This article is reproduced from QbitAI, author Jin Lei
The intelligent robot of a technology company has quietly become a reserved technology program for the Spring Festival Gala .
And it 's the kind appointed by CCTV Spring Festival Gala .
As the New Year of the Ox approached, a group of "Pioneer Bull" quadruped robots from Shenzhen appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala, and performed the creative show "Rise of the Bull" with Andy Lau , Wang Yibo , and Guan Xiaotong . The previous debut.
Come and admire their graceful dance of "spin, jump, I don't stop".
The company manufactured the "Bull" quadruped robot Union Brother science and technology , is already the fourth time to board the Gala.
As we all know, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala director team has extremely high requirements for the program, and the quality control is also extremely strict. Why are the robots of this company so popular in the Spring Festival Gala?
What kind of "skills" does the robot that can participate in the Spring Festival Gala have?
As an "actor" on the Spring Festival Gala, the external image must pass.
The "Pioneer Bull" quadruped robot on stage this time stands 83cm tall, weighs 60kg, and has a load of 15kg. It is based on the Shenzhen Special Zone "Pioneer Bull" as a design prototype. It is dressed in Chinese red and auspicious cloud patterns, plus colorful light bars, and is fused While traditional elements, it also presents a cool sense of technology.
The "Pioneer Bull" four-legged robot, with its head high and chest high, is unstoppable. Behind it contains a series of hard-core technologies independently developed by Youbid Technology: high-performance real-time main control system, force-controlled servo drive, full dynamics optimization algorithm, lidar positioning and navigation algorithm...more than 2500 patent applications are involved. .
Let's enjoy the dancing of the "actors" again .
Whether it's nodding or twisting your shoulders, the action can be said to be coherent in one go.
Accompanied by rhythmic music, eh! There is a kind of magical sex of "drawing a dragon on the left hand and a rainbow on the right hand".
Teaching human dance beginners is not an easy task, after all, "one minute on stage, ten years off stage" .
How do these robots achieve such "tidy uniformity"?
There are two main difficulties .
Difficulty one: force control joints
To have beautiful and coherent physical performance, the flexible use of joints plays a key role.
The "Pioneer Bull" robot can make difficult movements, which is also attributed to this-a total of 16 degrees of freedom :
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3 degrees of freedom per leg (12 in total)
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3 degrees of freedom for the head
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1 degree of freedom for the tail
With so many degrees of freedom, the "joint" can accurately output position and torque, and the force-controlled servo drive is the core.
To put it simply, every servo drive on the robot will respond in real time after receiving the instruction; multiple servo drives "cooperate" to allow the robot to move flexibly.
From the perspective of hardware composition , the servo drive mainly includes a motor, a reducer, an encoder, and a torque feedback unit.
For the performance task of "Pioneering Bull" this time, the selection of each hardware of the servo drive has also become an important issue.
For this reason, UBTECH has solved this problem by using the method of natural frequency matching and inertia matching of forward and reverse drive .
It is worth mentioning that these are two force control joints developed by Ubican Technology only in October last year. Different from the existing four-legged robot products, the "Pioneering Bull" four-legged robot adopts universal force control joints, while meeting high-precision, high-bandwidth torque control, and a large torque/mass ratio. In the future, it can be used in other robot products by Ubisoft. Use on leg and arm joints.
Difficulty 2: Gait algorithm and positioning algorithm
It is not difficult to see from the performance of the "Pioneering Bull" on the stage that large quadruped robots not only have to move fast on stage, but also complete difficult actions. This requires high dynamic motion control algorithms to achieve the tracking of a given trajectory. .
Benefiting from the early research and development basis of the large humanoid service robot Walker by Ubisoft Technology, that is, the "optimized whole-body motion control" algorithm software library, the algorithm research and development work for the "Pioneer Bull" robot is not " From 0 to 1" the process.
Based on Walker's dynamic model, the engineer replaced it with a model suitable for quadruped robots.
△ Ubisoft "Pioneer Bull" four-legged robot
In addition, according to the dance movement commands, the software library is used to solve the torque required by each joint in real time.
Positioning is also another problem at the algorithm level. After all, human actors also attach great importance to the "positioning" of the actor's stage during rehearsal.
To this end, the engineers optimized the lidar mapping and positioning algorithm based on the characteristics of the stage, and established a 3D map of the stage to solve this problem.
At the same time, with the support of high-performance computing power, these complex algorithms can be controlled in real time under 1kHZ.
In addition to the above two difficulties, there is another "invisible" difficulty, and that is time .
UBTECH began to develop quadruped robots at the beginning of 2020. At the end of 2020, it received a request from the director group of CCTV's New Year of the Ox Spring Festival Gala for large-scale bionic quadruped robots. About 20 software and hardware technology R&D engineers, in less than three months A number of technical difficulties were overcome internally.
The reason for being able to meet the high requirements of the Spring Festival Gala director group in such a short period of time is simple:
It's an "old driver"!
This is not only due to the accumulation of technology, but also benefited from the accumulated experience of multiple appearances in the Spring Festival Gala.
In the 2016 spring night, 540 sets of Alpha robot brings a collective dance performances, full of interstellar both visual sense.
In 2018, UBTECH sent out the special edition robot Jimu Wangwang of the Year of the Dog to form the "Hot Dance Team".
