Robotics and humanoid robotics & civilian drones discussion
- Thread starter tphuang
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good article here at the various contenders. I did not mention
CloudMinds (达闼科技) XR-4
and
Dreame (追觅科技)
I think the Agibot Raise A1 looks the most impressive to me
Robotics dogs are used to carry stuff in the athletics competitions of Asian games
CloudMinds (达闼科技) XR-4
and
Dreame (追觅科技)
I think the Agibot Raise A1 looks the most impressive to me
Robotics dogs are used to carry stuff in the athletics competitions of Asian games
I have to look this up a little more, but it seems confirmed by people inside China now that BYD invested into Agibot for the purpose of putting its robot in assembly line. My guess is for both EVs and electronics division. I mean the hand portion of Raise A1 is just really well made
Xpeng has their own humanoid robot. And this brings up another discussion, I really think China as more of a follower and not a trendsetter. This isn't about innovation, or not to say that China didn't set off some trends of her own but it really feels like Chinese companies don't do something until some famous western company has a product that goes viral or is wildly successful, then they all jump on the bandwagon to develop their own version. This problem isn't unique to China of course, but it is a big issue.
For example, there have been half a dozen chinese companies unveiling humanoid robots this year, most of them appear to be very similar in capabilities, frankly most of them are quite bad, not appearing more advanced than the humanoid robots of 10 years ago despite the vast improvements in A.I and computing power, though some of their hands look quite impressive and most of them seem to have been in development for a short amount of time. This is not to say that Chinese scientist and engineers don't do good work and of course they will improve with time, but rather I suspect that most of this companies only started work on a humanoid robot after Tesla announced that they were working on a humanoid robot, that or after the video of Boston Dynamic's Altas robot doing parkour went viral. Both events happened during 2021, which fits most of this robotics only having around 2 years of development, you can tell that most of them are in the early stages of development and most are nowhere near being an actual product or finalized version
I don't have any hard evidence but the length of time this robots seem to be in development, the rought state of development that suggests that they are in very early stages of R&D, the fact that so many companies unveiled their projects within the half a year really suggests that yeah, a lot of this companies followed Tesla's lead, espically with car companies like Xpeng jumping in. Now I'm not saying that all of them followed Tesla or Boston Dynamic, some of them probably have been development long before Tesla announced their robot but I think companies like Xiaomi, Unitree or Xpeng only started development because Tesla was also doing so, or when Boston Dynamic's Altas started go viral.
I mean, I rather that they jumped on the bandwagon then completely ignore the development of a exciting new techologny. But why wait until Tesla? Why couldn't have some mega company like Xiaomi or some specialized robotics company not started serious development 10 years ago? This isn't even a niche tech like say resuable rockets, humanoid robots have been a goal since the early days of science ficition. Boston Dynamics doesn't have some secret sauce, they are the leaders in this field because they started serious development on humanoid robotics 15 years ago.
Another example would be ChatGPT. Despite the transformer architecture being a popular topic of research and GTP-3 proving it's potential a year before and the large investments in A.I and computing power in China, Chinese tech companies didn't really start serious development and intergration of LLMs until ChatGTP took the world by storm for some reason.
Until recently, major Chinese companies outside of maybe Huawei spent a relatively small % of their revenue on R&D. New technology trends come entirely from R&D so if you’ve got nobody working on it, you’re naturally going to be a follower.
The West spends relatively much more on R&D both because it can afford to, being wealthier countries, and because they’ve long abandoned low margin labor intensive work, which Chinese companies are just starting to evolve past.
So it’s mainly a stage in development effect. China is still a developing country.
The West spends relatively much more on R&D both because it can afford to, being wealthier countries, and because they’ve long abandoned low margin labor intensive work, which Chinese companies are just starting to evolve past.
So it’s mainly a stage in development effect. China is still a developing country.
this is what most Non-Chinese people don't understand. completely unaware of China's condition back in 2010.
China missed first and second industrial revolution. so Chinese firms didn't only cover the distance but also keep the pace with modern technologies.
10 years ago, China was struggling with WS-10 engine reliability and manufacturing. was in early stages of high tech industrialization, domestic/private civil industry was like a new born kid. Xiaomi , VIVO ,OPPO , COMAC , high end materials , components , tools makers and others. China covered a lot distance in last 10 years so it is easy to say why Chinese firms didn't spend on robotics and others high tech gadgets like 10 years ago. actually it was not possible back then to spend money due to various reasons.
