Humanoid robots set off a new wave of home services

Against the backdrop of the rapid development of the smart home and service robot industries, home appliance giant Haier and humanoid robot startup Leju have reached a strategic partnership and jointly launched the country's first humanoid service robot "Kuafu" for home scenes. Currently, humanoid robots are moving from the industrial field to the home service market and are expected to set off a new home service revolution.

Intelligent hardware support, showing excellent action capabilities

The "Kuafu" robot not only has basic movement capabilities such as omnidirectional walking and jumping, but also has powerful upper limb manipulation capabilities. Relying on technologies such as object position recognition, terminal trajectory planning, and flexible object grasping, it can skillfully complete household chores such as washing clothes, watering flowers, arranging flowers, and hanging clothes. This attempt to integrate smart hardware with home service scenarios indicates that humanoid robots are gradually breaking through technical bottlenecks and moving towards practical applications.

What is more worth mentioning is that in just three months, the degrees of freedom of "Kuafu" have increased from 28+ to 40+, and the whole body motion control ability has been greatly improved. High degrees of freedom bring more complex motion control algorithms, but it also means that the robot's movements will become more humane and flexible. In addition, Leju is also developing a new generation of high-torque density joint motors. In the future, the overall torque performance of "Kuafu" is expected to increase by 30%, and the movements will become more precise and powerful.

It can be said that the rapid iteration of intelligent hardware is promoting a leap-forward improvement in the movement capabilities of humanoid robots, laying a solid technical foundation for their application in home service scenarios.

Penetrate family life and open up new service tracks

It is undeniable that home services are a huge blue ocean market. With the aging of society and the rising proportion of dual-income families, the demand for home services is increasing day by day. Although traditional home services such as aunties and babysitters have emerged, their supply is limited and the quality is uneven, making it difficult to meet diversified needs. As a new way of home services, humanoid robots will undoubtedly inject new vitality into this market.

The biggest advantage of humanoid robots is their versatility. They are not only capable of doing daily chores such as washing clothes, cooking, and cleaning, but can also meet special needs such as caring for the elderly and accompanying children. At the same time, as intelligent hardware products, humanoid robots are superior to traditional human services in terms of service quality, response efficiency, and sustainability. Once deployed on a large scale, humanoid robots are bound to reshape the service model and industrial structure of the home service industry.

In fact, the commercial value of robot services has long been valued by various investors. Goldman Sachs predicts that in the best case scenario, by 2035, the market space for humanoid robots is expected to reach US$154 billion, equivalent to one-third of the size of the smartphone market in 2021. This means that humanoid robots are becoming another profitable home service track to be developed after smart speakers and sweeping robots.

Integrate multiple resources to create an industrialized ecosystem

Although humanoid robots have broad prospects, to achieve true industrialization still requires the coordination of multiple forces and the establishment of a healthy industrial ecosystem.

On the one hand, robot companies need to strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions and continue to overcome core technical difficulties; on the other hand, they should also develop in-depth ties with companies with multiple application scenarios and jointly explore implementation solutions. Just like the cooperation model between Haier and Leju, the former can provide smart home scenarios for robots, while the latter contributes hardware and algorithm capabilities, and the two hands leverage each other for a win-win situation.

In addition, a sound industrial chain system is also an indispensable part of the industrialization of humanoid robots. The development of robot bodies, artificial intelligence algorithms, supply of key components, system integration and other links all need to consolidate the industrial foundation through division of labor and cooperation. At the same time, it is also necessary to establish a standardization system to standardize product technical indicators and application scenarios to lay the foundation for subsequent rapid replication.

In general, the humanoid robot industry cannot do without the collaboration of multiple parties including government, industry, academia, research and application. Only by integrating resources and expanding the ecosystem can we ultimately achieve the leap from concept to implementation and from a single point to scale.