1. Inspection is not a "fist embroidered leg" to see how to deepen the application of quadruped robot industry in the cloud of hard science and technology
In early October this year, Yunshen Technology released the "Jueying X30" quadruped robot, the previous generation of "Jueying X20" as a pioneer in industry applications has been applied in many scenarios, based on many actual combat accumulation and upgrades of the "Jueying X30", in terms of application comprehensive upgrades, including wider ambient temperature applicability, more intelligent and reliable fusion perception, stronger battery life and battery swap methods, more professional on-site interaction and industry operating systems, etc. Among them, for the first time, the operating temperature has been extended to the range of -20°C to 55°C, becoming the industry's first quadruped robot capable of working in extreme environments.
However, some people have raised questions about this move, they believe that expanding the operating temperature range of quadruped robots is very limited for the development of business scenarios, and does not match the actual needs, which is a false proposition, so is this really the case?
According to the relevant data, from 2022 to 2023, there will be 95 days with an average annual temperature of -15°C in the northeast of the mainland, while the number of days with summer temperatures above 30°C in the western region will reach 43 days, of which the highest asphalt temperature in the Gobi, desert and other areas will reach 60°C. In extreme environments, the demand for power investigation and maintenance, emergency rescue and rescue has increased significantly. This also directly leads to the difficulty of manual work, which is more likely to cause accidents.
▍Keep danger away from workers It is the social responsibility of every technology company
In 2022, there were 35 accidents in the power sector across the country, with 89 deaths, of which more than 70% were electrocuted due to staff negligence. Another 7% of inspectors died due to accidental falls from high-altitude work.
In terms of the production and transportation of dangerous chemicals, there were 103 accidents and more than 234 fatalities across the country.
Every accident is a pain that cannot be recovered by a family, which also makes it imperative for robots to replace humans to complete these dangerous jobs. It is the responsibility of every technology company to keep workers away from danger.
With the ability to operate at all temperatures and in all environments, the latest quadruped robot "Jueying X30" in the depths of the cloud is suitable for more complex and dangerous industrial inspection scenarios, and also provides more possibilities for the commercialization of intelligent inspection.
▍Reliability is the lifeline of the inspection platform
Reliability is the core concern in the field of inspection, how to make the robot achieve the best all-round, all-terrain, all-weather, multi-temperature adaptability of movement, avoid dynamic and non-dynamic obstacles, cross steps and stairs, regardless of day, night or rainy day can work normally is the most important customer requirements to be met as a robot platform.
Therefore, Yunshen took the lead in introducing an industrial-grade omnidirectional perception solution, which once again upgraded the combination of perception and motion. A lot of research and verification have been carried out on the actual needs of users such as narrow passages, multi-floors, indoor and outdoor inspections, and dark scenes in the industry, and the quadruped robot of the scheme has been running continuously for nearly a year in a substation in Jiangsu.
In application scenarios such as substation machine rooms, industrial production lines, and hazardous chemical warehouses, there are common environments of upper and lower stairs. In some scenes, the slope of the staircase is designed to be more than 40 degrees. This undoubtedly increases the difficulty of quadruped machines to enter the relevant environment.
Thanks to the accumulation and development of six years in the depths of the clouds, the "Jueying X30" can achieve lightweight, stable and reliable control capabilities for cement stairs, industrial hollow stairs, wooden stairs and composite stairs in different industrial scenarios, avoiding stepping on the air and falling. And it just so happens that this is something that the vast majority of quadruped robot products can't do yet.
In addition, in the state of no light, weak light and strobe, the "Jueying X30" in the deep cloud can also better adapt to the changing environment, and realize the autonomous navigation operation ability in the no-light source, weak light source and strobe environment through the blessing of fusion perception ability.
