Abstract: Service robot is a young member of the robot family. It can be divided into professional service robots and personal/family service robots. Service robots have a wide range of applications and are mainly engaged in maintenance, repair, and transportation. , cleaning, security, rescue, monitoring and other work. The use of service robots can greatly reduce people's labor burden and achieve a greater degree of liberation and safe maintenance. For example, through the application of fire-fighting robots, casualties of fire-fighting personnel can be effectively avoided. Let’s take a look at the relevant knowledge of service robots. 1. Classification of service robots
1. Nurse assistant robot
The "Nurse Assistant" robot is the first service robot product of TRC Company founded by Engelberg. It was developed in 1985 and sold in 1990. It is currently used in dozens of hospitals around the world.
The "Nurse Assistant" is an autonomous robot that does not require wired guidance or prior planning. Once programmed, it can complete the following tasks at any time: transport medical equipment and equipment, Deliver meals to patients, deliver medical records, reports and letters, deliver medicines, deliver test samples and test results, and deliver mail and packages within the hospital.
The robot consists of a walking part, a driving controller and a large number of sensors. The robot can move freely in the hospital with a speed of about 0.7 meters/second. The robot is equipped with a map of the hospital's buildings. After determining the destination, the robot uses a route calculation algorithm to navigate along the corridor autonomously. The structured light vision sensor and omnidirectional ultrasonic sensor can detect stationary or moving objects and correct the route. Its omnidirectional tactile sensors ensure that the robot will not collide with people or objects. Encoders on the wheels measure the distance it travels. In the corridor, the robot uses the corners to determine its position, while in larger spaces such as wards, it can use the reflective strips on the ceiling to help positioning through sensors looking upward. It can also open the door when needed. In multi-story buildings, it can call the passenger elevator and enter the elevator to the desired floor. In an emergency, such as when a surgeon and his patient are using an elevator, the robot can stop and get out of the way, then restart two minutes later and continue moving forward. Multiple destinations can be selected through the menu on the "Nurse Assistant". The robot has a large fluorescent screen and user-friendly audio device, making it quick and convenient for users to use.
2. Brain surgery robot assistance system
The brain surgery robot assistance system was jointly developed by Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tsinghua University and the Naval General Hospital. The first craniotomy was performed on a patient using this robot in May 1997. By November 2000, this type of surgery had been performed on more than 140 patients.
This system allows patients to get rid of the large frame, helps position the patient, and provides a surgical platform for doctors. The doctor can determine the focus of the operation through the computer screen next to the operating table. The operation that would have taken at least half a day to complete without using the modified system can be completed in only 30 minutes using the system.
3. Oral restoration robot
This is an application test system for the design and production of complete dentures and artificial dentitions assisted by computers and robots. The system uses image and graphics technology to obtain and generate computer models of oral soft and hard tissues of edentulous patients. It uses a self-developed non-contact three-dimensional laser scanning measurement system to obtain the geometric parameters of the patient's edentulous jaw bone shape, and uses expert system software. Complete computer-aided statistics of complete denture artificial dentition. In addition, he invented and produced the transitional conversion device between a single plastic artificial tooth and the final artificial dentition - an adjustable tooth arranging device.
Based on robots, any position and attitude control of tooth arrangement can be realized. The use of dental restoration robots is equivalent to quickly cultivating and creating a group of advanced dental restoration medical experts and technicians. The use of robots to replace manual tooth arrangement not only allows more accurate digital operations than dental medical experts, but also avoids errors caused by experts due to fatigue, emotion, negligence and other reasons.
This will bring the design and production of complete dentures to a level that can not only meet the individual physiological functions and aesthetic needs of edentulous patients, but also achieve standardization, standardization, automation, and industrialization, thus greatly improving its production efficiency and quality.
4. Enter the blood vessel robot
The enter blood vessel robot swims freely in the river of blood like a submarine. Once they encounter the cholesterol and fat accumulated or floating in the blood vessels, they will pounce on them mercilessly and quickly tear them up and chew them up. When they encounter vicious viruses, they stand up without fear.
On May 27, 1988, two Chinese Americans from the University of California in the United States developed a micromotor that was only 76 microns (3‰ inches).
In November 1991, researchers from Japan Electronics Corporation used the most advanced "electron tunneling scanning microscope" at the time to use an "ultra-micro tip" to arrange silicon atoms into a pyramid-shaped "concave pyramid". ", it is only 36 atoms high. This is the first time that humans have arranged atoms manually, causing a sensation in the world of atomic physics.
In July 1996, Harvard University in the United States successfully developed a turbine with a diameter of only 7 microns. Thousands of these turbines can be placed on a single stamp. Its shape and structure can only be seen clearly under an ultra-high-power microscope. Our country has also developed a 1 mm motor.
