Expedition A1 will enter the manufacturing and domestic service industries. Zhihui Jun releases humanoid robots in Shanghai, featuring artificial intelligence | humanoid | robots
With the emergence of Tesla's humanoid robot "Optimus Prime" and the artificial intelligence model ChatGPT, humanoid robots equipped with a large model "brain" have become a new technology entrepreneurship track of global attention. Today, Shanghai Zhiyuan Robotics Company released its independently developed humanoid robot prototype "Expedition A1", indicating that this "unicorn" enterprise has entered a new track and embarked on an expedition towards the goal of "embodied universal artificial intelligence".
In addition to "Expedition A1", there is also a protagonist at this press conference - Zhihui Jun, who has 2.49 million followers on Bilibili and 960000 followers on Sina Weibo. As the co-founder of Zhiyuan Robotics, he is responsible for the overall design and architecture of humanoid robots. After introducing the various parameters, performance, and future application prospects of robots at the press conference, this young man born in the 1990s invited "Expedition A1". It walked steadily to the center of the stage, then turned around and faced the audience, completing its first public appearance.
"Genius Youth" Goes to Shanghai to Start a Business for Dreams
Peng Zhihui is a master of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He joined a large enterprise in 2020, engaged in research and development in the field of artificial intelligence edge computing, and achieved good results.
However, he has always had a dream of robots in his heart. As a well-known UP host named Zhihui Jun, he has posted many videos of self-developed robots on Bilibili, such as "I turned a bicycle into autonomous driving!" "I made a robot arm for Iron Man!" and "Tech Home UP took three months to create the strongest mini TV on Bilibili!". These videos have received millions of clicks, and fans jokingly refer to Zhihui Jun as "Wild Iron Man".
At the end of last year, Peng Zhihui resigned from a large enterprise and embarked on the path of entrepreneurship. As expected, he and his collaborators founded a robotics enterprise headquartered in Shanghai. The reason for choosing to start a business in Shanghai is because this international metropolis has numerous high-end R&D talents, a developed high-end manufacturing supply chain, and industrial policies that support the development of intelligent robot enterprises. International exchange and cooperation are also very convenient.
In March this year, Zhiyuan Robot settled in Kangqiao, Pudong. As soon as the company was established, it embarked on a fast track of development and has completed four rounds of financing, with a valuation meeting the unicorn standard; At present, the number of employees is nearly 100, of which R&D personnel account for about 80%.
New research and development institutions dispatch chief scientists
The rapid development of this enterprise also relies on the incubation services of Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. This research institute belongs to a new type of research and development institution, responsible for the construction of functional platforms in the field of artificial intelligence in Shanghai. Following the development paradigm of "university innovation strategy, industry expert leadership, and industry team landing", Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute has established more than ten research and development centers and formed a research and industrialization team of nearly 400 people. In the cultivation process of Zhiyuan Robotics, the research institute dispatched chief scientist and doctoral supervisor at the Robotics Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Yan Weixin, and an engineering team to invest in the overall design and technical research of humanoid robots together with the company's founding team.
"In the past few days, everyone has been in a state of extreme anxiety, and I almost moved my home to the company." In May of this year, Zhihui Jun posted this Weibo post and a picture of toothpaste and toothbrushes on his desk, highlighting the difficulty of building humanoid robots.
Nowadays, the humanoid robot "Expedition A1" developed by the R&D team day and night has been released. It is 1.75 meters tall and weighs 53 kilograms. There are 49 degrees of freedom throughout the body, which are equipped with 49 electric joints and adopt high-density electric drive mode, with a peak torque of 300 Newton meters.
"It walks faster than me." Yan Weixin introduced that the fastest walking speed of "Expedition A1" is 7 kilometers per hour, and it can autonomously avoid obstacles by relying on visual sensors and multi line LiDAR; The maximum load on a single arm is 5 kilograms. Currently, the arm strength is not as strong as that of adults, but the leg strength is close to that of adults. Its dexterous hand has 5 fingers and can grasp objects like a human, completing various delicate movements.
The big model "end brain" makes robots empathetic
The "expedition" goal of this humanoid robot is "embodied universal artificial intelligence", which enables the robot to possess universal artificial intelligence, master various skills through self-learning, interact with the surrounding environment in a more natural and intelligent way, and complete various tasks. After the emergence of the artificial intelligence big model, people have seen the feasibility of implementing "embodied universal artificial intelligence".
It is reported that a large model has been deployed in the body of Expedition A1. It is the product of the R&D team's optimization and iteration of open-source large models, especially for the needs of robots to handle various situations when grabbing items. The R&D team has optimized the large model and strengthened its real-time perception ability. After completing the model optimization training, the company adopted a "CPU+GPU" architecture to develop a "PC brain" that does not require networking and installed it inside the robot body.
With the big model of the "end brain", "Expedition A1" can understand natural language instructions and analyze the speaker's intentions. For example, if the host says "I want a glass of water" or "I'm thirsty", it can understand, and then go to the water dispenser or other place to get water and hand the cup to the host. In the manufacturing scenario, it does not need to run according to the set trajectory like traditional industrial robots, but rather autonomously learns like humans. Then, based on actual working conditions, the learned "atomic actions" are combined into a "workflow" with the optimal trajectory, thereby completing operations more efficiently.
Peng Zhihui stated that the company plans to release commercial humanoid robots in the second quarter or second half of next year, allowing them to enter the manufacturing and home service industries as soon as possible. In the field of industrial intelligent manufacturing, deploying large models of humanoid robots is suitable for complex industries such as 3C manufacturing, can quickly adapt to scenarios, and is more efficient and flexible than traditional industrial robots. In the field of domestic services, the "Expedition" robot has the functions of cooking Chinese food, serving dishes on the table, using washing machines, drying clothes, folding clothes, ironing clothes, etc. It is expected to be competent as the "robot butler" in the near future.
