Wonders and woes of China’s robotics industry

At the Beijing Robot World Conference, which ended on Tuesday, the mood was a mixture of optimism and caution: companies showed increasingly similar human robots even when they admitted that the technological gaps that maintain these machines of prevailing use are still wide.

He attended thousands to watch human robots to perform a group of unusual exploits: from providing popcorn, clinical drinks, spinning handkerchief, and medicine in the boxing ring to play chess and display football skills.

But none of these exploits was a technological penetration. While there were design improvements, maneuvering and appearance, And Drews is still struggling to treat and respond to their surroundings, and it is restrictions that keep them from most of the realistic workplace roles.

To date, their commercial use is often limited to directing visitors in exhibition halls and shopping centers, and recently testing in factories for repeated tasks such as sorting materials and performing high -quality examination operations.

“When will human robots be able to do 80 % of the physical work that a person can do? This is decades away,” said Jay Huang, Managing Director and Head of the Industrial Technology Sector in Asia in Bernstein.

“But what we will see is these individual tasks, such as processing materials, which are hit on a much larger scale. They can be used in completely different format, and different settings,” Huang added.

Huang said that some tasks such as the use of a robot to make a bed are still in the “very early” stage, with a low success rate, but this is the right direction to push the industry forward.

Take the Droid that MAHJONG plays from PSIBOT presented in this event: It is still a multi -tile, and often mixes the rules of the game and plays at a relatively slow pace, according to local media reports.

The Schenghai -based FG Venture expert, Bob Chen, said that the technological bottle of integration is widely for human beings in daily life stems from the lack of advanced artificial intelligence models and insufficient training data. Investment Capitalism Company in startups has invested robots, including deep Hangzhou-based robots that make quad-machines that mimic four-legs creatures.

Androids depends on vast groups of movement, visual, touch and sound, as well as simulations, to build the sensory and behavioral maps they need to move and interact in the real world.

“Language models have a fairly narrow function: language and language,” said Chen, according to CNBC.

Many startups in China have invested in building “data factories”, or employing people to operate robots or wearable devices to capture automated interaction data for robotics training.

Adoption

Human robots appear as another front in the competition of technology in China with the United States – where they can prevail at cheaper and faster prices.

“China, the United States and other countries are playing in a very spectator.” “Just as in electric cars, self -ruling driving, in human robots, China works very quickly in the proliferation of products and use, while American players seem to shoot the sacred wheel solution.”

In the manufacture of robots, it appears that the Tesla Humanoid Optimus project is leading in the United States, where CEO Elon Musk said that the company plans to produce about 5,000 units this year.

While the ambitious Musk plans can give it a leg for other American competitors who have not reached the comprehensive market, Chinese companies are racing to make their models more affordable.

It is also believed that they were undermining their global peers in terms of price, thanks to the high costs controls. This is despite the real world’s applications for robots that are still unconfirmed.

In the period before WRC, UNITEE launched the third R1, at 39,900 yuan ($ 5,249) on the JD.com e -commerce website, much cheaper than its other models. The H1 is sold to the company for 650,000 yuan per unit and G1 robot for 99,000 yuan.

At the conference, the prices of a human robot ranged from tens of thousands from Yuan to more than 100,000 yuan, and the advanced models that could exceed 500,000 yuan were.