5. Intelligent wheelchair robot
With the development of society and the improvement of human civilization, people, especially the disabled, increasingly need to use modern high-tech to improve their quality of life. and freedom of life. Due to various traffic accidents, natural and man-made disasters, and various diseases, thousands of people lose one or more abilities (such as walking, hands-on ability, etc.) every year. Therefore, research on robot wheelchairs used to help disabled people walk has gradually become a hot topic. In countries such as Spain and Italy, the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has also successfully developed a robot wheelchair with visual and password navigation functions and the ability to interact with people through voice. robotic wheelchair.
The robot wheelchair mainly has functions such as password recognition and speech synthesis, robot self-positioning, dynamic random obstacle avoidance, multi-sensor information fusion, and real-time adaptive navigation control.
The key technology of the robot wheelchair is safe navigation. The basic method used is to rely on ultrasonic and infrared ranging, and some also use password control. The main shortcoming of ultrasonic and infrared navigation is the limited controllable measurement range. Visual navigation can overcome this shortcoming. In a robotic wheelchair, the user of the wheelchair should be the central and active component of the entire system. For users, the robot wheelchair should have the function of interacting with people. This interactive function can be realized intuitively through human-machine voice dialogue. Although some existing mobile wheelchairs can be controlled with simple passwords, mobile robots and wheelchairs with truly interactive functions are still rare.
6. Cable-climbing robot
The cable-climbing robot was developed in 1997 by the Robotics Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Huangpu River Bridge Engineering Construction Office.
The robot system consists of two parts, one is the robot body and the other is the robot car. The robot body can climb along cables with various inclinations, and automatically complete inspection, grinding, cleaning, static removal, primer and top coating, and a series of maintenance tasks on high-altitude cables. A CCD camera is installed on the robot body to monitor the working conditions at any time. The other part of the ground trolley is used to install the robot body and supply water and paint to the robot body, while monitoring the robot's high-altitude working conditions.
7. Outdoor cleaning robot
The glass ceiling (approximately 3,000 square meters) cleaning robot was developed by the Robotics Research Institute of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in cooperation with the Beijing Railway Bureau Research Institute of the Ministry of Railways. Developed in cooperation with West Railway Station.
The robot consists of two parts: the robot body and the ground support robot car. The robot body is the main body that crawls along the glass wall and completes the scrubbing action. It weighs 25 kilograms. It can walk and scrub flexibly according to the actual environmental conditions, and has high reliability.
The ground support car is ancillary equipment. When the robot is working, it is responsible for powering, gas supplying, water supplying and recycling sewage to the robot. It is connected to the robot through pipelines.
At present, Harbin Institute of Technology and Shanghai University are currently engaged in the research of building cleaning robots in my country, and they also have their own products.
The building cleaning robot is developed based on the wall-climbing robot, and it is only one of the uses of the wall-climbing robot. The wall-climbing robot has two adsorption methods: negative pressure adsorption and magnetic adsorption. The building window cleaning robot uses negative pressure adsorption. Magnetic adsorption wall-climbing robots have also been introduced in my country and have been applied in Daqing Oilfield.
8. Fire-fighting robots
Facing the relentless fire, the Shanghai Fire Protection Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Shanghai Fire Bureau jointly formulated a plan to develop fire-fighting robots . After three years of research, my country's first firefighting robot has been born. Firefighting robots can walk, climb hills, cross obstacles, spray fires, and perform fire scene reconnaissance.
Firefighting is also a big problem not only in our country, but also in the world. Governments of various countries are doing everything possible to minimize fire losses.
In November 1984, a fire broke out in a cable tunnel in Tokyo, Japan. Firefighters had to fight the fire in the tunnel in a dangerous environment of thick smoke and high temperatures. After this fire, the Tokyo Fire Department began research on fire-fighting robots that can work in harsh conditions. Currently, five types of fire-fighting robots are in use.
9. Remote-controlled firefighting robot
This type of robot was used for the first time in 1986. This kind of robot can be used when it is difficult for firefighters to approach the fire scene to put out the fire, or when there is a risk of explosion. This robot is equipped with crawlers, can travel at a maximum speed of 10 kilometers per hour, and can spray 5 tons of water or 3 tons of foam per minute.
10. Jet fire-fighting robot
This robot was successfully developed in 1989. It is a type of remote-controlled fire-fighting robot and is used to extinguish fires in narrow passages and underground areas. The robot is 45cm high, 74cm wide and 120cm long. It is driven by a jet engine or a conventional engine. When the robot arrives at the fire scene, in order to extinguish the flames, the nozzle converts the water flow into high-pressure water mist and sprays it towards the flames.
