Intellectual disability or "wisdom," what kind of chips do robots need?

2024-07-01

How to Promote the Development of Smarter Robots?

Robots are hailed as the "pearl on the top of the manufacturing industry's crown," and their research and development, manufacturing, and application are important indicators to measure a country's level of technological innovation and high-end manufacturing. At present, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating, with artificial intelligence (AI), new generation information technology, communication technology, new materials, and control technology deeply integrating with robotics technology. As one of the key technologies for digital transformation, the smart robot industry is facing a period of upgrading, leapfrog development, and opportunities.

Recently, at the Songshan Lake China IC Innovation Summit Forum, discussions were held around "mentally challenged" or "intelligent", what kind of chips do robots need? Dai Weiming, Deputy Director of the IC Design Branch of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, Founder, Chairman, and President of VeriSilicon, Chen Feng, Senior Vice President of Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd., He Yunpeng, Founder and CEO of Chengdu Qiyin Tailun Technology Co., Ltd., Shi Qing, General Manager of Shenzhen Yijing Virtual Reality Technology Co., Ltd., Wang Wei, Vice President of Product Marketing at Pengkan Integrated Circuit (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., Zhang Xiaodong, Chairman of the Wuzhen Think Tank, Yuan Diwen, CEO of Shending Technology (Nanjing) Co., Ltd., and Zhang Xiuyun, Director of R&D of Xiaomi's Ecosystem Chain, expressed their views and opinions, jointly exploring the intelligent development trend of robot technology and its application prospects in various fields of society.

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Dai Weiming: Can we put the server's brain in the cloud? The terminals are generally equipped with "hands" and "feet", and will it be safer and more convenient to put the brain in the cloud?

Chen Feng, Senior Vice President of Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd., believes it is not feasible because current service robots need to perceive the surrounding environment in real-time. If the brain is placed in the cloud, there may be issues with network disconnection, which means that local, terminal-level computing power is indispensable.

Zhang Xiaodong, Chairman of the Wuzhen Think Tank, said that from the development history of computers, it can be seen that the computing power that terminals can bear is limited. With the development of current technology, how much computing power the terminal can bear may evolve with demand.

Dai Weiming: Compared with undifferentiated multimodal large models, language-based multimodal large models will become mainstream. So, what impact will large models have on robots?Zhang Xiaodong stated, "If we speak in extreme terms, if we use large models, then it can be said to be 'intelligent' robots. Before 2020, most people would not have thought that large models could iterate so quickly. The iteration speed of the previous large models was around 40 years, then it became 20 years, 10 years, and now it is even measured in weeks.

Large models are becoming increasingly miniaturized. In the past one or two years, the technology of quantization and compression has enabled some large models to be placed in mobile phones. Therefore, it can be said that in the future, there may be some very small large models that can be placed on the terminal side, so having a large model can be said to be an 'intelligent' robot.

Qi Ying Tailun founder He Yunpeng believes that from the perspective of application, if we want to make a general service robot, we will definitely need large models. If it is only to complete specific tasks, the requirements for the model and parameters will not be very large. In addition, the structure of the future model also needs to be considered. At present, it is not possible to say whether the development of the model structure has come to an end. It may continue to develop in the future. At present, we still need to combine the application and the current structure and characteristics of the large model to develop robots.

Dai Weimin: Do service robots need a humanoid form?

Xiaomi's ecosystem research and development director Zhang Xiuyun said that humanoid robots are not necessary. After the evolution of all things, humans are not the most efficient body. For example, when climbing mountains and obstacles, six legs are much faster than two legs. Therefore, service robots do not necessarily need to be humanoid.

Shending Technology Chairman Yuan Diwen believes that in recent years, the bionic robot market has attracted more and more attention, which is greatly related to large models. The previous large models were mainly generative, requiring a large amount of data for training. But now, large models can do a lot of innovative work. Looking at humanoid robots, the current robots are not very good at some daily work. Some large model manufacturers are actively contacting some robot companies, and robots now need some large models that can make them have human-like behaviors.

Dai Weimin: So, in terms of the intelligent upgrade of robots, what kind of chips do terminals need?

He Yunpeng said that the chips needed for robots are not just one or two, but the coordination and operation of the entire system. Since it is a robot, it can be compared to humans, needing a brain, limbs, cerebellum, and more senses. So from the task, it needs to establish interaction with humans to get some indicators and tasks, and it also needs to be decomposed into behavior planning, which is the work of the brain. The cerebellum is responsible for controlling actions, including machine behavior control and emergency obstacle avoidance. In addition, robots also need many perception systems, which means that robots need perception chips. In actual production, we may place perception chips and brain chips together to facilitate their interaction and processing. In addition, we also need the brain's generative large model to assist in processing. In addition to some brain-like chips, some traditional chips such as MCU are also indispensable.

Dai Weimin: The use of cables in robots may lead to problems such as heavy weight of robots. What roles can optical fibers play in robots?

Pengkan Integrated Circuit's Vice President of Product Marketing Wang Wei said that our chip solution is to use optical fibers as the communication network for chips. We are not using a bunch of optical fibers to replace a bunch of cables. We only need a few optical fibers to replace a bunch of cables. Now, robots use cables by default and have not thought of making them in the form of optical fibers. In fact, the cable bundles in robots will be subject to a lot of electromagnetic interference, but optical fibers can efficiently avoid this.On the other hand, the use of optical fibers can significantly reduce the overall weight, and their bandwidth is extremely wide, capable of covering all the joints of the robot. In addition to applications in robots, Pengkan Integrated Circuits is also promoting the adoption of optical fibers in vehicles, and has already completed the feasibility verification with the largest domestic car company, and is currently discussing the next steps.

The general manager of YiJing Virtual, Shi Qing, stated that communication itself is a very troublesome issue. Sometimes the equipment works well at home and in the laboratory, but it can be interfered with when placed on the exhibition stand. Optical fiber technology really needs to be studied carefully. If it performs well in terms of cost, latency, power consumption, and other aspects, it can have many applications in wearable devices.

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