It is not surprising that the country's scientific and technological companies are collectively obsessed with “faunal construction”. There were dogs, cattle and, more recently, horses.
On 7 September, the home-grown machine of the new-embracing peng cars was born, a smart horse that a little friend could ride, code-named "The Little White Dragon". And when I saw the look, the Internet people were like, "It's kind of weird, but it's not weird."
Machine horses, which sound new, have been in the market for four-foot robots for several years now in the country, with more and more entryists.
The initial technology company, Ultratech, created in 2016, first developed the screen “Leka Dog”, followed by new players like Deep Clouds, Blue Technologies and others. In 2021, the four-foot robot age began with a look at spring evening, when the machine bulls stood on their feet for their birthdays and danced with the newly developed "Big Cows" of Yu Bing's latest development; a month later, the tectonic lab released a self-study machine, Max; and last month, Mi brought with her an "Eternal Egg" machine dog.
In just a few years, technology companies have brought together three types of “animal robot”: dogs, cattle and horses. “Ten years later, `Youngqing' lived the ideal life of a man, a dog, riding a horse.” One who knew the way of the user.
There's no doubt about the high-end market of four-foot robots. First of all, the price is really high, with $999 in milligrams of rice, already the cheapest four-foot robot, and only 400 measurements have been opened. There are only a few of them, such as Oka tree technology and aluminum technology, that are actually being sold publicly, at a minimum price of $16,000, but it is already several hundred times lower than the price of the original Lecca dog, which was over $300,000.
Cartography / Deep Fire
But under the high-end look, whether it be a machine cow or a horse, it can be said that it is a machine dog who has changed clothes, plus four-foot robots that are not just needed, and are thus being turned into “toys” for the rich.” The more central problem is that the whole industry is at an early stage, facing the challenge of investing in technological development and commercialization.
Technology companies have an "animal dream"?
The technology company's "animal dream" started in the last century. In the 1990s, the Boston Dynamics Corporation of the United States was established to design large four-foot robots for the United States Department of Defense and the Army, and it began to develop “civilized” four-foot robots since their acquisition in 2013.
Domestic technology companies start relatively late in the area of four-foot robotics, but at a fast iterative pace. The first four-foot robot appeared in 2010, and since then the number of companies involved has gradually increased, especially in the last five years, when more and more players have entered the field for the cake.
In 2016 and 2017, two business start-ups were established at the depths of the clouds. The former also completed the tens of millions of dollars in A in July of this year. Bluetech and Dogtix (more than a robot) were both established in 2019 and quickly launched.
This is the year of four-foot robots in the country. In addition to the continuous updating of product lines by start-ups in the above-mentioned fields, technology companies such as telecommunication, eugenics, millet and peng have all been introduced this year.
Presumptuously select the / Wibble
From Euphoria and Wootree Technology, designed to cater to the theme of 2021 “Cow Year”, to the recent Peng's machine, “Big Dragon”, with the introduction of more common machine dogs, and the introduction of cyberdogs, the four-foot robot market is afraid of opening a zoo.
Tree technology 's 'poo' source / microblog
In particular, Peng's machine, the White Dragon, has an official image of the horse, but the netizen has a “near”, and thinks that the horse has only one horn, more like a unicorn.
Source / Peng Car Official Public Number
Over the years, four-foot robots in the market, such as millet, tree and blue technology, have been able to achieve a variety of walking and motor skills, such as standing, walking, running, running and jumping, as well as to climb quickly on limbs in the event of fall.
The power of action is becoming stronger and the “brain” is becoming smarter, and some tech firms have four-foot robots that can build their own maps, actively avoid obstacles and achieve automatic follow-up to their owners.
In some dimensions, domestic players have surpassed foreign players. For example, in terms of speed of movement, the fifth generation of Alpha Dogs, launched in March this year, are moving at a speed of 4.15 m/s, exceeding the 3.7 m/s of the current world record-bearer MIT (MIT) product of Mini Cheetah, and has reached the long-run rate (4-5 m/s) of a normal physical adult; the Alpha Dogs are moving at 2 m/s and MIT is 1 m/s.
