Why do big factories start to make robot dogs? Open source abroad makes it easy for robot dogs to go from zero to one. In the process of trying to get 90 points, many domestic companies have made progress. The quadruped robot manufactured by Boston Dynamics belongs to the category of "military industry". Why did the big factory start to make robot dogs?
Why do big factories start to make robot dogs one after another? 1995, NHK introduced the TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms to China, which triggered a climax of viewing. Unlike Guandi, who loves loyalty, righteousness and bravery in China, Zhuge Liang, who is "wise and close to the devil", is the favorite of Japanese audiences. If it is still political wisdom to learn from Confucianism, it is indeed the ultimate magical moment to transport military resources with the ancient robot "Liu Ma" in six Qishan.
Twenty-five years later, at the Spring Festival Gala, dozens of Yushu technology "robot dogs" decorated with cow heads took to the stage to pay New Year greetings to everyone and introduced these naive "four-legged beasts" to the general public for the first time.
In August this year, at Xiaomi's new product launch conference, the company's founder Lei Jun exposed CyberDog "Iron Egg", a new member of the team intelligence corps, a gray robot dog. The price of 9999 yuan also made people realize that these products look like products in the laboratory, and they will enter people's lives like ordinary pet dogs.
Xiaomi tiedan
What caused quadruped robot to change from hundreds of thousands of laboratory stars to four-digit digital toys in just a few years? In addition to selling cute on the stage, what other usage scenarios do quadruped robots have?
Where does the robot dog come from?
In 1960s, when the world was still in the iron curtain of the Cold War, Mosher, a designer of American General Electric Company, designed a robot horse named Walking Truck in the mobile system laboratory. The driver can control the hydraulic drive system of the machine by manually operating the joystick, so as to realize the leg lifting, stepping and obstacle crossing of the robot horse.
This "robot horse" is considered to be the first truly modern quadruped robot.
2 1 year later, Marc Raibert of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed the first quadruped robot with dynamic stability in 1986, and founded the company in 1992, which later shocked the industry. Before being acquired by Google, Boston Dynamics was supported by its only customer, the US military.
2065438+In June 2006, Boston Dynamics released a motion video of robot dog. Only 25 kilograms of Spot Mini is smaller in appearance, and it can control objects sensitively by adding a mechanical arm. The video quickly spread throughout the whole network, comparable to AlphaGo's single-handedly set off an AI frenzy. The robot dog video of Boston Dynamics also makes people realize that these previously silly "military products" can also be made more "mini" and more flexible.
Boston dynamics Spotmini
It was also around 20 16 that domestic teams such as Yushu Unitree and Yun Shenchu also chose quadruped robots as their entrepreneurial direction. However, at that time, they may not realize that five years later, quadruped robots will become a new outlet.
Although Boston Dynamics made the robot dog a YouTube celebrity, it was MIT that really promoted the ecological development of quadruped robots, which hatched Boston Dynamics.
20 18 September, Benjamin Katz, a member of MIT Bionic Robot Laboratory, disclosed the code and hardware of MIT Cheetah mini motor driver, which connects the 12 motor with the spine of an airborne computer. A month later, Katz opened all the code running on Cheetah Mini. At this point, all the software and hardware of MIT Cheetah Mini are open source.
In addition to MIT's open source mini cheetah, there is another key open source project in the field of robotics-ROS (Robot Operating System). The project was hatched by the artificial intelligence laboratory of Stanford University. Its main function is to develop robot software in a modular way, which does not need to redesign the framework and supports many languages such as C++, Python and LISP.
The development of hardware assembly and control system has always been the core difficulty in the development of "robot dog". Foreign open source provides more complete technology and solutions, and the threshold for entering the field of quadruped robot dogs is greatly reduced.
Wang Xingxing, the founder of Yushu Technology, told Geek Park: "The original entry threshold was relatively high, and now it is equivalent to getting started and making something out. 」
Of course, even if the software and hardware systems are open source, it still depends on the team's ability to make good products.
"The main difficulty in the development of robot dogs lies in the control of leg movements and how to find the landing point after sensing the external environment, so that the gait of robot dogs is smoother and more stable." Dr Zong Hu Aizhi, who is engaged in biped robot research, summarized the research and development status of robot dogs at home and abroad in his personal four-legged post on WeChat official account. He introduced to Geek Park: "It is difficult to accurately model the robot dog control algorithm framework, which involves a large number of mathematical formulas and unknown variables, so it takes a lot of time and data accumulation in the research and development process. 」
"Foreign open source makes it easy for a robot dog to go from zero to one. The original 60-point robot dog may now reach 80 points, but if you want to continue to reach 90 points, you still need to improve your independent research and development ability. This is a systematic project. 」
In the process of trying to reach 90 points, many domestic companies have made progress.
Wei Lan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. announced patented technologies such as motor, robot leg and fast charging. The core components of the world's first consumer-grade robot dog, such as core sensors, motors and reducers, are independently developed.
"At present, our iteration speed is actually faster than that of foreign countries. Yushu has produced new products almost every year or two in the past five years. Wang Xingxing said.
Yushu technology union robot
When can consumers "lead dogs" home?
Boston Dynamics has made a quadruped robot, which is out of the category of "military industry", but the future of robot dogs is still unclear. Professionals believe that the current robot dog industry is very similar to the drone industry ten years ago-the academic community has formed a control theory and the industry has some cases, but how to commercialize it is still unknown.
As a leader, Boston Dynamics has never found a suitable application scenario, despite the outstanding performance of the robot. At present, only B-end areas such as detection and security have been tried. At the same time, due to the huge investment but insufficient return, Boston Electric Power was transferred to Softbank by Google and then sold to Hyundai Group.
