At the recently concluded Zhongguancun Forum, the Science and Technology Expo, which showcases the latest global technological progress and major achievements, was one of the important contents. And the robotics segment is particularly eye-catching. Robots are also one of the key development directions of our country in the future. The “Robot +” Application Action Implementation Plan issued by 17 departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed that by 2025, the density of robots in the manufacturing industry will double compared with 2020; Focus on 10 key application areas and break through more than 100 kinds of robot innovative application technologies and solutions. China’s robot industry is about to usher in great development.

Not long ago, at the Science and Technology Expo of the Zhongguancun Forum, a variety of cool robots have appeared, which is eye-opening. In fact, some of these seemingly sci-fi robots have crept into our real lives.

At a rehabilitation center in Fengtai, Beijing, some patients with mobility difficulties are learning how to walk again with the help of an exoskeleton robot.

In 2017, an accident caused Shao Haipeng to become a paraplegic at high level and completely lost consciousness from the chest down. Six months later, at the doctor’s suggestion, he began to try rehabilitation training with an exoskeleton robot.

The lower limb exoskeleton robot is a system equipped outside the human body. It can sense the movement of the human body and the surrounding environment through the sensors on the sole of the foot, and then use the control system behind it to coordinate the robot’s movements and forces at a computational frequency of thousands of times per second, so that it is suitable for the movement of the human body. In repeated training, the lower limb exoskeleton robot constantly stimulates the patient’s nerves based on the principle of “neuroplasticity” to help him reshape, and then restore part of the mobility.

Shuai Mei, chairman of Beijing Da Ai Robot Technology Co., LTD., and a professor at Beihang University, said: “It is through the training of the exoskeleton robot to establish the right walking pattern and the right proprioception for him to walk again.”

Due to early intervention, after two courses of rehabilitation training, his condition gradually improved. In 2018, he even wore an exoskeleton robot to walk 42.22 kilometers in nine days, setting a “robot walking marathon world record.” He also took part in the official tinder gathering ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics. Now Shao Haipeng has set himself a small goal.

Shao Haipeng: “The small goal is to complete a power bicycle, ready to go around the territory of China, to see how big China is.”

Hu Xiaolei and Shao Haipeng had similar experiences. At first, he was completely unable to move or even use a wheelchair, and now he is a member of the men’s national wheelchair basketball team.

Both Shao Haipeng and Hu Xiaolei are wearing exoskeleton rehabilitation robots developed by Beijing Da AI. This is China’s first lower limb exoskeleton robot certified by the National Medical Products Administration. At present, the exoskeleton rehabilitation robot has become an effective tool for the treatment of spinal injury, lower limb paraplegia, hemiplegia and other major malignant diseases.

Shuai Mei: “The state has issued an implementation plan, and what we need to do as industry insiders is to continue to refine and implement according to this plan.” China has more than 80 million people with disabilities and hundreds of millions of elderly people, and they are the focus of future attention. In the future, we will create more solutions to meet people’s needs according to different application scenarios.”

Exoskeleton robots are one of many robots that can be used not only in rehabilitation training, but also in many fields such as elderly care, defense, and manufacturing. Now there are not only many kinds of robots, but also a wide range of application scenarios. In order to further expand the application scenario of robots and promote the development of the robot industry, recently, 17 departments such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “Robot +” application action Implementation Plan, which proposes to double the density of robots in China’s manufacturing industry by 2025 compared with 2020, and will focus on ten key application areas. Break through more than 100 kinds of robot innovative application technologies and solutions, promote more than 200 robot typical application scenarios with high technical level, innovative application mode and significant application results, and build a number of “robot +” application benchmarking enterprises, application experience centers and test and verification centers. China’s robot industry will usher in a big explosion.

Liang Liang, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Society of Electronics and deputy secretary-general of the World Robot Conference: “The Implementation plan helps to enhance the market competitiveness of robot independent brands, accelerate the realization of self-reliance in China’s robot industry, and can also drive the intelligent transformation and upgrading of the first, second and third industries, and provide strong support for promoting Chinese-style modernization.”

Zhao Chunjiang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the National Agricultural Informatization Engineering Technology Research Center: “The main purpose is still to promote the high-quality development of our national industrial economy, especially the manufacturing sector, and comply with the development trend of intelligent science and technology in the world.”

At present, the robot industry has ushered in a window period of upgrading and leapfrog development, greatly changing the way of human production and life, and injecting strong momentum into economic and social development. In order to seize this opportunity, China has formulated a series of policies to develop the robot industry. The release of the “Robot +” application action implementation plan “can be said to draw a roadmap for the next step.

Zhao Chunjiang: “It highlights the creation of application scenarios, as well as the upgrading and innovative development of industrial technology, in fact, it is a specific action plan to promote the specific landing of the ’14th Five-Year Plan’ robot industry development plan.”

The implementation plan focuses on ten major areas, including manufacturing, agriculture, medical and health care, elderly care services, and education. So why focus on these 10 areas?

Liang Liang: “These fields have the characteristics of good application foundation, wide coverage and strong radiation driving effect, and have the typical promotion and application. Taking these fields as the entry point, it will play an effective demonstration and driving role in cultivating new formats and expanding new scenarios for the robot industry.”

Robot is a kind of highly flexible automatic machine. It has some intelligent abilities similar to humans or organisms, such as perception, planning, action and coordination. According to the application field, robots are divided into industrial robots and service robots, and exoskeleton robots are service robots. There are many kinds of service robots, mainly used in retail, logistics, medical, education, security and many other fields closely related to people’s lives. At Peking Union Medical College Hospital, a teratoma removal operation is well underway. However, the surgeon, Dr. Sun, did not stand in front of the operating table, but sat next to the computer. It turned out that he was operating on a patient using a single-aperture endoscopic surgery robot. 20 minutes later, the surgery was over.

The single-aperture endoscopic surgery robot used by Dr. Sun was developed by Beijing Kului. Driven by 68 high-precision servo motors, the single-hole endoscopic surgery robot can rotate 540 degrees freely, and can achieve thousands of sub-millimeter precision manipulations per second, completing work that cannot be done by human hands. Such operations used to require four piercings in the patient’s body; now they require only one.

Endoscopic surgery robot represents the development direction of surgical operation in the future, with high technical barriers. American companies have long held a monopoly, exporting to China only the multi-cavity robot, which requires four or five holes in the patient’s body, while the more technologically advanced single-hole robot is banned from export to China. Beijing Zhuorui breaks this technological blockade.