Hunting cloud network (micro signal:) Shanghai, January 21 report
January 21, Shanghai Fourier Intelligent Technology Co. At the meeting, real people "wearing" Fourier Intelligence's new generation of lower limb exoskeleton robot Fourier X2 for demonstration. Fourier Intelligence, National Instruments (NI), the University of Melbourne jointly created the exoskeleton robot open platform (EXOPS) officially for the world debut, in the future, whether it is a school, research institutions, or clinical centers can be in this platform for secondary development of exoskeleton robots, without having to invest a large amount of manpower and material resources, starting from a zero base development, which will greatly promote the rapid landing of exoskeleton robots, and various fields of exoskeleton robotics.
The platform will allow for the secondary development of exoskeleton robots without the need to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to develop them from scratch, thus greatly promoting the rapid implementation of exoskeleton robots and their wide application in various fields.
On-site, experts in the field of exoskeleton robotics, seed users of the exoskeleton robotics open platform (including representatives from several world-renowned universities and research institutions), and FT Intelligence partners from more than 20 countries around the world made a centralized appearance. Prof. Denny Oetomo of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Qiao Wei, Sales Director of Greater China at National Instruments (NI), Gu Jie, CEO of Fourier Intelligence, and Zen KOH (Xu Dehong), Chief Strategy Officer of Fourier Intelligence, delivered relevant keynote speeches.
In principle, the exoskeleton robot is a wearable powered exoskeleton system with a wealth of application prospects, for example, in the future, people with paralyzed lower limbs will be able to drive their lower limbs, which have no muscle power, through the power provided by the exoskeleton robot, to achieve walking and other functions.
Then this time, Fourier Intelligence launched the upgraded iteration of the exoskeleton robot Fourier X2 is not ordinary? Gu Jie introduced the following points at the conference:
First, it's smarter. Fourier Intelligence has formed a strong technological barrier in the course of several years of development, and the released Fourier X2, with its core motion control system, power unit, and mechanic sensing system, can be applied to a variety of fields such as assisted walking, rehabilitation training, and motor function enhancement.
From the structure of the entire exoskeleton robot, Fourier X2 has four power units, six multi-dimensional mechanical sensors, located in the thigh, calf and sole of the foot, through the arrangement of more than ten sensors can form a set of sensing system, more intelligent "read" human movement intentions, and then adjust the power output to achieve different levels of force. The size of the power output is adjusted according to the force, to realize different movement modes. Most of the products on the market can only realize the passive mode, that is to say, people can only be forced to follow the machine's preset fixed trajectory movement. Fourier Intelligence, on the other hand, can interact the exoskeleton robot with human beings through its unique force feedback control algorithm, and the gait trajectory can be adjusted in real time according to the user's exertion and changes in the external dynamic environment. At the same time, the exoskeleton robot Fourier X2's exquisite mechanical transmission design, high-performance servo motors and reducers provide a strong torque output, built-in self-developed motion control board, for the motion trajectory, speed of the dynamic adjustment and data acquisition to provide a powerful arithmetic support.
The second is lighter and better wearability. The architecture of traditional exoskeleton robotics products is to stack gearboxes and motors together, the whole machine is very thick and heavy, the comfort of contact with the human body is weak, and it is more difficult to be used regularly in life, but the Fourier X2 is based on biomechanics and ergonomics design, and adopts a number of innovative ways in which the volume and weight of the exoskeleton can be reduced, such as the use of a large number of carbon fiber and other composite materials to ensure the overall structural rigidity while minimizing the sense of weight-bearing. The weight of similar exoskeletons with four power units is generally around 25 kilograms, while Fourier X2 weighs only 18 kilograms, a 35% reduction compared to the previous generation of exoskeleton robots, Fourier X1.
The third is cheaper. The reason why exoskeleton robots have not been well popularized is that price is a very important factor. Europe and the United States exoskeleton robot can easily be sold for millions of dollars, which is a family can hardly afford. Therefore, a major trend in the development of exoskeleton robots is to make it affordable for everyone who needs it.
Gu Jie said that through the technology, product iteration, as well as process and supply chain system improvement, Fourier X2 is a robot that can be truly applied to the ground and will be available for mass production. "We will firmly walk on the road of rehabilitation, first to help a large number of patients who can not walk for rehabilitation training, and in the future to help them to be able to stand up and walk, and return to life, so that the exoskeleton robot becomes a necessary tool in their daily life."
