On April 9, the reporter of China Securities Journal learned at the first China Humanoid Robot Industry Conference and Embodied Intelligence Summit that China’s humanoid robot industry has formed a rich accumulation of technology, enterprises are working hard to carry out product verification, a number of humanoid robots are in small batch mass production, and the commercialization of the industrial chain has broad prospects.

1900/27 It is worth noting that the commercialization of humanoid robots continues to make breakthroughs. Recently, companies such as Youbi announced that their humanoid robots have entered the car factory “work”. Experts said that the large-scale mass production of humanoid robots still needs to solve problems such as reducing product costs and breaking through core component technology.

“Practical training” on the production line

A number of companies’ humanoid robot mass production plans followed.

Recently, Zhou Jian, chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of Youbi, said at the 2023 performance presentation meeting that it plans to achieve mass production of Walker S humanoid robots by the end of this year and deliver them in small batches next year.

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In February this year, Youbi humanoid robot Walker S entered the final assembly workshop of NIO’s second advanced manufacturing base for field “training”, realizing the world’s first humanoid robot in the automotive factory assembly line and human collaboration to complete automotive assembly and quality inspection operations. It is understood that Walker S is equipped with 41 high-performance servo joints and all-round perception systems such as multi-dimensional force perception, multi-vision stereo vision, omnidirectional hearing and inertia, ranging, and has a comprehensive upgrade of visual positioning navigation, hand-eye coordination operation, gait control, multi-modal path planning vertical model and other technologies. The autonomous movement and decision-making ability of robots have been greatly improved, enabling accurate and safe operation on factory assembly lines.

1900/27 Jiao Jichao, vice president of Youbi and executive director of the Research Institute, said in an interview with the China Securities Journal reporter at the conference that in the process of Walker S entering the Nio factory “practical training”, the company’s team carried out optimization iteration of hardware and software according to the actual situation of the production line, as well as data collection and processing. The company has contacted dozens of domestic head new energy vehicle companies to promote humanoid robot demand docking.

“Practical training is an important step for the application of Youbi in the new energy vehicle factory, and we are preparing for small-batch mass production at the end of the year to promote delivery.” After delivery, it will help customers operate and maintain for a period of time, with the goal of realizing the humanoid robot really landing on the actual production line.” Jiao said.

Weijing Robot CEO Dong Xiaojian announced during the conference that the company will launch a bipedal humanoid robot this year. Specifically, autonomous operating robots will be launched in August 2024, and small-batch mass production will begin in December 2024. “We emphasize that humanoid robots can work autonomously, only running in the lab, or only performing and dancing in front of people, which is not OK, but must be able to help people with their work.” Dong Xiaojian said.