By She Ying

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Chinese Firms Push Ahead in Household Robot Production

By She Ying

Yueyue， a robot， serving customers in a restaurant in Tianjin， drawing a lot of curious attention

Watching television， playing games， traveling and even bedtime stories are all familiar scenes of family life for young parents and their children. But these roles are beginning to change， as children's favorite cartoon characters can now come to life - in the form of robots.

Household Robots On the Way

The Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture Company is China's largest animation company， responsible for the production of popular cartoon series such as Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf and Super Wings， both of which have achieved great popularity in China. Now， intelligent robots have become new business highlight for Alpha Animation.

This March， Alpha will launch a robot called “Ledi” aimed at pre-school children and another named “Jiajia” promoting interaction between parents and children. According to an introduction， Ledi is a flying robot as seen in the animation series Super Wings. the Super Wings Season 1 has been broadcast in 28 countries and regions，and gained top audience ratings among similar animation works in the United States， China and South Korea. thus， Ledi already enjoys very high status in the hearts of children.

“At present， more than 80 percent of household robots at home and abroad are aimed at young children up to primary school age”， said Hu Hua， Alpha Animation Vice Operating President. “For two rea-sons： first， there is a strong demand for the initial education of children； second， artificial intelligence has currently reached a level that best meets the needs of children.”

Artificial intelligence remains a fiercely competitive market from which hundreds of new products emerged in 2015. Twelve varieties of robots are sold via a famous consumer navigation website of China， four aimed at home education and one mini-robot designed to accompany children， with prices ranging from 500 yuan （$77） to 1，500 yuan （$230）.

These robots perform in a similar fashion. Controlled by a smartphone app， they can make simple exchanges by virtue of an in-built speech recognition library and also help children talk with their parents via remote video. Some of them can also read cards and tell stories via image recognition，similar to the early education machines in the shape of robots which have been in the market for some time. One user who participated in the evaluation said he chose this type because it can chat with children.

In addition to children， senior citizens also constitute an important market for the robot production industry. In this regard， foreign companies tend to be further ahead than their Chinese counterparts. The NAO Robot launched by a French firm， Aldebaran Robotics， has been very successful in helping children with autism overcome pathological disorder. Now，the firm has launched a robot known as“Romeo” who helps senior citizens without self-care abilities to take care of themselves. The robot can even call for help if the senior gets involved in an accident.

High-Tech Begets Robots

However， to make an experience with a robot truly interactive， adding simple animations are not enough.

Ather the release of Star Wars Episode 7，an American firm known as Sphero began production of a robot known as BB-8 - one of the star robotic characters in the film.this robot has DIY instructions， interactive voice， games and other functions， and is operated by a mobile phone. In the Chinese mainland， this robot sells for around 1，000 yuan （$153）. Chinese Netizens are having great fun.

Previously， DreamWorks also launched a prototype robot that can be programmed at will， dance to music and conduct various travel actions， becoming a hit in the marketplace.

However， Yu Zhichen， the founder of a leading Chinese semantics and cognition computing platform known as Turing Robot， believes these latest products cannot be counted as true intelligent robots.

“If they are going to be called intelligent robots， they shouldn't just have a shell of robot， but be able to think.” Yu said.

Similar to Apple's Siri， Turing Robot can simulate human linguistic cognition and exchange behaviors， providing support in terms of dialogue， a Natural Language Processing knowledge base and life service skills.

Based on Turing Robot， Yu has developed a Turing Operating System for usage in robots and robot-related products. Different from most artificial intelligence applications which depend on version iteration to complete upgrades， Turing OS can absorb external sounds， text， images and even body language to achieve an adaptive capacity. This allows it to learn by itself and interact with users with sentiment and thinking. the robots installed with this system are able to hear， see and understand，think and make decisions， watch a person's expressions and weigh his words carefully，study by itself and accompany children growing up， just as is depicted in the famous Japanese cartoon series Doraemon.the robots developed by Alpha Animation adopt this system.

Industry Chain a Must

The global intelligent robot industry remains in its early stages. The industrial robots and functional home robots of Japan and Germany have advanced technologies，but differ in some ways from intelligent entertainment robots. When Turing entered the field of intelligent robot operating systems， only French companies had similar products， while the relevant technological field was blank in China. Some enterprises treat robots as no more than combinations of mobile phones and robot shells and even directly transplant Android operating systems into robots.

Yu， however， holds that to create good robots， it is necessary to redesign the entire operating system and start from scratch.

For example， in the PC era， Microsoft and Intel are leaders. In the mobile Internet era， the two traditional giants fell behind. There are many reasons - one of which is the issue of their scenario migration form. They have tried to transplant the usage experience of the PC terminal to mobile phones， despite the fact that the two platforms differ greatly.

Yu found that the usage scenarios of robots are different still， requiring new chips，new hardware and new sothware. therefore，there will be applications dedicated to robots. Current mobile phone applications and operating systems will no longer be applied to robots. It is necessary to develop a brand new production system consistent with the application characteristics of robots. In this regard， all the enterprises in the world are still searching for solutions.

When developing the Turing Robot，Yu set out to achieve a level of intelligence similar to that of IBM's Watson artificial intelligence system. The biggest feature of Watson is that it can understand English metaphors， puns and even jokes. Similarly，the Turing robot can also conduct intelligent processing on human natural language. At present， Turing OS versions in English and the languages of Western European countries are being developed as the company looks to enable its Chinese robots to go global.

The components， parts and technologies of intelligent robots are extremely complex， and no single company in the world can complete all processes independently. China's opportunity lies in that relevant domestic enterprises have the necessary technology in a number of key areas. This technology meets the standards of the world's first-class enterprises in technology and has great advantages in speech recognition， controller and sensor production technology.

A research report shows that from 2012 to 2016， the compound growth rate of the sales of service robots in the world reached as high as 19 percent while that of industrial robots was only six percent. the sales volume of service robots will hit 6.07 million by the end of 2016.

In China， however， this trend is growing even more rapidly. Consumer demands as well as the encouragement of relevant government policies has seen a spike in demand， which has led Yu to believe that Chinese firms can become instrumental in the production of the world's first truly intelligent robots.