Fourier will focus on rehabilitation, but exoskeleton robots have great prospects for development in other areas such as industry and the military. Now there are many teams from universities, research institutes, and companies around the world developing exoskeleton robots, but this emerging, cutting-edge technology will be exceptionally difficult if they all start from scratch, and the market for exoskeleton robots is difficult to explode. Based on this, another important project of this conference was born - Exoskeleton Robot Open Platform (EXOPS).
Zen pointed out that there are hundreds of labs and companies around the world developing exoskeleton robots for different applications, but it often takes tens of millions of dollars and years to develop an exoskeleton robot. However, much of the development work is duplicated or started from scratch, resulting in a certain waste of resources and making it difficult to popularize the technology. We hope that the industry will not have to reinvent the wheel, just as computer science departments do not have to develop their own operating systems or CPUs, and that labs can develop specific applications for various fields on an open platform.
Fourier Intelligence, in conjunction with National Instruments (NI) and the University of Melbourne, initiated the establishment of an open platform for exoskeleton robots, which includes the exoskeleton robot Fourier X2, a data acquisition system, and a motion control system, etc. It will build an exoskeleton robot ecosystem centered on software and equipped with modularized hardware for developers around the world. EXOPS comes with a set of developer SDKs (Software Development Kits) that call for information to process complex control algorithms through various computer language platforms. With the SDK, developers can adjust the exoskeleton's step speed, gait, and other parameters, collect real-time data from various sensors, and control multiple power units to realize walking assistance. EXOPS can be adapted to a number of external devices, such as augmented reality glasses, combined with an EEG capture cap, which converts EEG signals into control commands for the exoskeleton.
At present, the exoskeleton robot open platform has a number of universities and research institutions to join the platform program, is the first wave of seed users. Based on this platform, some remarkable results have been achieved, for example, Fourier Intelligence and Xi'an Jiaotong University's Prof. Xu Guanghua team have worked together for the first time to apply visually evoked enhancement of autonomous brain control technology to lower limb exoskeleton robots, so that people can control the exoskeleton robots to walk through the "idea".
At the launch event, Zen compared the journey of exoskeleton robots from single product development to platform empowerment to that of a familiar cell phone, with various manufacturers launching various forms of cell phone products at the beginning, but eventually, when the Apple system and Android system are released, it becomes a real industry chain, and other developers can stand on the shoulders of the giants in the development and creation, but the prerequisite is the need for the manufacturers to dare to be the first to go ahead. Manufacturers dare to be the first to go ahead and provide a wide range of platforms recognized by everyone. This is the case with the exoskeleton robotics platform created by Fourier Intelligence, National Instruments (NI), and the University of Melbourne.
Talking about the respective responsibilities of the initiators, Zen introduced that Fourier Intelligence mainly focuses on the field of rehabilitation robotics, on which it has completed the preparation for the mass production of exoskeleton robots, including the provision of hardware platforms for a wide range of applications, control systems, and commercialization of modules; NI is a U.S. company with hundreds of thousands of customers around the world, and it provides data acquisition systems and visualization programming systems that can be integrated with the data acquisition systems and visualization programming systems provided by the company in various industries. visualization programming system can be integrated into the platform inside; the University of Melbourne can provide robotics teaching, courses, etc., we will work with the University of Melbourne to open the software interface SDK, in the open platform to provide a common software interface, in the future, whether it is an artificial intelligence laboratory, robotics control laboratories, electromechanical control laboratories, etc., and their teams can be developed in the drive application.
"We hope that more developers can participate in the research process of exoskeleton robots, hand in hand to forge ahead, and constantly change the human potential, *** with the promotion of exoskeleton robotics industry chain development." Zen said, "This launch is just the beginning, the next step is that we will cooperate with the world's top artificial intelligence and robotics labs, *** with the EXOPS-based research topics, the quality of the project for commercial and clinical transformation, and ultimately contribute to the exoskeleton robot to become a universal technology. For the open platform, we will keep doing this for the next ten or twenty years, we believe this platform will empower developers, the market, and build a truly sustainable intelligent robotics value chain, and we expect to work together with developers around the world to solve real-world problems that will benefit more people."