The facial details are close to real people, and this bionic robot company is out of the circle!

Finance Associated Press

2024-05-11 14:43Published on the official account of Cailianpress, a subsidiary of Shanghai Poster Industry Group

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" on May 11 (Reporter Zeng Le, Intern Reporter Ren Siying) Recently, a video about "domestic bionic robots have begun mass production" has been "out of the circle" on the Internet. The realism of the bionic humanoid robot in the video made many netizens call it "horror" in the relevant comment area.

The facial details are close to real people, and this bionic robot company is out of the circle!

Figure: Bionic humanoid robot of EX Robotics products; Screenshot of the video

The reporter of "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" learned that the bionic humanoid robot in the above video is from Dalian Tiais Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as: EX robot). Founded in July 2013 in Dalian, Liaoning Province, the company is a listed company on the New Third Board, mainly engaged in the research and development, production, sales and service of intelligent bionic humanoid robots.

At present, the "humanoid" robot is in full swing, but the EX robot is "out of the circle" with a realistic "human face". Recently, Li Boyang, CEO of EX Robot, accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, sharing more stories behind the bionic humanoid robot.

According to incomplete statistics, up to now, dozens of domestic companies have launched humanoid or bionic robots. Among them, most humanoid robot companies mainly focus on bipedal movement and other related products focusing on sports scenarios.

Unlike other companies that focus on "humanoid" robots, EX Robotics focuses on "face" robots. Bionic humanoid robots become its core products. "In terms of core technology, we are more distinctive about the intelligent expression of the robot and the dexterous hand of the robot; From the perspective of software, the algorithm is a multi-modal large model with emotion and perception ability, as well as intelligent decision-making, as well as voice, expression, action and other interaction capabilities similar to people. EX Robotics CEO Li Boyang said.

According to Li Boyang, the company's bionic humanoid robot has entered the mass production stage. "Our robots can be customized and developed, as well as standardized mass production products, and can be put into the market for mass application and replication in multiple scenarios. At present, the entire production line is still in the process of construction, and after it is put into production, it can realize the process from mass production to real-time delivery. ”

At present, EX Robot has a total of more than 200 bionic humanoid robots, and this year it aims to mass produce more than 500 bionic humanoid robots. The Company's main application scenarios include exhibitions, unmanned retail, children's education, elderly care, etc., which have been applied to culture, tourism, art, history, education and other fields.

"Our existing robots have been applied to science and technology exhibition halls, tourist attractions, commercial blocks and immersive interactive experience projects, such as: bionic humanoid robots based on the restoration of ancient sages such as Li Bai and Du Fu, as well as bionic humanoid robots in other research and education NPC scenes." Li Boyang said.

According to the data, EX Robotics began to set up a research and development team in 2009 and was officially established in 2013. As the CEO of the company, Li Boyang graduated from Waseda University with a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence in 2010.

"The core team members of our company are all from Liaoning, and they are also international students who have studied in Japan together before." According to Li Boyang's recollection: "We have always wanted to lay out the product development of robots, and we hit it off and started this matter." In fact, we were already doing a lot of things together before we formed the company's R&D team. "Up to now, the EX robot team has more than 200 people, more than half of whom are R&D team members.

From the perspective of industry-related policies, among them, in January this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other 7 departments jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Innovation and Development of Future Industries" and mentioned that the future high-end equipment will be strengthened, and humanoid robots, quantum computers and other products will be broken through.

In November 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) clearly pointed out in the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots" that humanoid robots integrating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, and new materials are expected to become disruptive products after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles, which will profoundly change human production and lifestyle, and reshape the global industrial development pattern.

In addition, according to the "Humanoid Robot Industry Research Report" released at the first Chinese Humanoid Robot Industry Conference in April this year, the market size of Chinese humanoid robots is about 2.76 billion yuan in 2024, 10.471 billion yuan in 2026, 75 billion yuan by 2029, accounting for 32.7% of the world total, and 300 billion yuan by 2035.

It should be noted that there are still some unsolved problems in the current development of humanoid robots. Among them, some industry insiders told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that "the cycle of action control of robot large models is still too long, unable to achieve real-time response, and requires a lot of computing power support." However, the training of the algorithm requires a large amount of real data of robots, and there is a lack of high-quality data that can actually be used to train robots to learn to perform new tasks and new skills. ”

On the whole, with the continuous development of EX robots and other related enterprises, the picture of humanoid robots brought by it is slowly unfolding to people.

▍The following is a transcript of the interview, and the content has been deleted:

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: Why are others doing "humanoid" robots, but you focus on bionic humanoid robots with "human faces"?

Li Boyang: Humanoid robot is a relatively large concept, and most humanoid robot companies do more of the bipedal plate. We mainly lay out the direction above the waist, and the core product is the bionic humanoid robot.

In terms of core technology, we are more distinctive about the intelligent expression of the robot and the dexterous hand of the robot; From the perspective of software, the algorithm is a multi-modal large model with emotion and perception ability, as well as intelligent decision-making, as well as voice, expression, action and other interaction capabilities similar to people.