In China, Xiaomi's "iron egg" is priced at 9999 yuan, which has priced tens of thousands of quadruped robots into "fractures"; Yushu technology also launched a product of about 10,000 yuan for the C-end. Compared with the B-end with uncertain future, the positioning of consumer electronics in the C-end is obviously more "sexy", which also gave birth to the investment boom of venture capital institutions in quadruped robot companies in recent years.
However, although the price has come down, it may take a long time for robot dogs to really enter the families of ordinary consumers.
The first is safety. Xiaomi's engineers believe that "if the weight and running speed of the robot dog are set too fast at present, it will easily cause safety problems." 」
In order to avoid the robot dog hitting people at full speed, Xiaomi's "iron egg" has the function of "lying down", that is, in an emergency, the robot dog can quickly cut off the power supply and get down immediately.
Secondly, with the increasing exposure of "robot dog", consumers' expectations for this emerging product are also rising. When "fun" and "fun" can no longer attract people's attention, the emotional demand for quadruped robots will be further displayed, which will also pose a higher challenge to the AI interaction ability of quadruped robots.
At present, "Iron Egg" combines the AI ability of Xiaomi's "Little Love Classmate" and can be regarded as a "walking smart speaker". Users can control the robot dog's actions through voice, and at the same time control the Internet of Things devices such as lighting and television.
"ambition" behind robot dogs
Although it is still difficult for quadruped robots to really land on the C end, this does not prevent companies such as Xiaomi, Xpeng Motors and Tencent from entering the market one after another, because the giants value the broader smart market behind robots.
Not long ago, on Tesla AI Day, the "happy" Tesla robot played by people looked like a joke made by crazy Musk, but in fact the robot may be the next "holy grail" in the field of smart cars.
Tucki's "Robot Horse"
There are indeed many similarities between robot development and autonomous driving technology. They are battery-powered, motor-driven and software-started. The perception and decision-making ability that car companies need in visual perception and lidar is also needed in robots, and the human-computer interaction ability that robots need in the future development.
The general manager of Xiaomi Group's Intelligent Office Division revealed that the original intention of the "Iron Egg" project was "in the long run, we want to accumulate some basic technologies and algorithms for future intelligent manufacturing and automobile reserve talents. 」
However, although the quadruped robot looks much smaller than the smart car, the technology it needs is actually more difficult than the autonomous driving technology that is still developing. Because of the road environment in which autonomous driving is located, there are still relatively strict traffic rules that can be used as training basis. If the robot dog enters the family and community, the environment it faces is much more complicated than the road environment of the smart car. After all, in the family environment, people don't have to turn on the turn signal when walking, and there will be no traffic signs to remind the robot dog.
From this point of view, the current quadruped robot may be difficult to control more complex environment, and there is still a long way to go before it really enters the family.
But as a robot platform, the current quadruped robot still has a chance to find its own application space.
In 20 18, Bezos took a photo with Boston Power Robot Dog at the Mars Congress organized by Amazon, which made people realize that quadruped robot is a very cool toy. When the price of domestic robot dogs reaches 10,000 yuan, it is not only the richest man in the world who can play cool "walking dogs".
If it is in a relatively simple environment, quadruped robot may also become a good companion or companion robot. For example, the robot dog of Yushu Technology can run with users and even help the owner "carry" drinks; "Iron egg" can play the role of intelligent speaker and provide useful information to the owner, which is the scene that quadruped robot can be competent for at present.
Why do big factories start to make robot dogs one after another? On September 7th, 20021World Computing Congress "Computing Innovation and Digital Empowerment", the performances of two "robot dogs" and two "robot cows" attracted the attention of many participants. They can dance, somersault and roll. They are not only cute in shape, but also have security, scientific research and education, secondary development and development.
The four-legged robot is "stupid" like a cow, wearing a coat of Chinese style and full of joy. It once performed a dance in the Spring Festival Evening of the Year of the Ox, and is a well-known "star". The other two quadruped robots are shaped like robot dogs. Don't look at them when they meet a small audience. In fact, they can not only go upstairs and down the mountain, but also carry cameras and radar sensors, which can help people check in dangerous places.
According to the on-site staff, this quadruped robot has motor, reducer, controller, sensor and other components. Self-developed technology makes it small, flexible and explosive. Each robot weighs 10 kg, which can be easily lifted by adults, but the running speed can reach 3.3 meters per second after being put down. At the same time, with multiple sensors, the quadruped robot is endowed with infinite possibilities, such as automatic following and other functions. It can be done easily.
As a robot equipped with high-performance real-time master control system, force control servo driver, full dynamic optimization algorithm, laser radar positioning navigation algorithm and other hard-core technologies, "stupid" is far more than cute, and its "brain" is getting smarter and smarter.
For example, it is equipped with radar ranging and image transmission functions, which can actively avoid obstacles, follow the target ahead autonomously, and run and move things. A girl at the scene joked: "If you take it out shopping, your boyfriend will be saved."
The reporter learned that if the "super brain" quadruped robot is installed according to the application scenario, it will have the super ability of "keeping an eye on six roads and improvising" and has broad business prospects in the fields of dangerous search and rescue, medical rescue and family escort.
At the 20021World Computing Conference, a variety of black technology products, such as smart cars and video AI, which are empowered by computing power, appeared in the special exhibition. Nowadays, "calculation" has penetrated into our lives. Driverless, artificial intelligence, smart home and smart medical care ... These "black technologies" realized by "computing" are involved in all aspects of life. All-media reporter Wu Xinyu