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The World Artificial Intelligence Conference opens in Shanghai: I was massaged by a robot

2021-07-08

You read that right, it was a humanoid robot that hit me hard on the back.

Ever since, this "little master" and I became the focus of the audience smoothly (slightly shy to answer).

To be honest, the craftsmanship is not bad, at least the strength is firm.

It's called Walker X, and it made its debut at today's World Artificial Intelligence Conference.

But just to be massaged, it was really unsatisfactory.

What else can it do? This question arises spontaneously in my mind.

So following a crowd of "watchers" at the scene, I decided to continue exploring.

As the saying goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", let's take a look at the walking ability of Walker X first.

The flat ground is too unchallenged, so let's go straight to the uneven ground.

According to reports, its maximum walking speed can reach 3km/h.

Up and down 15cm stairs and climbing 20° slopes are also easy to deal with.

Walker X also showed the unique "Golden Rooster Independence"!

And it won’t fail even if it is interfered by external forces-a stable batch.

There is something more powerful, it can even play chess with you!

Naturally, everyone at the scene amazed:

Huh! What a powerful robot.

But friends who are familiar with the Walker robot know that this is the fourth upgrade iteration of Ubican Technology in 5 years.

In the humanoid robot circle, this upgrade speed can be said to be fast enough.

而且这一次，更快、更稳、更智

Behind all the abilities of Walker X, what kind of skill points do you have?

Let's look at the appearance first.

In order to make Walker X more flexible and stable, UBTECH has lowered the height of the robot by 10cm and reduced its weight by 14kg.

The final height and weight reached 1.30m and 63kg respectively.

Secondly, Walker X integrates six AI technologies in one.

In terms of robot joints, it is equipped with a total of 41 high-performance servo-driven joints, which are faster and have greater torque.

This is also one of the keys to Walker X's flexibility.

But the coordination of the limbs is far from enough. If you want to get closer to humans, you need to "see six directions and listen to all directions."

In terms of visual navigation, Walker X uses U-SLAM.

It is visually based on multi-sensor tightly coupled and optimized three-dimensional stereo vision positioning, with higher positioning accuracy, more stable recognition of dynamic environments, and better real-time performance.

Come and feel how Walker X "sees" the world.

The navigation uses the Coarse-to-fine multi-level planning algorithm.

Simply put, Walker X can automatically select the global optimal path in complex and dynamic scenarios.

In terms of environmental human perception, Walker X's object recognition and detection algorithm based on deep learning can not only know the category of the object, but also detect the spatial pose of the object.

Therefore, as long as it is given a command similar to "Help me unscrew the bottle cap", Walker X can easily complete the task.

Of course, a mature service robot must be able to bear the obligation of "accompanying".

Therefore, emotional interaction is also a "compulsory course" of it.

In this regard, Walker X integrates visual, auditory, tactile, and environmental multi-channel perception to make accurate AI decisions.

In addition, multi-channel non-inductive arousal, natural language understanding, and multiple rounds of voice interaction capabilities make Walker X closer to humans in the process of communicating with people.

Look~ Happy, blinking, it's all written on the face.

△ Winking (•᎑

This iteration speed is very good.

But what you don’t know is that all of this is due to a "Martial Arts Secret Book" by Youbitan Technology:

Systematic and complete software and hardware integrated scientific research platform.

Can't understand its "name"?

It doesn't matter, let me explain in detail.

Generally speaking, it is divided into two parts.

Part 1: Simulation Model The main purpose of this secret book is to let the Walker robot enter a simulated digital world.
Humanoid robot

Its practice begins here, including learning, training, and testing.

This is like AlphaGo back then. It was in this world before its debut, playing chess with itself.

The advantage of this is that it releases the shackles of time and venue.

At the same time, it allows researchers to focus on the development of software algorithms.

The picture below is Walker's "Cultivation Place" day and night.

The second part: The secret of open interface, and then subdivided, there are three levels:

Bottom layer: servo drives and various sensors on the hardware

Middle layer: operating system and algorithm

Upper level: application software

The purpose of this is to customize personalized functions for the robot according to actual application scenarios.
Humanoid robot

But in addition to these three layers, there are three big platforms:

Voice open platform

Visual open platform

Self-developed robot operating system ROSA

Especially ROSA, it is open to universities and scientific research institutions.

For example, the "kung fu on the legs" of the Walker robot is guided by Ubican Technology and Tsinghua University through this platform.

