Robotics and humanoid robotics & civilian drones discussion
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NANJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Despite the summer vacation, Liu Xiaofeng, a professor at Hohai University in east China's Jiangsu Province, and his research team have remained immersed in the laboratory, focusing on developing humanoid robots with highly expressive facial features.
Eyeing on optimizing human-robot emotional interaction technology, the research team has developed a new algorithm for generating facial expressions on humanoid robots.
At its 26th annual meeting on July 2, the China Association of Science and Technology listed research on emotionally intelligent digital humans and robots at the top of the 10 major cutting-edge scientific issues of 2024.
On the same day, Liu's team published their findings -- a new approach for action unit (AU)-driven facial expression disentangled synthesis -- in the international journal IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
Humanoid robots often struggle to convey the intricate and authentic facial expressions characteristic of humans, potentially hampering user engagement, Liu said.
"To address this challenge, we introduced a comprehensive two-stage methodology to empower our autonomous affective robot with the capacity to exhibit rich and natural facial expressions," he added.
Liu explained that in the first stage, their method generates nuanced robot facial expression images guided by AUs. In the subsequent phase, they actualize an affective robot with multifaceted degrees of freedom for facial movements, enabling it to embody the synthesized fine-grained facial expressions.
Ni Rongrong, from Changzhou University who is a co-author of the paper, said that people may be more familiar with various "digital humans" and "virtual anchors," which can generate a variety of real-time expressions.
However, humanoid robots face specific constraints, such as the size and number of motors, which make this more challenging, Ni added. "For example, the humanoid robot we previously used had only nine micro motors beneath its facial surface, far fewer than the number of muscles in a human face."
Therefore, according to Ni, the team divided the nine motors on the humanoid robot's face into 17 AUs to enable richer expressions and smoother transitions through coordinated movements.
Liu said that the team of researchers plans to expand the number of facial AUs and endow a robot with delicate expressions autonomously.
Liu believes that as the emotional interaction capabilities of humanoid robots continue to advance, these robots -- equipped with both high emotional and intellectual quotients -- will become widely used in nursing homes, kindergartens, special education schools, and other settings.
"The humanoid robots will not only assist or replace humans in completing some tasks but also bring more emotional value," he said.
This photo provided by the interviewee shows professor Liu Xiaofeng working with graduate students on a robotic arm at Hohai University in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, March 1, 2024. (Xinhua)
An electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft makes a maiden flight over the Yangtze River in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, Aug. 1, 2024. (Photo: China News Service/Yang Bo)
The eVTOL aircraft successfully completed its trial flight crossing the Yangtze River with a total range of 25 kilometers and a duration of 10 minutes for a round trip.
This photo taken on July 26, 2024 shows the site of a low-altitude flight test at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. A low-altitude flight test in an airport area was completed at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport on July 26, exploring how unmanned aerial vehicles can be integrated into busy civil aviation airspace.
The test simulated an urgent baggage delivery scenario where luggage needed to be transported from the airport to the city of Zhongshan across the Pearl River Delta. (Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport/Handout via Xinhua)
SHENZHEN, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- A low-altitude flight test in an airport area was completed at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport on July 26, exploring how unmanned aerial vehicles can be integrated into busy civil aviation airspace.
The test simulated an urgent baggage delivery scenario where luggage needed to be transported from the airport to the city of Zhongshan across the Pearl River Delta. After the civil aviation flight arrived, the baggage was taken to the nearby drone take-off point at the airport. A logistics drone then took 25 minutes to transport the luggage to an airport hub in Zhongshan, a journey of about 50 kilometers.
The take-off area for this test flight was within the airport's controlled airspace, which is mainly reserved for civil aviation passenger and cargo flights. The test flight validated the feasibility of drone operations in this area, providing valuable experience for future routine integrated flights, according to an official of Shenzhen Airport Group.
Chen Xiaohui, director of government affairs at Phoenix Wings, the company operating the drone, highlighted the significance of this test flight on the development of low-altitude logistics. The efficiency of logistics transportation will be greatly enhanced by effectively connecting high-altitude civil aviation cargo flights with low-altitude end-point logistics drones.
The test information was released by Shenzhen Airport Group at the High-Quality Development Conference of the Low-Altitude Economy in the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, which kicked off on Friday.
broadsword
Brigadier
Astribot S1: Launch
Unitree G1 mass production version, leap into the future!
Unitree could actually become the first company to mass produce Humanoid robots at reasonable price ... seems like China started to lead in this critical industry as well .. exciting time ahead
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Final product ''Astribot S1'' is damn impressive..
Go Chinaaaa Go ..
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Now they just have to make a bunch of them dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller or Beat It.