CyberDog, for example, sells iron eggs for nearly $10,000, which allow room maps to be built inside the house, thus locating themselves. And whether indoor or outdoor, if the operator selects the target to be followed, through face recognition, human profiling and pedestrian re-identification techniques, the “iron egg” can follow the target autonomously; it is built into the voice-to-speech technology of the young classmates, and users can direct the word to the “iron egg” and control the household smart device.
The master can take the iron egg out as a pet, or go out with the machine dog, and stop when the owner says, "The iron egg, stop." However, in order to ensure security, Mi did not open up the “back-to-back flip” stunt on “iron eggs”.
A blogger is experimenting with iron eggs to follow the functional source / Twitter
Similarly, the fifth generation of Alpha Dogs released in March of this year, the Go1 machine dog launched in July by Ultra-Blue Technologies, and the Little White Dragon of Peng can be treated as pets, autonomously followed, accompanied by their owners, walkers, takeaways, or patrol. Moreover, both blue technology and peng products are equipped with voice-interaction techniques that are subject to voice control.
Peng's robotic horse can express feelings through face screens and has a sense of touch, the most distinctive feature of which is “children can ride”. However, the robots are currently only issuing prototype machines, and prices and distribution times have not yet been made public. The four-foot robotic products of the highest choice have also not been officially distributed.
It is worth noting that, although technology companies have developed animal forms such as dogs, cattle, horses, etc., they are just different in appearance design and are similar in nature to machine dogs. Moreover, in the C-end market, product functions are developed on the basis of "smart pets" and are constantly superseded with intelligent soundboxes, intelligent homes, intelligent travel, etc.
How attractive is "animal"?
What's the charm of a four-foot robot?
The view expressed by Zhao Nam, the investment partner in Zhang Feng, who invests in Zhao tree technology, in an interview with the media, was that “the four-foot robots are likely to be the next platform level on the robot track”.
According to a report by Boston Consulting, the global robotic market will reach between $160 billion and $260 billion by 2030. The global market for specialized service robots driven by imitating robots will reach between $90 billion and $170 billion, well over $40 billion and $50 billion in traditional industrial robots and collaborative robots.
This huge market is not just for C-end markets. In an interview with the media, the founder and CEO Wang Hing-Hing said that the four-foot robotic applications were mainly in two parts, namely, too-C, which focused on family-accompanied functions and combined recreational and partial practicality, and to B, which was used for such purposes as inspection, security, rescue and fire protection.
Zhao Nan believes that there is a considerable opportunity for imitation of four-foot robots as a platform, whether they add functions such as “literacy” at the end of C or at the end of B to carry all kinds of mechanical arms, parts and components to meet industrial needs.
Source / Unsplash
A series of four-foot robotic “silhouettes” have been produced at the depths of the clouds that aim at the B-end market. In addition to routine step-by-step actions, the latest products have been able to achieve industrial-level waterproofness and have gained operational experience in such scenarios as electricity inspections.
Quest and Mi also saw opportunities at the B end. When Max was released in the first half of this year, the arraignment indicated that in the future Max was expected to play a role in robotic patrolling, security and rescue. Although the Iron Eggs are currently conducting small-scale measurements at the C end, they also look at the B-end market, and Mi's founder, the Thunder Army, in his speech, said that four-foot robots have vast commercial prospects in areas such as hazardous search and rescue, medical aid and family support.
The director of Peng Motors, Ho Xiao Peng, looked at the changes that robots had made to the lives of the C-group, and one of the bright spots of the horse was to make the little friend “capable”. In response, users say, “Parents buy cars, children buy horses, peng is a “heart”.”
Suh Wen, a robotian, has a much closer perspective to Mi and Tote. He indicated that four-foot robots had greater market space in B-side than in C-end markets for recreational functions. Only at the B-end market, due to the complexity and sophistication of the work scenes, such as surveying and exploration, can the four-foot robot really do something that is not easily replaced.
However, “a number of large plants do not focus on commercial values in the short term, and making four-foot robots may be because they see the value of developing four-foot robots for technology layouts, or expanding lines of operation.” Xu said.
Regularly on microblogging, imitating robots can help millet to make a technical layout. The process of exploration is also in the process of technological preparation, involving technology such as machine visualization, navigational barriers, human interaction, AI speech algorithms, etc., that can counteract mobile phones, intelligent homes, etc.