It includes functions such as navigation and path planning, gait control, target recognition and tracking.

And for three consecutive years, he has achieved good results in the Robot Soccer World Cup "Robocup".

And not only Tsinghua University, but also other universities have joined in to add skill points to Walker.

For example, South China University of Technology teaches emotions, and universities with various technical characteristics, such as Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Southern University of Science and Technology, all come to teach the latest robot moves.

For example, robot control, mechatronics, artificial intelligence and other fields.

There is a meaning that everyone gathers firewood and the flames are high.

Although the robotics industry is developing rapidly, it is still in its infancy in general.

Specifically, there is no complete standard and certification system, that is, "the group of dragons has no leader."

In this state, what will happen if standards are established through open operating systems?

Manufacturers will be very happy: "I can produce hardware in a standardized way!"

Programmers will also be excited: "You can use the operating system to develop applications!"

This can be understood as a win-win (win-win):

With the operating system as the core, the entire industrial chain is integrated.

Isn't this similar to what Google and Android do in the mobile phone industry?

Yes, the robot operating system is actually the same as the operating system of mobile phones and PCs.
Humanoid robot

Once there is a market share, the competitive advantage is not generally large.

But to do this, it's really not that easy.

Coincidentally, the Walker robot considered this at the beginning of the project.

It is different from Boston Dynamics Atlas.

This "academic enterprise" focuses on improving the robot's motion performance, and the cost is very high, so it has not been commercialized.

It is also different from the SoftBank Pepper robot.

It focuses on interaction and emotional companionship, but it lacks the ability to solve practical problems and finally has no choice but to stop production.

The kung fu of the Walker robot is learned so that it can be used in the future.

First of all, the legs must be able to adapt to the complex living environment of human beings to be eligible for admission.

Then both hands must be able to operate daily objects, which is the most important housekeeping skill.

Then use the full-body compliant control to ensure the safety of the robot when interacting with people and the environment.

Finally, a wealth of sensors and multi-modal interaction capabilities are used to perceive human needs.

With this ability, Walker robots have entered science and technology exhibition halls, commercial events and variety shows, as an immersive interactive experience, showing future life scenes.

This year, Walker X will be selected as an "intelligent guide instructor" in the China Pavilion at the World Expo starting on October 1.

Now it is trying to go to the airport, bank, hotel to exercise.

In the future, we will go to other people's homes to do housework, and even participate in childcare and elderly care.

In order to allow Walker to enter the human family one day, UBTECH has also led and participated in the formulation of a number of safety standards for the robotics industry.

Don’t worry about privacy. Its cloud computing business complies with the most stringent EU GDPR data protection regulations.

For the next R&D plan, Xiong Youjun, CTO of Ubisoft Technology, can be summarized in 8 words:

Reduce weight, increase speed, increase stability, and increase wisdom.
Humanoid robot

To expand it is:

Weight loss is to allow the robot to "weight loss", the purpose is to reduce energy consumption while increasing safety.

Speeding up is to make the robot "work" at the same speed as a human, including hand speed and foot speed.

Stabilization is to allow the robot to deal with uncertainties, such as adapting to more complex terrain, so as to perform tasks stably.

The purpose of adding intelligence is to allow robots to better understand the world and solve problems, mainly to increase cognitive reasoning and interaction capabilities.

The humanoid robot that can enter the home in the future must be humanoid? Sun Zhengyi, founder of Softbank Group, made this prediction in 2015:

By 2040, the number of robots in the world will exceed the number of humans, reaching about 10 billion.

Then why does it have to be a humanoid robot?

This problem can be viewed from two aspects.

In terms of human emotional needs, compared with other forms, humans have a natural sense of intimacy and trust in humanoid robots.

In terms of adaptability, the living environment of human beings is built around people, and all kinds of objects used in daily life are also built for people to operate by hand.

If robots want to serve humans, they need to actively adapt to the human living environment.

After all, there is no reason for people to change the adaptation to robots? Right?

It is different from industrial robots that focus on performance and efficiency and choose different forms.

But at the same time, humanoid robots are also the most technically difficult robots and require the most investment.

The Walker humanoid robot is used as the "root and trunk" of the product tree to provide nutrients for other products in the "branch" part, and use cutting-edge R&D technology to support the application of other products of the company.

"Branches and leaves" continue to breed and develop in the market, which can feed back the "trunk" to thrive.

Finally, return to Walker X.

If such humanoid robots are really widely used in human families, what function do you look forward to most?