▍The quadruped robot in the deep cloud has passed the ability verification of complex application scenarios
In recent years, with the increasing complexity of the task on the application side, as well as the increasing enhancement of the function of the leg-footed robot and the improvement and maturity of related industries, the change of task requirements has brought about the structural change of the next-generation robot, and a new round of exploration has been opened around the landing application of leg-footed robots in different industry tracks. The industry generally believes that the application of quadruped robots will promote the general intelligence of robots, is the only way for the development of embodied intelligence, in the current market environment, a single inspection track, in the past 3 years can reach a market size of 10 billion, if you add fire rescue, mine exploration and survey, building surveying and mapping and other fields, the preliminary market can reach at least 100 billion. Under the wave of embodied intelligence, legged robots are expected to become the best carrier for interactive execution in the physical world in the future.
The industry vertical segmentation of quadruped robots is the focus of attention of enterprises in the next stage, especially whether it can provide targeted application value for industry customers, whether it has strong work ability and other attributes. Yunshen Technology has established in-depth cooperative relations with a number of leading enterprises and opened the application of quadruped robots. And provide all-round security during major events and activities.
At the just-concluded 19th Asian Games and Asian Para Games, the Jeeying X20 quadruped robot of Yunshen Technology guarded the power supply safety of the Asian Games Village in the depths of the power pipe corridor 8 meters underground in the Asian Games Village. It is understood that in order for this robot dog to work smoothly underground, the State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Research Institute, Yunshen, Mingyue Software and other units have worked together to provide the intelligent monitoring system of the underground power pipe gallery in the Asian Games Village has been connected to the real-time data of sensors and quadruped robots in the corridor. It can holographically perceive the environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity, harmful gases and smoke concentrations in the corridor, and monitor the cable operation indicators such as sheath circulation, partial discharge, and operating temperature in real time. At the same time, the real-time data will be transmitted back to the "front-line command" of the Asian Games - the intelligent monitoring center of the Asian Games Village. With the help of the Jueying X20 quadruped robot and online monitoring system, the personnel inspection operation is greatly reduced, and the real-time collection of visual data also escorts the power supply of the Asian Paralympic Games.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that the Jeeping X20 quadruped robot has been put on duty, in Xiong'an is located in the Xiongdong - Zhanxi 220 thousand volt line engineering tunnel, the quadruped robot has been shuttled in the tunnel to re-inspect regularly, the line project deploys a lot of cables, if there is a problem, the inspection personnel will enter rashly and dangerously.
During the Spring Festival last year, the State Grid Suzhou Power Supply Company applied an intelligent substation automatic inspection robot to carry out inspections on substations in the jurisdiction, comprehensively eliminate all kinds of defects, guard the power grid safety line, and effectively escort users to use electricity safely during the Spring Festival.
The application of power inspection is a typical landing scenario of quadruped robots, and in scenarios such as fire rescue, building surveying and mapping, and mining, cloud deep quadruped robots have also begun to accelerate their landing exploration.
In the 2022 Gansu National Fire Fighting Exercise, the Jueying X20 quadruped robot equipped with self-organizing network and dual-optical PTZ became the highlight of this exercise. There are two quadruped robots at the scene, one of which is responsible for reconnoitering the temperature, radiant heat intensity, and obstacles at the scene, and obtaining the temperature distribution between personnel and the environment. The other one is equipped with a gas sensor to detect the harmful and toxic gas environment at the scene, providing raw data for the rear processing system, and in emergency and high-risk scenarios, the X20 quadruped robot in the depths of the cloud has successfully completed the fire drill task with excellent performance.
In addition, a branch of Shaanxi Communications Holding Group Co., Ltd. will carry out an emergency drill for highway tunnel traffic accidents in 2023, and the "Jueying X20 Quadruped Fire Reconnaissance Robot" will appear again in the depths of the clouds at the scene.