They also stated that the key behind the introduction of the iron egg was that “we just want to make rice an engineer's destination”. In other words, Mi wants to build a platform for hardware development with the help of "iron eggs" to draw more attention to the movement of millet and its four-foot robotics, and attract more developers to explore biomimicating robots.
It seems that the market for four-foot robots has become popular, but the players are at the stage of “showing the future”, because the market is very early.
Zhao Nam compared the current market for four-foot robots to the drone market more than a decade ago. At that time, the drone, “at a high price, which is still not widespread, gradually sustained a huge market”. According to public reports, the domestic drone market, when it was established in 2006 because of its small audience and lack of profitability, was an absolutely small area of concern. By the end of 2020, it was estimated at more than $166 billion, with an annual harvest of nearly $20 billion and a monopoly on the global market share of over 80 per cent of drones.
Wang Xing Xing also had confidence in the development of the four-foot robot market, as he had said in an interview with the media: “No more than five years later, we would be able to see people on the street or in many places, shopping with four-foot robots, doing some leisure and entertainment activities, and, for example, in hazardous areas, such as construction sites, fire sites and even chemical plants.
A rich man's toy? Or a future?
The price of four-foot robots, while falling from 300,000 to less than 10,000, still discourages curious users, and the technology company has to “defecate itself”.
When the “Lika Dog” of Woo Tree Technology was on the market less than a year ago, it sold about 310,000 yuan (US$ 45,000), and today its minimum price of four-foot consumer robots has fallen to 16,000 yuan.
One user, Ren Yu, commented that from $16,900 for the fifth generation of Alpha Dogs in Nanjing Ululu, to $16,000 for A1, and $999 for the millerDog (the iron egg) in Xiaomei, a product that is still working on its practical application has begun to wage war.
Mi hit the price of four-foot robots below ten thousand dollars and became the winner at this stage of the price fight, although according to the usual information, the price is sold at a loss.
At the same time, it is true that the market for four-foot robots is small, and at this stage more users are high-end players such as technocrats. According to official reports, the first round of “iron eggs” for millet was only 400. However, according to Wang Hing-Hing, the clients of Wow tree technology are mainly colleges and institutes, as well as technology companies and individuals, but since its inception in 2016 and June of this year, there have been less than a thousand cumulative sales.
In an interview with the media, Zhao Yoyang, the robot, said, “There are three prerequisites for a veritable foot robot to walk into a family: one is a machine that is sufficiently stable and durable; the other is a retail price acceptable to consumer groups; and the third is the ability to actually work on family matters”.
Source / Pecels
In addition to the non-achievement of the price element, the three elements require functional upgrading. In practical terms, four-foot robots can follow automatically, like pets, on the basis of certain smart soundbox functions, even though Peng's robots are now slightly broken and can become low-speed smart transport robots for children, Xu Wen believes that “for C-end consumers, four-foot biomolecular robots do not have needs and cannot be replaced, but are essentially high-level toys”.
Moreover, from the four-foot robots previously released, it appears that the sustainability does not fully meet consumer expectations. In the depths of the clouds, the “discovery X20” 20 kg load operation continued for more than two hours, with a maximum operating time of four hours in unloaded condition. In June, UNitree Go1 was renewed for over an hour. According to Wang Xing Xing, the company robots continue for the longest period of about eight hours.
There is also a need for continuous research and development on four-foot robots, both in large factories and in new players entering the market.
In their presentations, the Forces indicated that while the future of biomimicating robots was promising, there was a need for substantial investment in research and development energy, core parts, algorithms, chips, etc., which was expected to become a product type that required long-term development, development and maintenance. It is also clear from the routine that CyberDog is still in the engineering exploration phase and that what is being done is to ensure the stability of the equipment and the experience of basic functions.
Xu Wen-Deep Flaming Analytics, although the four-foot robots are more promising on the B side, there is still much to be done technically. For example, in industrial scenarios, some complex scenarios are not sufficiently intelligent to deal with the challenges, while in some simple scenarios, four-foot robots are more fungible.
The four-foot robotic market with surface “wind”, functionality and utility to be enhanced, with one mountain after another to cross, remains a difficult path to commercialization. Xu said that the shuffle period and intense competition that the industry was facing were already ahead of schedule. However, when to get rid of the label “Toys of the Rich” requires a concerted effort by all.