The robot dog was on fire again, taking off the web to the streets.
When it was walked out onto the street, a sense of technology came over it. People took pictures one after another, and the real dog also stopped to identify this new partner who was "machine in the machine". The topic of "what robot dogs can do" has also been discussed.
Take the courier, become a guide dog, care for the elderly and children, and even biological companionship... People give a lot of imagination to robot dogs. The surging news reporter found that many of these functions are indeed in research and development or envision.
However, in front of the commercial landing, is the high cost and technical barriers, at present, the robot dog to really enter the lives of ordinary people, there is still a long way to go. But out of the lab, it's already a signal.
Lazy Gospel – Robot Dog Pick Up Courier?
Xiaomi machine dog iron egg The pictures in this article are all provided by the respondents
Iron Egg Cyberdog is Xiaomi's popular robot dog, can run, do left and right rotation, shake, shake hands and other actions, can talk to the owner, can also control the smart device at home, and automatically follow the target in an open environment.
Iron Egg is still in the engineering machine stage, equivalent to an exploratory development platform, targeting geeks, university researchers and avid rice noodles. Huang Changjiang, a software engineer at Xiaomi Robot Labs, said that he hopes to use the open source community to develop with users and overcome problems together.
Hangzhou Unitree is one of the first enterprises to start the research and development of robot dogs, focusing on consumer-grade and industry-level quadruped robots. At present, the robot dog it releases is positioned in the technology coldplay, educational programming and accompaniment, which can accompany users to walk and run.
Compared with traditional wheeled robots, multi-legged robots can overcome complex road environments, including grass, potholed roads, and even up and down stairs, which can be used in multiple scenes.
Many netizens see the situation and call directly, hoping that the robot dog can help to take the courier, which may be able to do as long as the "arm".
As the industry leader of robot dogs, Boston Dynamics lamented that it would install a robotic arm "to the fullest". Although the armed robot dog Spot looks like an ostrich at first glance, it can open doors, deliver water, drag, take out garbage, and pick up things.
Yushu Technology Robot Dog is equipped with a mechanical arm
Yushu Technology has also launched a robotic arm program. Wang Xingxing, founder of Yushu Technology, introduced, "Our robotic arm can be mounted on the industry-level robot dog to complete the behavior of grabbing and opening the door. Compared with the traditional mechanical arm with load capacity, it is more dexterous and larger than the human arm. ”
In addition to installing a robotic arm, a six-legged robot can also solve the problem of grasping.
"Nature is still very powerful, and six-legged creatures like insects are more stable in action, but four-legged ones tend to have higher IQs." Gao Yue, associate professor at the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and her team focused on the development of hexapod robots. Gao Yue described their robot as a "muscular macho man" with strong bearing capacity. The four-legged robot cannot be used if one leg is broken, but the six-legged robot can still remain stable. In addition, after the legs are automatically flipped, they can be used as hands, ensuring balance and holding things at the same time.
The guide dog of the future?
What else can a robot dog do? Some netizens said: "A rope is pulled, and the robot dog is made into a guide dog." ”
Yushu Technology has cooperated with Baidu on a robot dog guide dog, but in Wang Xingxing's view, this aspect of the technology is not mature enough, safety is a major event that needs to be considered, and now the AI setting of the robot dog is not reliable enough, and the blind people's travel safety cannot be handed over to the AI.
Ensuring safety is also Gao Yue's top priority in the development of robots.
In her view, the current focus of robot dog research and development should be on solving dangers, dealing with harsh environments, and solving repetitive actions of people, such as nuclear power plant inspection, fire and disaster relief. After solving these relatively difficult problems, more scenarios are gradually developed.
Gao Yue said: "I think it is more in line with the principle that robot dogs still replace some dirty work, when people are in danger, robots can protect people, or replace people to do dangerous work." ”
Xiaomi Huang Yangtze River's idea coincides with Gao Yue.
In his R&D team's plan, the robot dog can be turned into a more practical "assistant" in the future. They hope that the next step is to solve the energy efficiency ratio of the iron egg, or let it automatically return to the nest to charge. In addition, the iron egg can only avoid obstacles and cross obstacles on specific roads, how to make it walk more naturally and smoothly on all-terrain roads, the team still has to do a lot of work.
Huang Changjiang said that if the iron egg becomes "competent" in the future, it can solve the distribution problem. They also plan to give the iron egg the ability to drag, so that they have basic athletic ability and work ability. "If you do it bigger, you can go to the power plant and patrol the dam."
