The market for humanoid robots may be quite rich in a few years. In addition to Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, Agility Robotics’ Digit, and the expected Optimus model from Tesla, we now have a new product from Xiaomi. It is hoped to be helpful for various tasks in the future.
Xiaomi’s new robot has been named CyberOne and is the second robot from Xiaomi Robotics Lab after the CyberDog that was presented last year. The humanoid robot was unveiled at a launch event in Beijing, where the bipedal humanoid robot joined Lei Jun onstage, greeting the CEO and handing him a long-stem flower.
The Xiaomi CyberOne is fitted with advanced arms and legs, supports bipedal-motion posture balancing, and reaches a peak torque of up to 300Nm. It is 177cm (5.8 feet) tall and weighs 52 kg, roughly the same height and weight as the so-called Optimus robot that Tesla showed off last year. CyberOne must be able to recognize people, gestures, and different expressions. Over time, CyberOne is able to learn from human emotions and not make the same mistakes again, thanks to its artificial intelligence.
The humanoid robot has a face in the form of a curved OLED display. It can see the world in 3D and can hear with a pair of microphones to identify 85 types of environmental sounds and 45 kinds of human semantic emotions (the question is, of course, how successfully). The whole body control algorithm coordinates 21 joint degrees of freedom, comprised of 13 joints, with each degree of freedom capable of responding within 0.5 ms.
In order to ensure the flexibility of CyberOne’s upper limbs, Xiaomi has developed a high-efficiency motor weighing only 500g with a rated output torque of up to 30Nm for the upper limb joint motor. The hip joint motor is similarly capable of instantaneous peak torque of up to 300Nm.
Thanks to the self-developed humanoid bipedal control algorithm, CyberOne’s walking posture has been programmed to be both natural and stable. In addition, CyberOne can hold up to 1.5kg in weight with a single hand and programming by demonstration.
Xiaomi states that in the future, the robot will be able to be used in the manufacturing industry as well as to function as a companion robot. However, it’ll be a while before we see robots like these in our homes. At the moment, CyberOne should probably be seen mostly as a prototype that so far does not seem to be able to perform many practical tasks.
Lei Jun stated that CyberOne would cost somewhere in the range of 600,000 to 700,000 yuan (about $89,100 to $104,000) when it goes on sale. There is so far no information on when Xiaomi plans to start selling the CyberOne.
