Adding more names to its seemingly endless product portfolio, Xioami has now introduced a robotic dog, the CyberDog. The concept of a robotic dog is not really new, but over the past few years, it has definitely evolved by leaps and bounds. The most well-known name in the field is Boston Dynamics, which recently put up its internet-famous Spot robotic dog for sale at a cool asking price of $74,500. However, the robot does a lot more than just performing a few dance moves and showing off its athleticism.
The Boston Dynamics creation was recently employed for telemedicine services, helping doctors remotely offer virtual check-ups and consultations at a time when person-to-person contact is not feasible due to coronavirus risks. The company even open-sourced all its work so that other robotics firms can use it to develop solutions for frontline healthcare workers as well. Thanks to the their depiction in the cinematic world, robotic animal companions are now finding their way into the market as a gadget and are even poised to play a role in the hospitality and restaurant industry in the not-too-distant future.
Xiaomi’s CyberDog, which the company defines as a bio-inspired quadruped robot companion, follows the same open-source route that will allow developers to further build upon its capabilities. The Xiaomi offering employs servo motors that have been developed in-house and are claimed to provide a peak torque output and rotation speed of up to 32N·m and 220rpm, respectively. Yes, it can perform backflips too, and other high-speed movements at a speed of up to 3.2m/s. Since it is modeled after a pet, users can also summon it via a voice assistant by assigning a hot word of their choice, or use a mobile app to control it. However, it is unclear if the CyberDog can dance as well as Spot.
Since the machine is being marketed as an advanced robotic pet, it can follow its owner and find its way around obstacles. It can even recognize faces and detect the human posture, while analyzing its surroundings and charting movement patterns simultaneously. In addition, the robotic dog can be armed with accessories, including search lights, motion cameras, and even LiDAR sensors, all via easily accessible connectivity solutions such as USB Type-C and HDMI ports. Xiaomi is initially selling only 1,000 units of the CyberDog, with each one priced at CNY 9,999, which roughly translates to $1,540 based on current conversion rates. Even though the release is limited, it's still more encouraging than the fate SoftBank's Pepper Robot has now met.
There isn't any futuristic tech like self-healing skin to be seen here, but that is to be expected given the asking price. The Xiaomi offering can deliver a maximum payload of around 6.6 pounds. At the heart of CyberDog is the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX platform, a fairly powerful AI chip that packs 384 CUDA cores, 48 Tensor cores, and 2 deep learning acceleration engines. To handle the sensing part, Xiaomi has equipped its robotic dog with AI cameras, binocular fisheye cameras with a wide field of view, and Intel RealSense cameras for depth sensing. Obstacle avoidance and navigation algorithms have also been baked in to Xiaomi's robot dog, and they are touted to provide centimeter-scale movement accuracy.
Source: Xiaomi
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