Robotics and humanoid robotics & civilian drones discussion

I agree that Chinese companies are working in a highly competitive market and are risk adverse. R&D and innovations happen in a more incremental fashion to gauge consumer feedback or interest.

Lots of the highly cited examples of Chinese leading edge in EV, battery, green tech are establish business cases that have assured markets. There are no suicidal gambits made.

It is difficult to build extremely novel business case in China because nobody knows if there is actually a market for it or not. Investors will not give you money for a stupid sounding idea, even if you think you are industry expert and they are not. Big companies are even less likely than startups to take a risk like that.

In the US, your crazy idea doesn't work, you just declare bankruptcy and move on to next one.

Trends may change as Chinese companies gain more confidence being market leaders.

Eventine said:

The industry literally makes jokes about this - see, for example,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

,

Click to expand...

This is not what you think, the joke is mocking Google's ineptitude in implementing any product. They have a tendency to kill products without exploring them to their full potential, due to bad product managers. Most of the products are competitors or copies of other company products. Nothing particularly new or original there.


US big companies are also fairly risk adverse, that's why Google was also caught flatfooted by a startup openAI's chatGPT.

ant group comes out with Logiant robotic tow tractor (is that what this called?)


pretty cool, comes with L4 Autonomous driving, lidar, IMU & sensor fusion

China’s AIQI Technology unveils new robot control system




China’s AIQI Technology (爱其科技) developed and unveiled ONEBOT OS, an operating system specifically designed for robots, aimed at addressing issues in traditional control methods. This system improves the reliability and real-time performance of robots while also reducing equipment costs, China Daily reported on November 14.

Yang Zhang, CEO of AIQI Technology, said that developing a dedicated robot operating system is crucial because there are many issues in traditional robot control methods. Traditional robots rely on a central controller, and if a failure occurs, the entire system may face the risk of a collapse, resulting in low reliability.

With the rapid development of technology, intelligent robots have gradually permeated various aspects of people's lives. In order to make life more convenient and easier, an advanced robot control system has become an indispensable part of the AI age.

ONEBOT OS effectively addresses these issues by utilizing techniques such as distributed control, real-time sensor data transmissions and distributed computing. This will provide necessary technical support for the widespread application of robots in various fields and promote the advancement of robot technology.

Yang Zhang founded Beijing AIQI Technology in 2013, with his major research areas focusing on technologies related to robot control systems, such as communication protocols and programming control platforms.

Currently, ONEBOT intelligent products have implemented several types of robot locomotion: wheeled, such as highway racing cars, hound vehicles; tracked, such as tracked mechs, anti-tracking mechs; multi-legged, such as hexapod titans; and balancing, such as building block balancing robots..

Growth of forklift AGV industry


5G + AI
井松智能 (Jingsong intelligent) developed China's first 20 and then 30t heavy laser guided forklift AGV

Nio, one of China’s top three builders of premium electric vehicles (EV), aims to reduce its workforce by a third by 2027 as it rapidly replaces them with robots.
Earlier this month, the company said it had cut 10 per cent of its workforce to boost efficiency and stay competitive.

The Shanghai-based carmaker is actively pursuing a higher level of automation in production and also plans to slash managerial positions by 50 per cent as it introduces more artificial intelligence (AI) technologies at its plants, according to Ji Huaqiang, vice-president of manufacturing, logistics and operations.
“We want to resort to AI technologies to largely reduce reliance on skilled workers and technicians, and hence save more labour costs,” he said on Friday.

Click to expand...

“If 80 per cent of our decisions [in manufacturing] can be made by AI, it will enable us to reduce 50 per cent of our managerial positions in 2025.” Industrial robots could help the company cut the use of workers on the production lines by 30 per cent between 2025 and 2027, he added.

Click to expand...

Automakers are already heavily automated so I'm surprised that they can cut workforce by so much.

solarz said:

The problem with this line of thought is that tasks which humans find to be very simple are extremely difficult to program. Right now, these robots are only demonstrating an ability to walk around and perform simple manual operations. There's a long way to go before they can become as versatile as you imagine them to be in the post above.

For example, just for the simple task of flipping a light switch, the robot needs to be able to recognize various kinds light switch, recognize that lights are turned on or off, be able to navigate the area and avoid various obstacles, both static (such as furniture) and moving (such as people or pets), and be able to understand human instructions and update it's task routine accordingly.

Think about how a human learns to do a job. They need training from another human, and this requires then to understand human speech and be able to process visual demonstrations.

All of these are extremely difficult software problems, and until you solve them, humanoid robots would not be of much use.

Click to expand...

Or rather fundamental problem is humans dont know how human mind works, let alone trying to copy it on machine.

Xi visited Fourier HQ recently and checked out GR-1 humanoid robot. Shows just how much focus the Chinese leadership is putting on humanoid robot development.

Over 90% of parts on GR-1 (including chips) are said to be domestic

Is there a humanoid robot that can return to a standing position on its own after falling? I doubt Boston Robotics's Atlas can do that.

Tesla's new robots in action. That is some seriously impressive hands, the best I have ever seen. And that's with 1 year of development. Chinese companies have to seriously step up their game if they want to catch up. Again, to my earlier post, it really does seem like most Chinese companies cannot match the developments of their American counterparts unless they start serious developments a lot earlier, which they really should have done. Always the laggard and never the leader for some reason. Lack of foresight. Or unwillingness to investment in risky technology until some big name like Spacex, tesla or OpenAI makes it mainstream maybe.

tacoburger said:

Tesla's new robots in action. That is some seriously impressive hands, the best I have ever seen. And that's with 1 year of development. Chinese companies have to seriously step up their game if they want to catch up. Again, to my earlier post, it really does seem like most Chinese companies cannot match the developments of their American counterparts unless they start serious developments a lot earlier, which they really should have done. Always the laggard and never the leader for some reason. Lack of foresight. Or unwillingness to investment in risky technology until some big name like Spacex, tesla or OpenAI makes it mainstream maybe.

Click to expand...

Eh, I don't really agree with this.

"Innovation" or "advancements" typically is made if there is mastery of the precursor technologies and industries and one is a leader in those fields to begin with.

Tesla or SpaceX does not come up with their technologies out of nowhere, and is built on a base of human resources, and scientific and technological reserves in the first place, from a resource and technology pool which is world leading. Once one has those, then having the organisational and financial incentives to develop newer products can be enabled, but if one lacks sufficient human resources and technological reserves and sufficient leadership in those respects, then it's rather difficult to do so even if the financial and organisational factors are present.

From that perspective, it really isn't a surprise, and if anything the Chinese industry's ability to keep up so quickly compared to where China was at even just a decade ago, is somewhat remarkable (especially so if one compares China with other nations today).