The functional development of robot dogs is gradual. Wang Xingxing has a clear plan for his own robot dog, and every year he introduces some new technologies to deal with the problem, rather than suddenly adding functions that may still be vague in the definition of technology and products in two or three years. He said: "Sometimes, adding more product features is more radical, not a good thing, it is better to delete some and promote sales by reducing costs." ”
Replace the emotional companionship of dogs?
In Ningde, Fujian Province, digital enthusiast Yun Jie took the iron egg as a birthday gift for her children. Nowadays, the iron egg picks up the little master to come home from school, play with the little master, and live in harmony with the cats in the family, and become a part of the family.
The appearance of the iron egg allowed Yun Jie to see the figurative accompaniment of science and technology. Although the iron egg is not smart enough, not sticky, and in the state of "tool man", Yun Jie said that if the future of robot pets can be popularized, she will choose them that can live forever, and does not want to experience another parting from the life and death of the pet.
In this regard, Huang Changjiang believes that the iron egg machine has 14 kilograms, and it is too early to really enter the family. "If I'm in a hurry to walk into the house, I'm afraid there's a security issue." As for emotional companionship, he said, it is not a top priority, first build up the ability of the robot dog, and then enrich the application.
The team defines the iron egg as "a robot like a dog, an artificial intelligence carrier, rather than replacing a real dog", Huang Changjiang envisions that the future will enter the family, it can act as a housekeeper, can take care of the elderly and children, such as issuing an alarm when the elderly fall, like Iron Man's AI helper Jarvis. Emotional companionship may be a branch of it.
Yushu Technology Robot Dog can turn on the companion function.
For Yushu Technology, adding more AI and emotional interaction elements to the product may be the future direction. In Wang Xingxing's view, in the next one or two years, emotional interaction will not become a selling point in the robot dog industry. "After all, emotions are difficult to define and design, which makes it difficult to define the functional attributes of products."
The intelligence of robots, including human-computer interaction and self-discipline collaboration, is Gao Yue's research direction. At the heart of human-computer interaction, she said, is whether robots know how people look, think and behave. In terms of algorithm design, she once again emphasized security issues, such as how robots assess the state of people and then make some predictions. Among them, emotional interaction is even more difficult.
The team also studies the interaction between real dogs and people. The owner yelled at the real dog, who knew he had made a mistake and ducked under the table. Gao Yue sighed: "The IQ of dogs is still quite high, and it is not easy for robots to reach the level of dogs." ”
She compares the current artificial intelligence technology to a rote child, who cannot accurately grasp common sense things such as human emotions and causal relationships. "Artificial intelligence is still a long way to reach human standards." Gao Yue smiled and said, "I don't think I will be unemployed in my life." ”
The tug-of-war between the cost of technology and retail prices
The industry-grade robot dog has a condescending price, so that it can only be active in the video. Now, more and more technology companies are entering the consumer-level robot dog, and the price has begun to decline, and the ten thousand yuan-level dog makes people "thrilled".
Price and performance determine the popularity of robot dogs.
Wang Xingxing predicted that the decline in retail prices is the overall trend, and in one or two years, everyone will see someone walking a robot dog on the street, which will be a high probability event. "We are probably the only company that sells more than 10,000 yuan a piece and can still make money." He said that since 2013, Yushu has embarked on a cost reduction plan, from tens of thousands of pieces to 16,000 yuan.
Xiaomi used its own ecological chain to make the price of engineering machines fall below the 10,000 yuan mark.
Huang Changjiang introduced that Xiaomi has the advantages of supply chain and smart factory, and also has a technical foundation and production experience. "We want to make sure that the iron egg can be popularized, and if the price is always high, the market will never open."
At the same time, Huang Changjiang also admitted that now the iron egg is indeed burning money, and the follow-up will control the demand, spend the money on the blade, and converge costs from multiple dimensions such as technology, production, and product definition. If mass production can be made, the overall cost can continue to fall.
However, in Gao Yue's view, there is an insurmountable gap between the current technical cost of robot dogs and the market popularization.
She said bluntly that cheap means that robot dogs are like toys, and if you want a stable system, the price cannot come down. "I hope that the robot I developed can really solve some pain points, do dirty work, and be able to carry home."
Gao Yue told reporters that the core of multi-legged robots is that it is not only visual, if you want to achieve human-computer interaction, you must be strongly controlled. The role of force control is to blindfold a person's eyes, tell him that there is a step in front of him, even if he can't see it, he can step on it, and at the same time control the softness of walking, and so on. However, force sensors are very expensive, and once equipped with a force sensor with good performance, the overall price of multi-legged robots is difficult to make concessions.
"This could be a dilemma for business. What to consider is how to balance the relationship between technology and user experience when facing the C-end (individual consumers) and truly have the feeling of a pet dog. Gao Yue said.