2010 - China spent 580.2 Billion yuan in R&D
2023 - China spent 3.10 Trillion yuan in R&D
China's journey just begun. currently stands where West was in post-WWII era. high tech industry has exploded with massive amount goes into R&D.
I'm struggling to see their use in comparison to a run of the mill robotic arm, on rails if required in a manufacturing context. Humans are adaptable and multi-purpose, but in a factory you need multiple singular tasks done very well, which a robotic arm would soundly beat a humanoid robot in both cost and consistency.
Humanoid robots work well because we designed our modern world to be easily accessible to humans. Yeah treads, 4 legged or wheeled robots would be better design wise up until they have to climb a flight of stairs, open doors or walk on narrow walkways. And they're new and still in development, as their A.I and capabilities improve, their uses are basically infinite. You'll be surprised at how many low skilled jobs involve someone being there just to do things like flip a switch, turn a valve, tighten a few screws. One idea I have for a use for a human robot could be something as simple as ensuring all the doors and windows are closed, all the air-con are shut down, switching off the lights after closing hours.. I say that because it used to be part of my job, just running around making sure all the windows were shut, turning off the lights and air-conditioning in the building as we closed for the night, a moneky could have done that part of my job if we could train it not to shit on the floor.
You might as well ask why all this companies are developing robot dogs too, Xiaomi seems to be developing them purely as use for pets???
I call bullshit. Humanoid robots are not a new technology. They just gained a lot more attention over the last 2 years with all the hype around Tesla and Atlas. They are also plenty examples of robots in mythology, aka the "golem", artificial humans and robots in sci-fiction, they are not a new concept. 15 years ago there were walking robots. Humanoid robotics would be quite high on the top of the most promising techologny to develop, especially when combined with the recent developments in batteries, computer vision, A.I etc etc that can boost a robot's capabilites vastly.
And they happily decided to develop robotic dogs, for the last 6 years in fact, why invest in robot dogs as pets and not humanoid robots for general use purposes? Maybe it's because Boston Dynamic released Spot 7 years ago and Altas didn't go mainstream until like 2 years ago.... which was around the same time that all this chinese companies suddenly decided that human robots were a good thing to develop.
It's like deciding not to invest into fusion energy until some fusion plant in another country is already pumping gigawatts into their grid, not to invest in A.I until some country is using AGI to take over the world, not investing into room temperature superconductor until another country has already built an entire grid out of it. It's one of those vague sci-fi techologny that's many years away but with so much potential that you still dump a ton of money and manpower into it anyway wayyy before it can hit the market and start making money, because the tiny chance it could work is worth the investment. Just like how there's billions being pumped in on fusion energy even though most people think that it's gonna to be 2040+ before we see the very first energy positive fusion reactor pumping single joule into the grid. BD worked on Altas for 15 years before it got as good as it did after all.
Like I said with my ChatGTP example, chinese companies had to wait for ChatGTP to get hyped, GTP-3 which released a year earlier wasn't quite so popular within mainstream media but still quite an impressive example of what the transformer architecture and LLM could do, but not much chinese companies gave a shit. But suddenly ChatGTP comes out, it was such a big deal even my 60 year old parents knew about it and suddenly every private chinese tech company wanted their own LLM and was pouring in billions on A.I development. Why do they have to wait for shit to hit the mainstream news to do anything? If they actually gave a shit about their field of research, GTP-3 or even GTP-2 should have been enough for them to take some serious action on LLM and then they wouldn't be years behind.
For companies like Xiaomi or a commerical consumer level robot companu like Unitree? The former would have had the funds to invest in a side project like that even 10 years ago and the latter would have to invest an obivous area like human like robots, it's like being a internet company and not investing in software development. Both of them found the funds to invest in robot dogs afterall, why not a humanoid robot too?
And they're going to stay a developing country for much longer if they keep chasing the bandwagon and not investing early in obvious techologny. And this argument doesn't make sense, they have been developing robot dogs for longer and they hold less potential than a human robot if you want to argue about lack of funds is what is preventing them. Then they wouldn't have even bothered with the robot dogs. Maybe it's because Boston Dynamic made Spot famous 7 years prior...
The point is the use in human designed areas like houses, schools etc. Which are designed for humans. And not for large treaded or wheeled robots running around.
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