From appearance to application scenarios, may humanoid robots become the ultimate form of artificial intelligence?

Last October, the American billionaire Musk once again attracted the attention of the world. On that day, the prototype of the humanoid robot "Optimus" that had been developed by Musk's research team for a long time was officially released to the public.

So, should robots "return" to human form? Will humanoid robots be the ultimate form of artificial intelligence? How far can scientists make humanoid robots?

Although it is difficult to have clear answers to these questions at the moment, it can be seen that from Atlas of Boston Dynamics in the United States, Ameca of British robotics company Engineered Arts, to Walker of UBTECH and CyberOne of Xiaomi, humanoids Robots are booming.

Development and Achievements Humanoid robots are already in a period of vigorous development

According to the definition of academic circles, general humanoid robots can be divided into large humanoid robots and small humanoid robots. Large humanoid robots generally refer to adult-sized robots, most of which are more than one meter tall and bipedal walking. This involves a lot of control, planning, mechatronics technology, all-round AI perception technology, mobility and working range, human-machine Interaction, etc.; while small humanoid robots are generally desktop-type.

For the development of humanoid robots, the industry generally defines it as three stages. The first stage is the early development stage represented by the Waseda University humanoid robot; the second stage is the highly integrated development stage of the system represented by the Honda humanoid robot; the third stage is represented by the Boston Dynamics humanoid robot stage of highly dynamic movement development.

First of all, WABOT-1, the world's first humanoid robot developed by Japan's Waseda University, was born in 1967. The robot is about 2 meters tall and weighs 160 kilograms. It includes a limb control system, a visual system and a dialogue system. It has the same features as humans It has 26 joints in its hands and legs, two cameras on its chest, and tactile sensors on its hands.

It is understood that WABOT-1's mobility is about the same as that of a one-and-a-half-year-old baby. Although it takes 45 seconds to walk one step and the stride is only about 10 centimeters, it was still enough to shock the world at the time. Its main author, Kato Ichiro, is therefore known as the "Father of Humanoid Robots in the World."

Subsequently, ASIMO, born by Japan's Honda in 1986, was regarded as the leader of the second generation of humanoid robots. It is 130 centimeters tall, weighs 48 kilograms, has 57 joints in its body, and has a maximum speed of 9km/h. It can perform a series of complex movements such as trotting, hopping on one foot, going up and down stairs, and playing football.

ASIMO, which was originally planned for mass production, was "retired" in 2022 due to its high cost and too simple functions, which could not bear the contextual dialogue function.

The Atlas prototype, born by Boston Dynamics in 2009, was officially released to the public in July 2013. After several optimized designs, the new generation of Atlas is 150 centimeters tall, weighs 81.6 kilograms, and has 28 joints throughout its body. The speed can reach 1.5m/s, and it can complete a series of complex actions such as fast trotting, triple jumps, back flips and aerial gymnastics. It is considered to be the humanoid robot currently closest to humans in terms of movement.

In addition, Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus will be unveiled in October 2022. It is 171 cm tall and weighs 56.6 kg. It can pick up items weighing about 20 kg and walks at a speed of about 8 km/h. kilometer. Not only in terms of sports, its brain also uses Tesla's supercomputer system Dojo, which has super computing power.

Committed to scenario-based applications, humanoid robots have unlimited potential

Although many humanoid robot works have been unveiled so far, when it comes to the commercialization of humanoid robots, it seems that it is still far away. This is mainly because the current humanoid robots are difficult to achieve the "intelligence" acceptable to humans. "To this extent, after all, robots with the ability to think independently currently only exist in science fiction movies.

Perception-cognition-decision-making-execution, this series of capabilities can be said to be a huge challenge for each one, and all need to complete technical difficulties. On top of this, how to make robots have human logical thinking capabilities, and even simulate It will take a longer time for breakthroughs in accounting algorithms to realize human emotions and feelings.

But if there is demand, there must be corresponding research and development. This does not affect the scientific research enthusiasm of major domestic and foreign manufacturers.

Just last August, at Xiaomi’s autumn new product launch conference, the first full-size humanoid bionic robot CyberOne was officially unveiled. 45 kinds of human semantic emotions and distinguish 85 kinds of environmental semantics. In addition, it is equipped with Xiaomi's self-developed whole-body control algorithm, which can coordinate the movement of 21 joints; it is equipped with the Mi Sense visual space system, which can reconstruct the real world in three dimensions. It has advanced technical capabilities such as a well-developed "cerebellum" that can achieve balanced movement and posture on both feet, strong limbs, and a power peak torque of 300Nm.

According to data from Tianyancha, in recent years, robots have become more closely integrated with cutting-edge technology industries, such as big data and artificial intelligence. In particular, the emergence of humanoid robots has made robots as a technology industry increasingly more "technical". From a quantitative perspective, domestic robot patents have maintained steady growth, with more than 23,000 patent applications in 2022; from a type perspective, invention patents and utility models account for a high proportion, with the sum of the two accounting for 90% of the total.

It can be seen that although the research and development and commercialization of humanoid robots are "a long way to go" from the perspectives of technology and scientific research, this still cannot resist the continued growth of the concept and new products of humanoid robots. Related R&D and patents are showing unprecedented growth.

In fact, technology comes to the market with its achievements. Its biggest purpose and hope is to realize scenario-based applications and help people process and complete part of their work. This requires that the level of AI technology associated with humanoid robots needs to reach a higher level. To a high degree, it is artificial intelligence that gives robots the ability to apply in more complex and subdivided interactions, work and other scenarios. Whether humanoid robots will eventually become the ultimate form of artificial intelligence technology still requires your patience.

The above is the detailed content of From appearance to application scenarios, may humanoid robots become the ultimate form of artificial intelligence?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!