GigaDevice Assists in Successfully Held Intelligent Robot Innovation Seminar

Recently, the Industrial Chain Innovation Seminar and the 2024 International Autonomous Intelligent Robot Competition Preparatory Meeting jointly organized by the Group Co., Ltd. and Tsinghua University College were successfully held in Beijing. The initiator of the International Autonomous Intelligent Robot Competition, Professor Wang Zhihua of Tsinghua University, He Wei, General Manager of GigaDevice, Jin Guangyi of the Central Marketing Department of GigaDevice, He Xiaoqing, Secretary General of the Expert and System Association, and nearly 30 experts and scholars from major domestic universities, research institutions, industrial chain enterprises and investment institutions gathered together to discuss the innovative development of the intelligent robot industry chain.

He Wei, general manager of GigaDevice, said in his speech that GigaDevice's storage, control, sensing and simulation lines are currently compatible with many application scenarios in the robotics industry and have been widely used in various types of robots such as manufacturing, humanoid bionics, and commercial services. All components of the robot body can be seen, and the control functions from the perception layer, decision layer to the execution layer need to be implemented through the MCU. A robot often uses more than a dozen to dozens of MCUs. As the mainstream choice in the 32-bit general-purpose MCU market, GigaDevice MCU is empowering a wide range of robotic application scenarios with a cumulative shipment of more than 1.5 billion units and more than 550 products in 45 series.

Professor Wang Zhihua of Tsinghua University extended a warm welcome to the guests on behalf of the organizing committee of the International Autonomous Intelligent Robot Competition. He emphasized that the development of the robotics industry involves multiple disciplines and fields, and requires cooperation and guidance from multiple parties. He also used the robotics competition as a platform for communication and cooperation to promote the integrated development of robotics technology and technological innovation.

Zhang Jianwei, an academician of the German National Academy of Engineering, director of the Institute of Multimodal Intelligent Systems at the University of Hamburg, and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, attended the meeting online and delivered a speech. Liu Xiangrong, director of the Department of Computer Science at Xiamen University College, Sun Fuchun, director of the Intelligent Robotics Department of Tsinghua University Research Institute and professor of the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Wang Xiao, marketing manager/university program leader of GigaDevice, Zhang Tao, deputy sales director of Leju (Shenzhen) Robotics Technology Co., Ltd., and Zhang Chun, director of the Institute of Integrated Circuit Design at the School of Integrated Circuits of Tsinghua University, director of the Technical Expert Committee of the International Autonomous Intelligent Robot Competition, and researcher, gave keynote speeches on the spot.

Wang Xiao, Marketing Manager of GigaDevice, gave a speech entitled "GigaDevice Products + Ecosystem Helps Robot Industry Chain Integration Innovation", which introduced GigaDevice's multi-dimensional product portfolio and ecosystem applicable to the robot industry chain. In view of many robot application scenarios and differentiated demand characteristics such as high performance, multi-connection and cost-effectiveness, a multi-cycle full-coverage product system has been built.

Aiming at the strong computing power requirements in the ARM, the GD32F4 series Cortex-M4 core high-performance MCU has a main frequency of up to 240MHz, supports instruction sets and floating-point unit FPU, and is equipped with large-capacity storage, which can handle complex control algorithms. Up to two sets of advanced three-phase complementary PWM waveforms can be output, and three 12-bit high-speed sampling rates up to 2.6MHz can meet control requirements. It can also realize high-efficiency, high-precision intelligent handling, automatic battery replacement and other functions in smart logistics scenarios.

Service robots including agricultural robots, medical rehabilitation robots, commercial reception and guides, hospital guides, hospital disinfection, restaurant delivery, companionship and monitoring, logistics delivery, etc. widely use GD32F3 series mainstream MCU or GD32F4 series high-performance MCU, providing rich human-machine interaction (HMI) functions.

In the face of the cost requirements of common smart home sweepers, mops, window cleaners, toy robots, and transformable robots, the GD32E230 series Cortex-M23 core value-added robots can reduce the bill of materials cost for scenarios such as servo control, providing super high cost performance.

The GD32E5 series of high-performance MCUs uses an advanced 180MHz Cortex-M33 core and is equipped with a hardware trigonometric function accelerator and a high-precision timer. It is more suitable for motor control, and supports complex calculations in robotic applications with enhanced computing power, further improving the operation time of the robot motor control closed loop.

In 2023, GigaDevice first launched the GD32H7 series of ultra-high-performance MCUs based on the Cortex-M7 core in China, further broadening the application areas of various types of robots:

Motor control: With a main frequency of 600MHz, 512KB of ultra-large compact memory and 64KB 1-Cache, GD32H7 integrates advanced DSP hardware accelerators and double-precision floating-point units (FPU), ensuring real-time execution of key instructions and higher efficiency. The built-in filter accelerator FAC provides more efficient and real-time data processing capabilities for common filter algorithms such as electric control FOC.

Human-machine interface: GD32H7 has a built-in T LCD driver. With an S-cache capacity of up to 1MB, it can meet the high memory requirements of higher resolution rendering and array transmission. At the same time, GD32H7 integrates a graphics processing accelerator IPA, supports 2D image overlay, rotation, scaling and multiple color format conversion functions, can meet the needs of advanced GUI, and realize a customizable intelligent human-machine interface (HMI).

Edge computing: The ultra-high main frequency of GD32H7 can ensure that the computing power requirements of the edge side are met without the need to integrate additional hardware NPU. Thanks to advanced design and manufacturing processes, high-performance solutions can be created at a more economical cost, thus providing hardware support and implementation methods for more lightweight intelligent algorithms to be integrated into embedded applications.

Through continuous accumulation and continuous improvement in the development ecosystem, GigaDevice University has cooperated with more than 40 universities to participate in curriculum construction, and jointly build laboratories and practice bases. The Intelligent Robot Chip Application Laboratory established in August 2022 supports remote uploading and live debugging, and successfully built an efficient and shared robot experimental platform, which effectively improved the development and innovation efficiency of the robot system.

During the discussion session, the experts had in-depth discussions on cutting-edge robot technology trends, application innovation opportunities combining sensing and control, and innovative solutions for breaking through robot scene applications, providing the industry with more valuable system-level overall solutions. They also discussed in depth special innovation competitions with themes such as chips, algorithms, and intelligent applications to promote the cultivation of professional talents.

This seminar provided rich inspiration for technology planning and product innovation in the field of intelligent robots. GigaDevice will continue to incubate more high-quality intelligent robot application scenarios, expand the application of robots in the industry, and promote the extension of robot achievements from the innovation chain to the industrial chain.

Review editor: Liu Qing