At the 2024 World Robot Conference, a total of 27 humanoid robot manufacturers and over 30 upstream and downstream companies in the humanoid robot industry chain made their appearances. Humanoid robots have extremely rich application scenarios, such as industrial settings, production processes, and domestic service fields. Under the joint efforts of various parties, it is expected to catalyze humanoid robots to become another disruptive product after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. Su Shi, which one of your works do you like the most The reporter pressed the circular button and asked a question into the microphone. The "Su Shi" on the other side blinked and pondered for a moment before answering, "When will the bright moon appear?" Then he shook his head and began reciting, accompanied by corresponding gestures. This is a scene on August 24th, at the 2024 World Robot Conference held in Yizhuang, Beijing, where a reporter from the Workers' Daily "interviewed" the robot "Su Shi". Su Shi "is a biomimetic humanoid robot manufactured by Dalian Ties Technology Development Co., Ltd. At the 2023 World Robot Conference, the scene of the company's robot "Li Bai" reciting "Drinking" amazed the audience. From August 21st to August 25th, the 2024 World Robot Conference was held in Beijing, with a total of 169 companies exhibiting over 600 innovative products and launching more than 60 new products. Of particular note is the appearance of 27 humanoid robot complete machine companies and over 30 upstream and downstream enterprises in the humanoid robot industry chain. As Xu Xiaolan, president of the Chinese Electronics Society, said, "China's humanoid robot industry is on the eve of a blowout. The company's biomimetic robot Hobbs highly reproduces the human face, not only with skin materials that are very similar to human faces, but also with the ability to see the surroundings through the pupil RGB camera and make corresponding expressions while interacting with humans, including laughter, smile, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, surprise, thinking... Not only does it look more like a human, but the behavior of the humanoid robot also looks more like a human. In the exhibition hall, there were endless sighs of 'amazing, amazing'. The presentation of the emblem by 'Tiangong' is undoubtedly the most impressive scene at the launch ceremony of this conference. The "Tiangong 1.2 MAX", standing at 173 centimeters tall and weighing 60 kilograms, lifted the conference emblem with both hands, walked to the center of the stage, and accurately placed the emblem on the starting stage, attracting applause. This humanoid robot developed by Beijing Guishen Intelligent Robot Innovation Center can receive and respond to commands through voice, grasp designated objects, and place them in designated positions. Behind this is a visual language model trained by a embodied intelligent platform, ensuring the ability to understand tasks in different scenarios. Galaxy General Motors has transformed the exhibition booth into a pharmacy, allowing humanoid robots to complete drug shelving and retrieval tasks with both hands. According to the staff, the pharmacy service robot they jointly built with Meituan will soon be implemented. In the prologue of the 2024 World Robot Conference Expo, the introduction screen of the "Humanoid Robot Technology Innovation Zone" reads: Humanoid robots are the product of "artificial intelligence+robots", with intelligent "brain", agile "cerebellum", and flexible "limbs", making them an ideal carrier of general artificial intelligence. The humanoid robots people see in the exhibition hall are getting closer and closer to this description. If you insist on attending the World Robot Conference every year with the addition of a large model, you will clearly see how robots "evolve". What is behind 'evolution'? This year, we have added large models to all of our products A staff member of Dalian Ties Technology Development Co., Ltd. revealed the secret of the upgrade to the reporter. In fact, it is precisely under the empowerment of multimodal big model technology that the thinking ability, comprehension ability, and motion performance of humanoid robots have been greatly improved, and the success rate of executing complex tasks has doubled. According to the "Ten Trends Outlook for Humanoid Robots" released at this conference, the multimodal large model of humanoid robots will be able to provide stronger multimodal understanding, generation, and correlation capabilities for their perception, cognition, and decision-making planning by integrating multimodal information such as speech, image text, sensing signals, and 3D point clouds, thereby enhancing their generalization ability in complex scene tasks. At the iFlytek booth, the humanoid robot received instructions from the staff and went to the refrigerator to retrieve a can of cola. This seemingly simple action is actually a complex task that embodies a breakthrough in humanoid robot technology. Last year it only had a 'cerebellum', but this year we have equipped it with a 'brain' Zhang Jiyang, Product Manager of the Hardware Center at iFlytek, explained that robots need to first search for the path to the refrigerator through a map, then use a robotic arm to open the refrigerator door, and accurately identify various items. The "cerebellum" is only responsible for motion control and planning, including movement and grasping, while the "brain" is responsible for perception and decision-making. The Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gives a "timetable" for the development of humanoid robots in China: by 2025, the innovation system of humanoid robots will be initially established, and breakthroughs will be made in a number of key technologies such as "brain, cerebellum and limbs"; By 2027, the innovation capability of humanoid robot technology will significantly improve, forming a safe and reliable industrial and supply chain system, building an internationally competitive industrial ecosystem, and achieving a comprehensive strength that reaches the world's advanced level. Seeing the future, Bai Xuran, 10 years old, stared at the big screen on the exhibition stand with her mouth wide open and never closed. On the screen is a humanoid robot performing "eighteen martial arts": playing basketball, making pancakes, making coffee, cleaning... "What do you think of this robot?" the reporter asked. He blurted out, 'The feeling of having a bright future is really cool.' Yeah! What people see here may be what the future looks like. Xu Xiaolan, Chairman of the China Electronics Society, stated at the press conference of the World Robot Conference that with the joint efforts of various parties such as enterprises, governments, and application parties, it is expected to form a humanoid robot industry ecosystem driven by application needs and guided by the construction of new formats and models. It is expected to catalyze humanoid robots to become another disruptive product after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. She also pointed out that humanoid robots will have extremely rich application scenarios. In industrial settings, humanoid robots are suitable for collaborating or replacing human work in hazardous environments such as flammable and explosive environments; In the production process, humanoid robots can be applied to mining operations, power inspections, security border inspections, and other scenarios, freeing humans from monotonous and dangerous work; In the field of domestic services, humanoid robots can not only chat with the elderly, play with children, but also manage household chores and take care of patients. In fact, research and innovation platforms for humanoid robots are making efforts in various regions. At the end of 2023, the Beijing Guishen Intelligent Robot Innovation Center will be established. In May of this year, China's first national and local co built humanoid robot innovation center was unveiled in Pudong, Shanghai. In the exhibition hall of this robotics conference, the Sichuan Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, and others have appeared one after another, becoming a new landscape. According to the Anthropoid Robot Industry Research Report, in 2024, China's humanoid robot market will reach about 2.76 billion yuan; By 2029, it will reach 75 billion yuan, accounting for 32.7% of the world's total and ranking first in the world in terms of proportion; By 2035, the market size is expected to reach 300 billion yuan. Faced with a vast market space, many companies are accelerating the landing of humanoid robots. In the exhibition area, the industrial version humanoid robot Walker S walked up to a car and used the detector in its hand to check whether the car tire manufacturing met the standards. The staff introduced that its detection range can cover 360 degrees of the vehicle body and low areas below 0.5 meters, achieving millimeter level detection. Currently, this robot has entered multiple automobile factories for workshop training. Ji Chao, Chief Scientist of iFlytek Robotics, believes that humanoid robots are expected to gradually enter industry applications in the next 3 to 5 years. In the next 5 to 10 years, humanoid robots will enter households. We need to fully utilize our imagination to imagine the future world At the main forum of the World Robot Conference, Marina Bill, President of the International Federation of Robotics, mentioned that in 2019, 60000 robots were installed worldwide, mainly industrial robots. By 2022, this number had reached 500000 and is expected to exceed several million in the future. (New Society)