a gap, and they should improve the motion control and balance capabilities of robots as soon as possible." In short, humanoid robots need to walk, walk steadily, and have dexterity." Jiang Zhiyong analysis, the robot to walk steadily in a variety of environments and conditions, quite difficult. For example, when walking on uneven roads such as slopes, keep your balance; When walking under load conditions such as carrying goods, its dynamic model will change, but also to maintain balance; After a long period of operation, the joint of the robot will heat up, which is also a technical problem to be solved.
In addition, the battery life of domestic humanoid robots under full load working conditions is mostly not more than 2 hours. Extending the battery life and solving the problem of joint fever degeneration is one of the important indicators of whether humanoid robots can be commercialized. "The basis for the development of general AI robots is to create a mature humanoid robot platform, otherwise the AI brain no matter how developed, it will not be able to complete the task." Jiang Zhiyong said.
From the perspective of commercial goals in the short term in the future, robot companies should find suitable application scenarios for humanoid robots on the basis of research. The research and development team of 21 institutes of China Electric Science and Technology investigated logistics equipment enterprises for a month and found that humanoid robots are of great use in the sorting and handling links of the logistics industry. At present, these two links mainly rely on manual operation, but the mechanical nature is very strong, and it is impossible to replace the manpower with the traditional mechanical arm. After testing the entire machine, the team believes that the humanoid robot can do both jobs - sorting goods with visual recognition, and then using dexterous hands to move them to the AGV (autonomous guided vehicle).
Subsequently, the 21 Institute of China Electrical Science plans to put humanoid robots into intelligent logistics application scenarios to "liberate" workers from mechanical work.
