After Tesla, Xiaomi also entered the game. Why did the car company "make people"?

Author:Nine Pai News Time:2022.08.14

【Source: Nine Pai News】

On the 500th day of the car, Lei Jun gave the market a new suspense.

On August 11, Lei Jun's special time in the third annual speech was left for half an hour to introduce Xiaomi's starting driving technology and Xiaomi's first human -shaped bionic robot "Cyberone" (Iron University).

At the end of the speech, Tie Da made his debut in the high attention, presenting a red African chrysanthemum for Lei Jun, and taking a selfie with him. After the selfie, Lei Jun asked Tie Da "How do you think the photos?" Tie Da replied: "Yes, you can have pictures." In the whole speech, Tie Da's "sense of existence" was second only to Lei Jun himself.

Lei Jun introduced that the intelligence and mechanical capabilities behind Tie Da were completed by the whole stack of the Xiaomi Robot Laboratory. There are countless software, hardware, and algorithms behind the development of the whole stack of Xiaomi Robotics Laboratory.

Before Xiaomi, on the first Tesla artificial intelligence day last year, Musk announced that he would develop his own research on humanoid robots called Optimus. However, Lei Jun first "sullen", a week before Tie University officially debuted, Musk posted a new picture of Optimus at the Tesla's annual shareholders' meeting. Musk has also expressed the emphasis on bionic humanoid robots many times, and even bluntly stated that "Optimus robots will be more valuable than cars."

Behind the consistent pace of domestic and foreign science and technology giants, a new competition has begun.

More like a human robot

Whether it is iron or Optimus, they are emphasizing "more like humans" or "better understanding humanity".

In order to achieve a more real biological response, the high -precision environmental perception system is equipped with a high -precision environment, and the 11 high -precision sensors throughout the body transmit information to the AI brain in real time. You can perceive environmental information such as images, light, distance, speed, sound, sound, sound. At the same time, Tie Da also has a sensitive auditory sensor. With the audio algorithm, it can identify the 65 types of 45 types of meaning and emotions, plus 85 environmental sound recognition.

The Optimus limbs contain about 40 electromechanical actuators, which can use force feedback sensing systems to achieve smooth and agile feet walking. In addition, at the beginning of this year, Musk also said in a question by Robotic scientist Fredman that Optimus would have "his own personality".

More intuitive performance is "like people". Both Iron and Optimus have facial screens that can express emotions. In terms of height and weight, they are also very similar to humans -Optimus is about 1.73 meters tall, weighs about 56.7 kg, and the height of the iron is 1.77 meters, weighs 52 kg, and also weighs 52 kg. Have a clear birthday and constellation.

In fact, Xiaomi had entered the field of bionic robots before Tie University.

At the Xiaomi autumn conference last year, Lei Jun launched the machine dog "iron egg". As a predecessor of the Iron University, Tie Egg was also "amazing" at the press conference. The iron egg is equipped with 12 Xiaomi servo motors, allowing it to exercise flexibly like biological dogs and can make complex actions. The Ai Weida edge AI is superior to the Jetson Xavier NX platform, which can make iron eggs more more than biological dogs. "clever".

If the functions of these bionic robots are simply summarized, it can be roughly divided into three aspects: environmental perception, human -machine interaction and motion control.

In addition to Xiaomi and Tesla, there are not a few car companies in the field of bionic robots.

Almost at the same time as iron eggs, there is Xiaopeng's machine horse (little white dragon). In addition to riding, Xiaobailong also has tactile perception, can express emotions, and communicate with humans.

Coincidentally, in June last year, Hyundai Automobile Group acquired Boston Power, one of the world's largest bionic robots, with 80%of Boston Power's shares.

Pave the way for future

These more and more human robots are obviously not sent to the workshop.

Whether it is a humanoid or an animal bionic robot, it has many things in common with smart cars. In terms of functional speaking, smart cars are cars with functions such as assisting driving (automatic) driving, human -computer interaction, learning human beings, and adapting to the environment.

In fact, when Baidu and Geely's joint venture joint venture collection was released when the first concept car was released in June this year, the new car has become a car robot. The free movement of the next, the natural communication based on understanding the needs of users and emotions, and achieve self -growth through learning the driving environment, which coincides with the three capabilities of bionic robots promoted by car companies.

In other words, smart cars are a robot that can be self -driving, and bionic robots are also the prototype of smart cars.

From the perspective of hardware, bionic robots are also more like the advanced test of smart cars. In addition to the need for chips with strong calculation, sensitive sensors and powerful motors, the equipment required for smart cars, and bionic robots are also indispensable for a lack of one indispensable. Essence

For example, Optimus has a built -in Tesla FSD fully autonomous driving chip. Xiaopeng's Xiaobai Dragon is also equipped with a car -level intelligent driving system.

Lei Jun did not disclose the chip supplier used by the iron ambassador at the press conference. Although Lei Jun proudly stated at the press conference that Tie Da was a "full stack of self -research", Xiaomi's self -developed Surging C1, P1, and S1 were all battery -related chips, which was obviously not enough to support such a huge computing power needs.

In addition, Soochow Securities pointed out that the birth of humanoid bionic robots also allows car companies to have more smart products, and under the guidance of new energy vehicle experience, car companies have greater the commercialization of humanoid bionic robots. The advantages. It is undeniable that, as Musk said, bionic robots, especially human bionic robots, have huge potential. According to the forecast of Soochow Securities, in the next 5 to 10 years, humanoid robots will reach 31 trillion yuan in housework, business services, industrial production and emotional companionships.

Crisis coexistence

The car companies are "making people", whether Musk or Lei Jun are not the first.

In 2000, Honda launched a pure -electrical humanoid robot ASIMO, which is also known as the "originator" of humanoid robots. After several rounds of iterations, ASIMO can run and jump, even complete dance movements, play football with users, and can also learn experience and interact with human -computer. However, ASIMO officially discontinued production in July 2018. Behind this, up to $ 2.5 million in price has become the biggest constraint.

The cost problem also plagued Xiaomi. In his speech, Lei Jun said frankly that the cost of iron was as high as 600,000 to 700,000 yuan, which could not be mass -produced. Musk also cannot determine the mass production timeline of Optimus, but it still gives the ideal result: if it can mass production in the next two years, under the scale effect, the price of Optimu can be controlled at $ 25,000 (about 16.8 about 16.8 10,000 yuan).