Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Unlike industrial automation in the past few decades, service robots no longer need to move along the established track, but need to land deeply to intelligently adapt to a variety of complex application scenarios.

In this regard, Chen Shikai, founder of Zhangjiang Enterprise Shanghai Silan Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Silan Technology"), is deeply impressed by the fact that Silan Technology, which he leads, is located to empower the movement of robots and further improve the intelligence of robots.

The key step of Robot Intelligent Mobility

In 2013, in order to meet the market demand, Silan Technology (SLAMTEC) was born on top of RoboPeak and was officially established. Committed to the development of low-cost, cost-effective service robot positioning and navigation solutions.

Today, under the leadership of Chen Shikai, Silan Technology has three core product lines of robot intelligent mobility-the RPLIDAR series of 360 °scanning ranging lidar, the modular autonomous positioning navigation system SLAMWARE and the universal service robot platform ZEUS (Zeus) series.

"eyes + cerebellum + legs"-the omni-directional product line layout has realized the original intention of Silan science and technology: to make the robot "smart".

Take every "step" of intelligent movement of robot

As a founding member of RoboPeak, Chen Shikai has been in the industry for 10 years. According to his observation, the service robot industry is going through several periods:

Blank period (before 2005)

Exploration period (2013-2017)

Short recuperation period (2018 to present)

Silan Technology was founded in 2013 at a time when the industry is exploring, and new players are pouring into the service robot track. Some of them do the upper application development, some do the whole machine sales, of course, there is no lack of Silan technology so dedicated to doing the "intelligent mobile navigation" program + lower computer.

"in the past two years, the convergence and concentration of customer demand is relatively high, and the industry has entered a period of steady development. I think it is a good thing to slow down, because the industry is growing too fast, just like a bubble, there is a risk of bursting." Chen Shikai said frankly.

Universal service robot platform ZEUS series

Solve the problem of "outdoor strong light interference"

After achieving the goal of low cost and high performance-to-price ratio, Silan Technology focuses on the industry problem of "outdoor sunlight interference".

"there are some difficulties in lidar's anti-jamming ability to ambient sunlight or strong sunlight, which will affect the sensitivity of the measurement. For example, when measuring a piece of white paper under sunlight, the distance may be very far. But measuring a black object in the same position will show that the distance is very close, so the result is very unstable."

At that time, in order to solve this problem, Chen Shikai and his team often ran outside to test in the middle of the drive for an hour or more, just because "the sun came out." during that time, he jokingly called it "relying on heaven for a living."

It is in the spirit of such a "craftsman" that Silan Technology finally solved the problem that triangulation ranging radar is "not available in outdoor bright light", broadened the application scene of triangulation ranging radar, and also brought more possibilities for Silan Technology's robot autonomous positioning and navigation scheme. Today, we can see Silan's products not only on indoor robots, but also on outdoor inspections and lightweight driving cars in industrial parks.

Silan Technology RPLIDAR series lidar

Conquer the problem of "lost Robot"

After solving the problem of outdoor bright light interference, Chen Shikai and his team non-stop focused on the problem of "lost robots", a common problem in the industry.

On this issue, Chen Shikai gave an example: suppose there is a shop on each side of an aisle in a shopping mall, and the staff deployed the robot here in advance to give it an established understanding of the environment, but the next day the two shops began to decorate at the same time, each surrounded by walls. At this time, the robot will become "at a loss" when it comes here again, not knowing how to carry out the instructions.

At present, in order to solve this problem, Silan Technology is solving it from the aspects of software algorithm and big data collection. It has also achieved certain results. "although it can not be said to have been completely conquered, it has also solved some difficult problems. For example, robots have been able to cope calmly in the face of the sudden simultaneous decoration of shops on both sides of the mall.

In addition to self-research, Silan Technology has also worked closely with customers and jointly done a lot of experiments.

"in fact, the needs of customers are more direct, because they are in the actual situation, so they are more aware of the crux of the problem."

For example, a customer once made such a strange request: when the robot was halfway through the mall, it suddenly took a big box to cover it, and then let it spin in it for one night, and then took it off the next day.

A robot surrounded by a mass.

This scene is actually simulating the loss of a robot, and although "turn one Night" sounds a bit exaggerated, this problem may really occur in real life. In order to put an end to that "1", we must do that "ten thousand" experiments.

Take every step in the future

From hardware RPLIDAR to software SLAMWARE, to the ZEUS series of general-purpose robot platforms with complete mobile capabilities. "study" this strength, the Silan people twisted on a rope, strength to work in one place, thinking in the same place. Over the past six years since taking root in Zhangjiang, Silan Science and Technology has also actively cooperated with Zhangjiang local artificial intelligence enterprises, providing technical support to intelligent robots, Taiang technology, Pingtan technology and other enterprises one after another. There will be more expectations in the future.

Chen Shikai is quite impressed by Zhangjiang's increasingly powerful artificial intelligence industry ecology: "Zhangjiang, especially Zhangjiang artificial Intelligence Island, provides the best display and landing platform for AI enterprises. Silan Technology has two robots deployed indoors and outdoors on Zhangjiang artificial Intelligence Island respectively."

"everything remains the same, and our focus is to do a good job of 'enabling the mobility of robots' so that robots can move more intelligently, in the hope that more enterprises can cooperate with us to expand more landing scenes of robots." Chen Shikai concluded.

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