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily": We see that many humanoid robot companies are making efforts to produce products below the waist, and there are very few products above the waist, is it because it is more difficult to develop humanoid robots above the waist?

Li Boyang: We don't dare to say that we are more difficult than others, but humanoid robots above the waist may have more factors to consider. Below the waist is mainly to deal with the problem of balance control, so most of the domestic teams are mainly from the field of mechanical automation; And above the waist is more related to the intelligent decision-making combined with AI.

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily": During the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum, we saw that the bionic humanoid robot displayed by EX Robot can communicate with real people, is this a feedback based on a large model?

Li Boyang: Yes. Many of today's large-scale model applications are text-only. Our application is to integrate the generation of voice, emotion, action, and expression, and combine it with perception ability, so that it can better integrate the understanding of content, emotion, and environment in the process of dialogue with people.

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily": Is the large model currently independently developed?

Li Boyang: Most of them are independently developed. At present, we have the following solutions: First, our self-developed multimodal perception model will focus more on emotional perception and feedback. At the same time, in terms of expression and action generation, hardware will be combined to make relevant body movements and other capabilities, which can generate a more complete feedback.

In addition to the self-developed large models, we have also cooperated with the Microsoft team on large models. Recently, EX Robotics has also reached a strategic cooperation with iFLYTEK to connect with the Xinghuo model to further promote the development of the field of human-computer interaction.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: So it can be understood that according to different large models, bionic humanoid robots can be applied to various application scenarios?

Li Boyang: Yes. Because some large models must be connected to the Internet before they can be used, and some large models can be deployed locally. At the same time, we have developed the relevant operating system for the robot hardware we build. In other words, it is similar to a mobile phone or computer, and you can use a variety of software.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: What is the company's order situation?

Li Boyang: At present, we have the following sections: the first is for the science and technology exhibition hall. Since this year, there have been more such orders. It is expected that there will be more than five related orders for more than five pavilions this year, and some orders are scheduled for next year. There are about dozens to hundreds of bionic humanoid robots in each exhibition hall.

It is also used in the field of education and commercial exhibitions. We have two related new bionic humanoid robots that are about to go into production. At present, these two sectors have also signed some strategic cooperation agreements and demand intentions, involving a large number of orders, and the annual output of 500 units may not be able to meet.

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily": At present, the bionic humanoid robot displayed by EX Robot looks close to a real person. Will you consider making robots more human-like in the future?

Li Boyang: It is not technically difficult to completely cover the robot with bionic skin, and we have already laid out the relevant layout. But at present, what we show more is a robot with a mecha and mechanical style, and we hope that everyone will still start from the perspective of a robot, and it may be easier to tolerate some of the shortcomings of the product.

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily": Everyone is also more concerned, for bionic humanoid robots, how to improve the "uncanny valley effect"?

Li Boyang: I think the term "uncanny valley effect" came around too early, it's a concept that emerged a few decades ago. At that time, there may not be a few robots, so it is understandable that everyone feels horrified about this matter. Nowadays, with the development of industry and technology, people's tolerance and acceptance are higher, which also gives us more room for development.

At the same time, we need to break through the so-called "uncanny valley effect", which can be started from two perspectives: one is the appearance of robots, which is a process that is constantly approaching people; Second, after the robot is combined with a large model, it has a variety of reactions, interactive capabilities, and the ability to react, which is constantly improving.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: What is the company's patent situation at present? How many are the approximate numbers? What are the main focuses?

Li Boyang: At present, we have more than 150 core intellectual property rights, including invention patents, utility model patents, software copyrights, etc. Among them, bionic skin, intelligent bionic humanoid robots, etc., are our invention patents. In the future, we will work with more universities and research institutes to transform relevant scientific research achievements.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: What will be the company's R&D focus in the next 1-2 years?

Li Boyang: In terms of the movement and activity capabilities of bionic humanoid robots, we hope to combine the characteristics of bipedal humanoid robots, so as to focus on improving the movement and expression capabilities of bionic humanoid robots, as well as continue to improve relevant intelligent parts and broaden their application scenarios.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: How will it be compatible with the advantages of coupling humanoid robots below the waist in the future? Collaboration or in-house?

Li Boyang: We will consider the combination of cooperation and self-development. For a long time, many of our R&D directions have actually been a combination of cooperation and self-research. Because if you don't have a self-developed part, you can't find many problems.

In fact, we plan to make an initial attempt in the second half of this year, when we will see what the effect will be.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: In your opinion, what is the current status of the development of humanoid robots in China? Among them, how big is the market space for bionic humanoid robots? What are the possible trends in the future?

Li Boyang: There is no doubt that the market demand for humanoid robots will be very large in the future. However, at present, from the perspective of industrial development, it has not yet entered a fully mature outbreak stage, and industrial development still needs time, which also requires more patience and tolerance from the market.

(Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily reporter Zeng Le, intern reporter Ren Siying)

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