11. Fire Reconnaissance Robot
The fire reconnaissance robot was born in 1991. It is used to collect various information around the fire scene and to conduct firefighting operations when there is thick smoke or toxic gas. Support firefighters. The robot has 4 tracks, an operating arm and 9 collection devices for collecting data, including cameras, heat distribution indicators and gas concentration measuring instruments.
12. Climbing rescue robot
The climbing rescue robot was first used in 1993. When a fire suddenly breaks out on the upper floor of a high-rise building, the robot can climb the outer wall of the building to investigate the fire and carry out rescue and fire-fighting work. The robot can lift itself up with a winch along a wire rope lowered from the top of the building, and then it can move freely on the building using negative pressure suction cups. This robot can climb 70-meter-high buildings.
13. Ambulance robot
The ambulance robot was put into use for the first time in 1994. The robot can move injured people to safety. The robot is 4 meters long, 1.74 meters wide, 1.89 meters high and weighs 3860 kilograms. It is equipped with rubber tracks and has a top speed of 4 km/h. It not only has information collection devices, such as TV cameras, flammable gas detectors, ultrasonic detectors, etc.; it also has 2 manipulators with a maximum gripping force of 90 kg. Robotic arms can lift injured people to an ambulance platform, where they can be provided with fresh air.
In November 2000, a fire broke out in the tunnel of the Austrian Snow Mountain Cable Car, killing more than 160 people. Due to the darkness, coldness and dense smoke in the tunnel, it was very difficult to put out the fire and clean up the scene. This once again illustrates the importance of special fire-fighting equipment.
2. Service robot market analysis
1. The market is on the eve of an explosion
The service robot market is growing rapidly.
According to the forecast of Analysys Think Tank, China's service robot market size was about 8.2 billion yuan in 2015, will grow to about 14 billion yuan in 2016, and the market size will exceed 20 billion yuan in 2017.
The market size of service robots can exceed that of industrial robots. We believe that the service robot market will usher in long-term growth, and the market size can exceed that of industrial robots in the future for the following reasons:
(1) Breakthroughs in technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and human-computer interaction will open up the service robot market The outbreak provided the conditions.
(2) The consumption concepts of the post-80s and post-90s generations have changed, and they have insufficient time investment in housework. As incomes increase year by year, young people's demand for service robots has increased.
(3) The continuous advancement of artificial intelligence technology will enhance the interactive capabilities of service robots, and technological progress may bring more needs for upgrading.
2. Four major industry trends
Trend 1: The connection between artificial intelligence and service robots is getting closer
Compared with industrial robots, service robots pay more attention to humans and machines. Interactive experience, the interaction between users and robots is frequent, and the requirements for robot feedback speed are also high, which places extremely high demands on artificial intelligence technologies including deep learning, natural language processing, visual perception, cloud computing, etc. We believe that in the long term, artificial intelligence is the core of service robots, and the boundaries of the service robot market must be broken by artificial intelligence technology.
Trend 2: Fields such as home services are the first to break out
(1) In terms of home services, service robots can not only provide cleaning services such as sweeping the floor, but also serve as an important interface for smart homes , push services to users after analyzing data.
(2) In terms of medical applications, medical robots can perform minimally invasive surgeries, rehabilitation treatments and other functions.
(3) In addition, service robots are also used in education, logistics, finance and other fields. For example, the Bank of Communications "Little e" launched by Xiaoi Robot in cooperation with the Bank of Communications is a robot that can handle banking services.
Relatively speaking, home services and medical care do not have high requirements for the intelligence of service robots. The current level of artificial intelligence is already qualified for these tasks, and human-computer interaction in education, finance and other fields is very frequent and Lots of information.
Trend 3: Service robots are expected to become an important data entry
Currently, the application scenarios of service robots are relatively simple, and they have only been industrialized in fields such as household cleaning. However, In the long term, service robots are expected to replace mobile phones as the next generation of smart terminals, and their application scenarios will be more diversified than mobile phones. Therefore, in the short to medium term, home service robots are likely to become the entrance to smart homes. In the long term, with the diversification of application scenarios, service robots are expected to become the next important data entrance after mobile phones.
Trend 4: In the long run, companies with rich industry experience and strong technology will stand out
Currently, a large number of companies have poured into the service robot industry. Generally speaking, the current outstanding companies in the service robot market include:
(1) Internet giants, such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Baidu, etc. These companies have strong technical backgrounds and most of them directly enter the market. Artificial intelligence level;
(2) Enterprises focusing on specific application scenarios. For example, enterprises including Midea, Haier, Ecovacs, etc. have successively deployed in the field of home service robots, while Da Vinci and others specialize in In the field of medical robots, Xiaoi Robot focuses on the field of virtual customer service assistants, providing customer service technology and services to B-side customers.