Can the hottest AI robot walk faster

Can robots "walk" faster with AI

source: Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine

| Wu Zhaohan

| Li Wei

picture source ｜ respondent

COVID-19 is still severe. In this battle of life and death, artificial intelligence has become an indispensable force

since February 10, a group of special "staff" with 300000 tons have appeared in Wuhan Central Hospital, Wuhan University People's Hospital, Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital and Wuhan Chutian hospital. They shuttle flexibly in the isolation area of the hospital and take the responsibility of delivering meals and drugs to patients with intelligent manufacturing as the main direction for medical staff

these special "staff" are meal delivery robots. They not only reduce the risk of infection of medical staff, but also improve the delivery efficiency and save disposable protective equipment. After the delivery of huoshenshan hospital and huoshenshan hospital, medical grade meal delivery robots and unmanned delivery robots have also been used

more and more AI forces have joined the "epidemic" team

on February 4, the Ministry of industry and information technology issued the proposal to give full play to the enabling effect of artificial intelligence and work together to fight the pneumonia epidemic infected by covid-19, proposing to give further play to the enabling effect of artificial intelligence, organize scientific research and production forces, and give priority to accelerating the research and application of relevant products that effectively support epidemic prevention and control

according to the statistics of forward-looking Industry Research Institute in 2019, the market size of medical robots in 2018 was about 510million US dollars. In general, the volume is small and still in its infancy. In 2018, the sales of industrial robots reached $5.41 billion, much higher than that of medical robots. In this epidemic, people have seen a new force in the fight against the epidemic, from the robot delivery of meals in the isolation area to the online AI temperature measurement system

at the same time, people also have questions about how much role artificial intelligence can play? Can robots "walk" faster

enter the front line

at 10:00 on January 24, flight tr188 from Singapore arrived at Hangzhou Xiaoshan airport. As two of the passengers had fever, 219 passengers were placed in the Hangzhou Party school for centralized medical observation

the Party School of the municipal Party committee is already very short of staff on the new year's Eve. It is even more difficult to solve the problem of eating 219 passengers and avoid cross infection. Therefore, the Hangzhou government thought of "asking for help" from the robot

Qinglang intelligent technology has received this special task. However, it was too late to ship directly from the factory, so Li Tong, founder and CEO of Qinglang intelligent technology, immediately negotiated with xinbailu, a Hangzhou chain restaurant that was renting Qinglang robots, and directly transferred 16 robots from the restaurant to the isolation point of Hangzhou municipal Party school

it is not very difficult to let robots that are originally delivering in restaurants with more complex scenes and more people work in relatively closed isolation points. "They can run in the isolation area soon." Li Tong is full of confidence

unmanned distribution is only a microcosm of the robot power in this epidemic. This new force has also entered the hospital to assist medical staff

Yuefan technology has transformed the robot originally suitable for retail scenes and mobile interpretation and service into a robot for hospital scenes

on February 1, Yuefan technology, an enterprise in Chengdu high tech Zone, provided three types of robots for Chengdu Tenth People's Hospital (Chengdu public health and medical clinical center) "Zhiping", "Xiangdi" and "Hawker" free of charge, in order to reduce the working pressure of front-line medical personnel

Hu song, the sales director of Yuefan technology, told Chinese entrepreneurs that after receiving the epidemic prevention notice from the Chengdu municipal government on the 28th of December (January 22), Yuefan technology began to transform the robots originally suitable for retail scenes and mobile explanations and services into robots for hospital scenes

"this change is not complicated, but mainly at the software level, such as the rewriting of the voice library and the redesign of the UI. At present, these three robots have been running in hospitals, and will be invested in other epidemic prevention centers next." Introduction of Hu song

in Beijing, the two intelligent service robots of Orion star have also been sent to Shougang Hospital of Peking University, which is under great pressure for treatment, on January 27. On February 4, Beijing Haidian Hospital also received a donation to put into use the cooperative robot for epidemic prevention and control. This is a function quickly developed by Jinshan safety based on the original orionstar intelligent service robot according to the actual application scenarios and needs after the outbreak of the epidemic

"this anti epidemic force is very important and indispensable." Huang Shan, founder and CEO of Yuefan technology, said, "As the carrier of artificial intelligence, robots play an irreplaceable important role in hospitals, such as distribution robots, disinfection robots, guiding robots, temperature measuring robots, etc., which can effectively prevent and fight epidemic diseases, reduce cross infection, and reduce labor costs. The industry also uses artificial intelligence for vaccine research and development. This shows that artificial intelligence is playing an important role in this epidemic."

