In 2015, it was a relatively lively year for the robotics industry, especially in the second half of the year. Since the second half of last year, dozens of service robots have appeared one after another. Every time they are bustling. However, after the excitement, the embarrassing situation has emerged. There are many people watching lively and few people are willing to buy. At the same time, all kinds of negative evaluations continued. Most people watching lively said that this thing could not be done. It was just a toy, and the toy was too expensive.
At this point, many people began to reflect calmly. Investors began to think that service robot worth not worth investing, entrepreneurs are thinking about how to go is the right way. Companies that have already gone public have begun to adjust their product orientation. Some entrepreneurs who have just started their own business have not yet exited because they haven’t been able to withdraw their investment. Others are still in confusion.
Zhang Meng, the founder of the Cambrian, also faced this confusion. There were investors who faced him when he said that home service robots had no future for several years. He eventually chose to persist. He said that perhaps the home service robots will not be able to develop much in a short while, but the robots are sure that in the future, the home service robots are currently not favored mainly because many places have no way to meet the requirements of consumers. The level of technology is indeed difficult to solve all consumer-level needs at once, but it can be solved from a problem, and consumers use it as a tool.
The Cambrian family service robot Xiao Wu is positioned to actively interact with children under the age of 6 and take photographs, liberating their parents' hands because the robot can take pictures of the children through active dialogue and follow-up moments.
When it comes to the name Cambrian, many people think of this as representing the biological explosion of life. In fact, when Zhang Meng founded the company as early as the beginning of 2015, it borrowed the implication that the generation of the robot's life explosion had already arrived. Zhang Meng, one of the founders and CEOs, graduated from HIT and another co-founder, Gu also graduated from the Robotics Laboratory at Oklahoma State University.
The technology of the robot mainly includes vision, hearing, active interaction, motion planning and SLAM. The core of the Cambrian technology research and development is vision and SLAM. They hope that robots can recognize human expressions and behaviors and thus realize interaction. The Cambrian current team has a total of more than 60 people, of which one-fifth is the algorithm team.
According to Cambrian introduction, computer vision includes eight technologies, face technology, human body technology, stereo vision, target detection, target tracking, emotion recognition, behavior analysis, and AR/VR. Among them, face technology is the most basic and mature. In addition to the face technology, the Cambrian has now implemented eight types of visual interaction technologies, and it has continuously optimized the effects in the iterations.
Most of the home service robots that appear on the market today are positioned in the education of children, and this positioning is actually without any problems. However, the most critical issue for a robot to truly escort and educate children for a long time is whether it can Active interaction. If the robot can't actively interact, then the initiative lies with the child. The robot is just a toy. When you are happy, you may come and play. But the children's toys are always new. It is difficult to guarantee that they will not be able to get new toys. It was lost in the corner. If the robot can read and understand the emotions and behaviors of the children and thus actively interact with them, they have the opportunity to become true friends with the children.
Through the human body's detection, tracking, and recognition of face features, Xiaowu Robot can identify the objects that need to be tracked in the crowd, know the other person's facial expressions and behaviors, and thus carry out active interactions, such as capturing when the other person is happy. Or tell a story.
In Zhang Meng’s opinion, it is a great demand for children to take pictures. He has become a father and he knows the desire to pay attention to the children’s dynamics at that moment, and he can't help but give the children a variety of pats. He targeted the user groups to young parents whose children are under 6 years of age. In his view, this age group of children is the best and most lovely, and it is also the time when parents like to take pictures.
From the point of view of the camera, this mode is similar to the self-timer drone. The drone belongs to a camera that can fly, and the camera can be locked by the face recognition to achieve self-photographing. The self-timer of a drone is able to shoot at high angles from various angles. However, what has long been criticized is that its life time is too short. Although home service robots cannot shoot at heights like drones, they can also shoot by adjusting angles while solving the problem of battery life. Therefore, using the robot as a camera tool is not a bad choice.
In the past two years of product production, Zhang Meng has always been concerned about the dynamics of other robot entrepreneurs. Unlike other high-profile individuals, he is less exposed to product development. At present, the Xiaowu robot has entered the mass production phase and will be shipped within two months. On the issue of financing, Zhang Meng said that he has already received tens of millions of dollars of investment and can continue to do technical research and development with confidence.
On the second day of the visit to the Cambrian period by Lei Fengnet (searching for the “Lei Feng Net†public number) , it was heard that the Chairman of the Cambrian era, Cheng Zhongguang, ushered in the birth of his baby. It seems that Xiaowu robot has a job to do.