Xiaomi unveiled a slew of innovative items from important brands, as well as technological advancements in robotics and smart car development. At the occasion, Xiaomi also formally unveiled the status of Xiaomi Pilot Technology, its first R&D and staffing update since announcing its entry into the smart electric car industry in March 2021. Xiaomi’s first humanoid robot, CyberOne, made its debut on August 11 during the company’s new product presentation event in Beijing, alongside other revolutionary goods.
Xiaomi Pilot Technology launch since entry to smart vehicles in 2021
Xiaomi Group revealed the progress of Xiaomi Pilot Technology in the first R&D and staffing update since announcing its entry into the smart electric car industry in March 2021, 500 days ago. Xiaomi intends to invest RMB 3.3 billion in the initial R&D phase of its autonomous driving technology and has assembled a large R&D team of over 500 world-class specialists. Xiaomi has progressively built out its mid-to-long-term industrial capabilities in the field of autonomous driving through a succession of important acquisitions and smart investments in upstream and downstream firms.
Xiaomi also presented a live road test video of its autonomous driving technology during today’s press conference, displaying its powerful algorithms and ability to handle a wide range of circumstances.
The First R&D phase investment is planned at RMB 3.3 billion, talent recruiting, and industry-wide deployment
Xiaomi has stayed dedicated to entering the realm of autonomous driving since declaring its entry into the smart electric car sector. The company’s zero-to-one breakthrough was made possible by allocating significant resources to R&D, recruiting the top expertise in the field, and investing in upstream and downstream firms.
According to Lei Jun, founder, chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi Group, Xiaomi expects to invest RMB 3.3 billion in the initial R&D phase of its autonomous driving technology, and the devoted team already numbers more than 500 people. The crew is anticipated to grow to more than 600 members by the end of the year.
Xiaomi’s autonomous driving team has attracted several top industry specialists since its formal launch last year. Currently, the 500-member department includes 50 industry professionals who serve as the team’s backbone, as well as an extraordinary educational background, with over 70% holding master’s or doctoral degrees. The team’s core members have worked for some of the most well-known firms in the field of artificial intelligence. Their professional competence includes sensors, chips, algorithms, simulation, tool-chain, data platform, and other areas required to create Xiaomi’s self-developed autonomous driving technology.
Xiaomi has bought Shandong Technology in its whole to expand its autonomous driving technology knowledge and personnel pool. Furthermore, Xiaomi is dedicated to developing its mid-to-long-term strategic industrial capabilities by investing RMB2 billion in over 10 upstream and downstream firms in the field of autonomous driving. These businesses include core sensors, core actuators, domain controllers, and other components.
The self-developed algorithm aims to become an industry leader in the smart EV industry in 2024
Xiaomi has a self-developed whole-stack approach to autonomous driving technology, focusing on full-scale proprietary solutions to provide comprehensive closed-loop data capabilities. The technique enables autonomous driving algorithms to be rapidly iterated based on user requirements. Xiaomi’s test car demonstrated accurate, safe, and intelligent assisted driving in a variety of scenarios, including U-turns, roundabouts, and continuous downhill driving, in a demonstration video.
Xiaomi’s autonomous driving team presented a unique auto-parking solution that includes situations such as “reserved parking spots,” “automated valet parking,” and “automatic robotic arm charging,” with a focus on parking. Other parking lot services will be made available in the future, and a combination of AI and service-oriented features will be introduced to comply with applicable national laws and regulations.
In addition, Lei Jun stated that Xiaomi intends to build a fleet of 140 test vehicles in the initial phase of its autonomous driving technology development. They will be tested individually across the country, to become the market leader in the smart EV business by 2024. Aside from internal resources, the Xiaomi Auto team receives tremendous assistance from many other teams inside Xiaomi, including the Xiaomi AI Lab, XiaoAi AI Assistant team, and the Smartphone Camera team, to collaboratively build a cutting-edge autonomous driving experience.
In just over a year, Xiaomi’s autonomous driving technology has accomplished a true 0 to 1 breakthrough, establishing itself as a new industrial power.
CyberOne — Humanoid Robot Exploring Frontiers of Connected Living
Xiaomi’s first humanoid robot, CyberOne, made its debut on August 11 during the company’s new product presentation event in Beijing, alongside other revolutionary goods. CyberOne, the newest member of Xiaomi’s Cyber series, joins last year’s quadruped robot Cyberdog with enhanced arms and legs, bipedal-motion posture balancing, and a peak torque of up to 300Nm. The capacity to sense human emotion, sophisticated vision skills and features allowing it to produce three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of the actual world were also displayed, along with a slew of other cutting-edge technology.
New self-developed breakthroughs in Xiaomi Technology Ecosphere
“CyberOne’s AI and mechanical capabilities are all self-developed by Xiaomi Robotics Lab. We have invested heavily in R&D spanning various areas, including software, hardware, and algorithms innovation,” says Lei Jun, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi Group. “With AI at its core and a full-size humanoid frame as its vessel, this is an exploration of possibilities of Xiaomi’s future technological ecosystem and a breakthrough for the company.”
CyberOne is a humanoid robot that stands 177cm tall and weighs 52kg, with a 168cm arm reach. This humanoid robot is more mechanically sophisticated than a quadruped robot, necessitating more powerful motors, more degrees of freedom, and advanced humanoid biped control algorithms. CyberOne can imitate human motions with up to 21 degrees of freedom in motion and a real-time reaction time of 0.5ms for each degree of freedom.
The performance of each joint motor determines the motion performance of a robot. The technological requirements for developing such motors are exceedingly high since more kinetic energy must be generated without increasing the size of components. Xiaomi created a high-efficiency motor weighing under 500g with a rated output torque of up to 30Nm for the upper limb joint motor to assure the flexibility of CyberOne’s upper limbs. The hip joint motor can provide an immediate peak torque of up to 300Nm.
CyberOne’s walking posture has been engineered to be both natural and steady thanks to the self-developed humanoid bipedal control system. Furthermore, CyberOne can hold up to 1.5kg in weight with a single hand and program by demonstration. Overall, CyberOne is a humanoid robot with remarkable mobility skills and well-developed coordination. Humanoid robots process their environment using vision. CyberOne, which is equipped with a self-developed Mi-Sense depth vision module and an AI interaction algorithm, is capable of sensing 3D space as well as identifying persons, gestures, and expressions, allowing it to not only see but also understand its surroundings. CyberOne is equipped
with a self-developed MiAI environment semantics recognition engine and a MiAI vocal emotion identification engine to communicate with the rest of the world, allowing it to distinguish 85 types of ambient noises and 45 classes of human emotion. CyberOne can sense happiness and even soothe the user when he or she feels upset. All of these functions are included within CyberOne’s processing units, which are linked to a curved OLED display that shows real-time interactive information.
The creation of CyberOne represents Xiaomi’s commitment to incubating a technology ecosystem centred on a single point and connecting it to the world in unprecedented ways.
Xiaomi has been constantly exploring and extending its innovations in various scenarios, ranging from smartphones, wearable devices, and smart homes to smart manufacturing, smart electric vehicles, and bionic robots, to better connect people and the world, eventually building an ever-evolving Xiaomi Technology Ecosphere.
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