▍Conclusion and Future:
In the first half of this year, the National Energy Administration issued the "Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Energy Digitalization and Intelligence". The document pointed out that it is necessary to promote the informatization transformation and digital upgrading of the oil and gas pipeline network; Accelerate the application of intelligent production technologies and equipment such as drones and intelligent perception systems in scenarios such as inspection and maintenance of oil and gas pipeline stations. For the quadruped inspection robot, another track may be opened in the future. How to meet the new requirements in the relevant environment is bound to become an important benchmark for customers to purchase quadruped robots.
Jueying X20 was tested in actual combat at a base of Baosteel Co., Ltd
Commercial applications in the industry field are not achieved overnight, but are derived from continuous running-in and development based on on-site feedback from real scenarios. As early as last year, Yunshen signed a technical cooperation with Baosteel to inspect the belt conveyor corridor through the Jueying X20 quadruped robot. After a year, we saw that a base of Baosteel, the raw material incoming center of the Ministry of Transport and the raw material workshop of the ironmaking plant were put on the line for actual combat tests, and the quadruped robot has been able to handle the slippery and muddy road operation of the belt conveyor scattering and stacking materials.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the fourth industrial revolution is coming, and robots as the execution carrier of AI, the functional complexity has increased rapidly. Whoever can go deep into the industry scene, overcome various problems in the actual scene with long-termism, and bring value, will be able to win the broad commercial market for future robot applications.
2. Qu Juntian of Tsinghua University and Li Tiefeng AISY of Zhejiang University: The latest research progress of underwater soft robots
The team of Qu Juntian from Shenzhen International Graduate School of Tsinghua University and Li Tiefeng from Zhejiang University published a review paper in the field of underwater soft robots, which systematically sorted out different types of bionics-based underwater soft robots, and summarized the latest progress of underwater soft robots in intelligent soft materials and their manufacturing technologies, drives, motion modes, energy storage, sensing, control and modeling methods. Finally, the paper discusses the existing challenges and development prospects in this field. The purpose of this review is to provide important guidance for the development and practical application of underwater soft robotics technology in the future.
Fig.1 Underwater soft robotics
The development of underwater robots is of great value for specific tasks such as resource exploration and development in complex marine environments. Traditional rigid underwater robots (AUVs and ROVs) have a rigid shell and are large in size, so they have poor environmental adaptability, are easy to harm marine organisms when they come into contact with them, and are difficult to operate in narrow underwater spaces. In addition, the drive mode of underwater jet propulsion mostly used by traditional rigid robots will cause huge interference to the underwater environment. However, soft robots are machines made of compatible materials (polymers, elastomers, hydrogels, particles) and are suitable for use in marine environments due to their superior deformation ability, environmental adaptability, and simple drive control. It is worth noting that according to the application scenario, soft robots can be divided into underwater soft robots, land soft robots, and aerial soft robots. As long as it can work in the water, it belongs to the underwater soft robot, therefore, the amphibious soft robot is also regarded as an underwater soft robot. Underwater soft robots can solve the performance defects of traditional rigid underwater robots, and have great research prospects.
The development of underwater soft robots integrates the fundamentals of disciplines such as materials science, control science and engineering, computer science and technology, fluid mechanics, and mechanical engineering to explore the latest technologies in the field of robotics. In recent years, as countries around the world have increasingly encouraged multidisciplinary research, many underwater soft robots for different purposes have been researched and developed. By combining with biomimetic technology, robots can make good use of biological compliance to complete tasks safely, efficiently, and accurately in complex marine environments.
In the article, the authors first compare the speed and size of various underwater rigid robots with underwater soft robots (Figure 2), and it is clear that underwater soft robots have a wider speed range and size span than traditional underwater rigid robots.
Fig.2. Velocity and size of various underwater rigid robots (black) and underwater soft robots (blue).
This article summarizes some representative bio-inspired research results of underwater soft robots from 2000 to 2023 in the form of a timeline, and shows the gradual progress of underwater soft robots from simple functions to comprehensive capabilities in the form of a timeline diagram (Figure 3). Underwater soft robots have expanded from the initial single soft actuator function to a series of complex functions such as underwater cruise, operation, environmental perception, and free switching of multiple motion modes. Soft robotics technology and soft material technology are better combined, and soft materials are used to achieve better performance and simpler design and manufacturing structures.