In 2019, 6 large-scale humanoid service robots Walker of Ubisoft Technology will perform song and dance "Imagination of Youth" on the same stage with actors.
But for intelligent robots, only "performance" is actually far from enough.
Under the stage, the bright moments of intelligent robots
As one of the most important inventions of mankind in the 20th century, the original intention of robotics should be the same, that is, to serve people and improve efficiency .
The highlight moments that truly belong to them should be reflected in providing services to mankind.
From the perspective of the entire industry, China's robots are mainly divided into industrial robots , service robots and special robots .
△ Data source: CIIC, June 2020
At present, industrial robots account for the largest proportion, accounting for 84%; service robots and special robots account for 11% and 5% respectively.
For the application of quadruped robots, UBTECH stated that it is still in the research and development stage and can be applied in artificial intelligence and robotics research and education, business services, security inspections and other fields in the future. Together with other robots of the company, it will be used in all walks of life. Provide intelligent services and realize the mission of "let intelligent robots into thousands of households".
Whether it is the four-legged robot "Pioneering Bull", the large-scale humanoid service robot "Walker" or the programming educational robot "Jimu Wangwang", etc., they will be unveiled on the spring evening, which not only provides a technological "visual feast", but also allows Intelligent robots that seemed out of reach in the past entered the public's field of vision.
This also reflects that with the continuous development of technology, intelligent robots have gradually entered human daily life from the industrial world, especially during the epidemic.
In the past year, China's scientific and technological experience in fighting the epidemic has injected confidence in the global fight against the epidemic. From the development of vaccines and testing reagents to the practical application of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and 5G technology, China's innovative technology has provided strong support for epidemic prevention and control.
Intelligent robots have become the fastest and most widely used AI application in the anti-epidemic process.
In application scenarios such as hospitals, intelligent robots can provide services such as mask detection , temperature measurement , and disinfection , which greatly reduces the probability of human infections.
In the context of scientific and technological anti-epidemic, the emergence of "contactless" demand has maximized the value of intelligent robots.
Chinese artificial intelligence robot companies not only carry out anti-epidemic actions at home, but also bring Chinese wisdom overseas to help the world fight the epidemic.
For example, Ubican Technology rushed to assist 14 overseas countries and regions including South Korea, Japan, Belgium, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Guinea last year. The anti-epidemic robot provides functions such as non-contact temperature measurement, diagnosis and consultation, and mask detection. , Covering 9 high-risk scenarios. Its newly developed UV disinfection robot, ADIBOT, is also recently applied in schools in Delaware, USA, to perform precise disinfection and ensure campus safety.
These intelligent robots have taken on the high-risk "heavy burden" during the critical period and have become technological assistants during the anti-epidemic period.
After the "epidemic", how to sustainably promote the landing of intelligent robots has become a key issue for testing robotics companies.
Therefore, how to implement it in a more comprehensive, practical and in-depth manner is the topic of most concern to the entire industry.
What should we do next on the road of intelligent robots?
In addition to playing an important role during the anti-epidemic period, intelligent robots have been used in various other fields for a long time.
For example, we can see intelligent robots in scenes such as urban planning halls, government affairs exhibition halls, and party building centers.
△ You must choose Cruzr in the Jiashan New Town Planning Museum
Acting as a smart guide
Although the development of intelligent robots has already had a trend of "a hundred flowers blooming", is this development model correct? Or should we focus on a key area?
In this regard, Zhou Jian , the founder, chairman and CEO of Ubican Technology, said:
At present, artificial intelligence and robots are still in their infancy. Under this circumstance, every company is exploring new markets. There is no benchmark to refer to. It is completely dependent on oneself to cross the river by feeling the stones. Therefore, when there is a demand in any field, I have to take the initiative to contact, if this demand can be. Undertake, and have the opportunity to continue to deepen, until the vertical field is fully understood, there is a high probability of forming a product that customers just need.
But fortunately, we are constantly focusing. After continuous exploration in about a dozen industries, we will focus on 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 industry application scenarios. This is what our company is currently doing.
If you compare the company's core technology to a river, along it, some areas can nurture life, and then gradually develop into a civilization.
Artificial intelligence education is one of the areas successfully explored by Ubican.
Industry experts pointed out that the strategic task of cultivating artificial intelligence talents must be borne by education. This is an important mission given to education under the opportunity of new infrastructure. Artificial intelligence education is the cornerstone of new infrastructure.
It is not difficult to see that whether it is based on the development of the entire intelligent robot industry or specifically in the field of artificial intelligence education, UBTECH chooses intelligent robots as the carrier, artificial intelligence technology as the core, and in-depth industry play.
Based on such a strategy, in addition to artificial intelligence education, UBTECH is also deploying in the fields of smart logistics and smart health care .
Perhaps this is the reason why CCTV's 4th Spring Festival Gala "calls" You Must Select Technology.
Behind the appearance of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, it not only reflects the technical strength, but also reflects that Chinese companies represented by Ubisoft Technology have successfully explored the development path of intelligent robot applications on the premise of insisting on independent research and development of core technologies. In the future, more and more Chinese technology companies will use pioneering and innovation to achieve "acceleration" and build global competitiveness with technology as the core.
Original link: https://blog.csdn.net/QbitAI/article/details/113792642