Jinshan safety is a cooperative robot for epidemic prevention and control that is rapidly developed according to the actual application scenarios and needs after the outbreak

"danger" and "machine"

"we didn't think about these (hospitals, isolation points) scenarios before. The existing products can be applied to the current scenarios in a short time, which shows that the intelligent robot products on the market have been very mature, and also let us see the possibility of application in more scenarios." Li Tong said

Qinglang intelligent's main products are indoor unmanned distribution robots, which are mainly used in restaurant distribution, hotel service, express/takeout distribution and other scenarios, so the company's orders are mainly concentrated in the catering industry, hotel industry, etc., but the epidemic has a huge impact on the catering industry, and their businesses are also affected

Li Tong admitted that in the short term, the demand for distribution robots in the catering industry will be significantly reduced before the end of the epidemic, which will inevitably have an impact on Qinglang intelligence. "But for AI companies, the significance of market education brought by the epidemic is more important. The short-term pain caused by the disaster will promote the rapid development of the industry."

for the robot industry, technology, products and cost are not the most critical factors restricting development. The difficulty lies in market education. "Even if the monthly rental price of a robot is only 3000 yuan, which is far lower than the labor cost of the catering industry, its application is still very small. After the epidemic, almost all people across the country know that robots have been rolled out on a large scale and can be applied to various scenes and fields, which has a far-reaching impact on the industry." Li Tong said

Huangshan also described the epidemic as a "catalyst", which objectively stimulated the demand of the industry and made effective market education for AI products with intelligent and unmanned characteristics. "Both artificial intelligence and intelligent robots will accelerate the pace of progress after the epidemic has passed, and the market prospect is certainly huge. Especially in the fields of health care and community services, artificial intelligence and robot products will speed up the landing speed."

the epidemic has revealed the real demand scenario of AI, and also put forward a test of the technical strength of AI enterprises. Kuangshi said, "only a team with sufficient technology accumulation and R & D capabilities can change 'danger' into 'opportunity' and take the lead in coming up with effective product solutions"

small I robots, both technology companies, have also expanded product demand driven by the epidemic. Yuanhui, the founder, chairman and CEO of xiaoi robot, said that xiaoi robot provided free epidemic prevention outbound call robots. At the beginning, it hoped to solve the research and visit work of a large number of daily surveys and community inquiries by government agencies at all levels, and provide public welfare services. Now they find that the demand is expanding, with more data analysis and interaction. A catering company in Hubei even hopes to have interactive intelligent robots that can play a psychological comfort role. "Small I robots will launch more products according to their needs and combined with their own capabilities."

Yuan Hui believes that although AI has played a huge role in this epidemic, its application is still relatively small. However, like SARS in 2003, the COVID-19 will certainly change people's way of life and work, which is both an opportunity and a challenge for AI enterprises

bottleneck of market outbreak

at present, China accounts for 38% of the market share in the robot industry in the world. From ground transportation to aviation detection, from home entertainment to medical disaster relief, and from industry to service, the application of Chinese robots has covered many fields

a sudden epidemic made robots famous in the first World War and accelerated the pace of AI enterprises' layout in the medical field

Qinglang has been deeply involved in the catering industry, but after seeing the use of traditional Chinese medicine in the scene of this epidemic, he also had more thoughts on entering a new scene

Huang Shan reflected on his previous layout in an interview with Chinese entrepreneurs. She said that before the outbreak of the epidemic, AI and robots used more technical services to the consumption scene, and there was little landing in the medical scene. The outbreak of the epidemic concentrated on increasing the demand for the landing of AI software and hardware technology in related fields

Hu song believes that Yuefan technology has taken a big step forward driven by the epidemic: the industrial platform is gradually improving. "We originally planned to go deep into the medical field in 2020, and epidemic prevention has accelerated our pace." According to the plan of Yuefan technology, in 2020, the company will make a layout in the hospital, make a benchmark case in Chengdu, and then go north to enter the Beijing market

Hu song revealed that Yuefan technology has been docking with the hospital, but the progress is relatively slow. "After the outbreak of the epidemic, we see that both defense robots for propaganda in hospitals and robots for delivery are just needed for hospitals. For disaster prevention and epidemic prevention, robots have a wide range of application scenarios, so they start to layout the medical field more firmly and faster."

Li Tong also said that once the public recognizes and accepts the application of robots in various scenes, there will be great prospects in the future. He also said that although Qinglang has been deeply involved in the catering industry, after seeing the use of traditional Chinese medicine in the scene of this epidemic, it also made him think more about entering the new scene. "We believe that robots can also be popularized rapidly in medical places."

however, artificial intelligence driven by the outbreak is not without doubts

Shen Meng, executive director of Xiangsong capital, said that domestic enterprises lack original development and are more application-oriented, so they can only forcibly transform their application scenarios into epidemic prevention and control, and cannot realize the promotion of technology on epidemic prevention on the basis. "Kutta said," after all, the impact of the epidemic is short-term. Finally, it will fall into the cost-effectiveness competition of daily scenes. By that time, naked swimming without core technology and underlying technology will be made public. "

in addition, most medical robots are innovative technological products, and whether their performance is stable remains to be tested. The application of medical robots will also bring varying degrees of adjustments and changes to the hospital environment, business processes, operators, etc., and hospitals need an acceptance process