Fig.3 Typical bionic underwater soft robot
(v is measured in m/s and COT is measured in J/Nm.) When any mass, velocity, or energy is unknown, COT cannot be calculated. The diagram also shows the movement modes that each robot can achieve. ）
In the last decade, underwater soft robots have been developed and faced with different challenges, and this article will first review some of the key results in chronological order. From 2012 to 2017, underwater soft robotics technology developed rapidly, with an endless stream of related technological achievements (Figure 4) and the invention of a series of soft materials, actuators, sensors, and manufacturing technologies.
Fig. 4 Representative subsea soft robots in soft materials, drives, sensors, and manufacturing technologies from 2012 to 2017
Until 2017, the technical base of soft materials, drives, sensors and control algorithms had developed to a higher stage. Therefore, researchers are no longer limited to developing soft robots that only mimic the single motion of organisms in nature, but are trying to develop robotic systems that can achieve different modes of movement. In addition, they are trying to develop soft robots that can move autonomously for scenarios such as the deep sea. At the same time, combined with multidisciplinary knowledge such as machine vision, machine learning, CFD, and FEM, the modeling and design of robotic systems are complete, and autonomous operation for a longer period of time is achieved (Figure 5).
Fig.5 Representative underwater soft robots in multi-motion mode, long-endurance automatic force system and other advanced technologies from 2017 to 2022
The author of this article comprehensively investigates the current research progress of scholars at home and abroad in the field of underwater soft robot technology, and reviews the previous research, and puts forward the following four challenges that still need to be overcome:
1) Materials: Research and development of new active soft materials with different mechanical properties, so that underwater soft robots have breakthrough performance in different directions and under underwater pressure, such as pressure resistance, cold resistance and nonlinear motion.
2) Structure: Develop intelligent variable stiffness materials, combine them with rigid structures, realize underwater rigid-flexible coupling robots, improve the load capacity and stiffness of robots, and overcome the problems of low load, poor rigidity and low strength.
3) Control: Research on the bionic intelligent control algorithm, describe the infinite-dimensional distributed parameter model with a finite-dimensional model, and establish an equivalent control model based on the optimization method to achieve accurate real-time control, including the control of form and position.
4) Integration of drive, perception and control: The use of embedded flexible sensors, flexible electronic technology and 3D printing technology to realize the integration of drive, perception and control of soft robots, and improve the intelligent control and perception capabilities of robots, but still face challenges.
In addition, the authors propose the following nine promising future research directions:
1) The research of intelligent soft materials needs to be improved, and the application of underwater soft robots needs to be further explored.
2) Design amphibious soft robots to improve adaptability and applicability.
3) Optimize the shape of the robot and the design of the drive to reduce the resistance of underwater fluids.
4) Develop technologies for the exploration and development of deep-sea resources to overcome deep-sea environmental problems.
5) Develop efficient control algorithms to reduce energy loss and improve movement efficiency.
6) Imitate group behavior to achieve self-organizing group collaboration.
7) Optimize the robot's motion ability to adapt to the complex and dynamic underwater environment.
8) Simplify neutrino communication technology and promote its application.
9) Integrate sensors to provide sensing feedback and achieve closed-loop control.
Paper Information:
Juntian Qu*, Yining Xu, Zhenkun Li, Zhenping Yu, Baijin Mao, Yunfei Wang, Ziqiang Wang, Qigao Fan, Xiang Qian, Min Zhang, Minyi Xu, Bin Liang, Houde Liu1, Xueqian Wang, Xiaohao Wang, Tiefeng Li*,Recent Advances on Underwater Soft Robots, Advanced Intelligent Systems
Source: International Society for Biomimetic Engineering