Enter the entrance of AI life, starting from the sweeper.
Everything will be connected to AI.
When Kevin Kelly (K.K.) described the future vision of "what's the next" with his usual philosophy of science and technology, we knew more clearly that a future world dominated by AI technology was coming irreversibly.
However, it is a long way to visualize the macro future trend into the micro reality.
The most specific life is often the trivial daily life. The landing of AI in the real world and the channel of public body feeling may be more suitable for daily cleaning appliances.
What will happen when cleaning appliances enter the AI era?
01. AI enters the "ground", microscopic and specific
What is technology? Science and technology are things that have been whimsical in the past, are difficult to cope with today, and are used to in the future.
This is most reflected in the "war" between people and the floor. The most common part of daily cleaning is sweeping the floor. However, after the invention of broom, dustpan and mop, the traditional three swordsmen "ruled" the human family for hundreds of years and even now.
It was not until 1899 that the gasoline driven floor cleaner was invented. Then in 1907, an American engineer tried to install a "brush disc" on his vacuum cleaner motor, which became the prototype of the floor washer. However, such clean appliances are bulky and consume huge energy. They are mostly used in shopping malls, halls and other large public places, which is a little far from the daily life of the public.
In fact, whether it is a sweeping robot or a sweeping robot, it is not a long time since it entered the domestic civil scene. Especially in the domestic market, it is only in the last decade. People's impression of the so-called intelligent cleaning appliances still has the stereotype of "artificial intellectual disability".
When facing new technology, the most common mistake is to overestimate the near future, but underestimate the long term.
Products like sweeping robots make many users love and hate them. It can really save the time of sweeping the floor, but the "requirements" such as frequently hitting the wall, disposing of residual garbage, and cleaning the dead corner twice still haven't really freed people from the trivial matter of sweeping the floor.
What people need is a life assistant who can trust and really free his hands. The emergence of intelligence brought about by the rise of generative AI has brought a new possibility for furniture and household appliances - real "artificial intelligence" that can actively respond and even make decisions in the AI era.
Is this AI era the future within reach, or the illusion of a dead horse? For future problems, we should return to reality to find answers. We need to find a carrier that links the reality and the digital world as the "yardstick" for the coming future.
Now, a microscopic and specific notch has appeared. Not long ago, Cloud Whale Smart held a launch conference for the new products of the Happy series, launching the high-end flagship Cloud Whale Happy 001 full intelligent cleaning robot. The official publicity materials claimed that this product superimposed AI big model and AI binocular vision technology, combined with the theme of the launch conference "cleaning robot in your imagination", which is quite imaginative.
Perhaps the AI era of sweepers has arrived.
02. Is AI cleaning as you think?
Under the influence of many home appliance manufacturers, smart appliances, smart appliances, etc., are actually not new words. The fundamental reason why some intelligent appliances are often referred to as artificial intellectual disabilities is that they are not AI versions of traditional appliances, but rather remote control or fixed itinerant settings with the dimension of Internet of Things. Essentially, they are passive tools that provide responsive services, and there is no real "central brain" that can make decisions.
This is not really the product capability corresponding to the AI era.
"Robots can be as smart as people, replacing people to actively think and actively choose the cleaning behavior most suitable for the current environment." The speech made by Zhang Junbin, founder of Cloud Whale, at the press conference can be seen as Cloud Whale's focus on how to achieve AI cleaning. These thoughts are represented as Yunjing Xiaoyao 001, the first fully intelligent cleaning robot equipped with dual core and binocular architecture in the industry.
The premise of making a decision is to be visible. The reason why some intelligent sweepers are often referred to as artificial intellectual disabilities lies in the difference of their space perception schemes. One of the traditional obstacle avoidance recognition methods is the linear structured light scheme, which is also known as the laser radar induction. The density of observation points is about 15000 per second, which can only identify obstacles of about 15mm level, but it is still "black" color blind, and the detection effect is poor. The other is the traditional dual camera scheme. Although the density of observation points has increased to about 300000/s, the measurement accuracy is lower, only about 20mm level can be detected, and the detection effect for objects without texture is poor. If the family environment is slightly more complex or has some changes, it cannot be carried.
While Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 is equipped with two ultra HD wide-angle cameras of the same model for Mars exploration vehicles, with a field of view (FOV) of 136 °, achieving millimeter level measurement accuracy. More importantly, its visual recognition method has thus been transformed from a 2D perspective to a 3D perspective. Its 3D point cloud measurement density exceeds 1.5 million per second, 750 times higher than the industry flagship machine. With AI bionic vision technology, it can observe and identify more than 100 kinds of household items in real time during the mobile process.
At the same time, the Xiaoyao AI large model developed by Yunjing can enhance this recognition ability to the accuracy of the minimum diameter of 5mm. There is no need to worry about the data cable on the ground getting entangled in the equipment, and there is no need to bother to store it before cleaning.
The basis for making decisions is to understand cleanliness. As far as the hardware is concerned, the sweeping and dragging robots are almost perfect in both form and function. For example, according to the Analysis Report on China's Clean Electrical Industry in 2023 by Ovi Cloud, there will be no disruptive products in the clean electrical industry in 2023, but more micro innovation around cleaning efficiency and use experience based on products. The industry recognized trend is intelligence. After all, in real families, the working scenes faced by cleaning robots are extremely complex. The big model of Xiaoyao AI has become the brain of Yunjing Xiaoyao 001. On the basis of strong recognition ability, it can understand the "problems" it needs to face and make adaptive cleaning decisions.
Different garbage types have different treatment methods. When encountering dry garbage, we can only suck and not drag, and when encountering wet garbage, we can only drag and not drag, and we can also make dynamic safety makeup as needed. In the face of different ground materials and stains, Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 will also intelligently adjust the "mopping pressure" to make up the strength. In order to reduce the secondary pollution, cleaning dead corners brought about by repeated work.
The cleaning ability of Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 is good enough and friendly enough for users. On the one hand, the 12000Pa suction is enough to lift coins; Cyclone guided roller brush design can perfectly solve the problem of hair entanglement. On the other hand, the sweeper is no longer a nanny to be served. Mopping operation requires cleaning mops, which can provide intelligent temperature control cleaning at 45 ℃ - 75 ℃. The most annoying waste disposal link can provide a 120 day maintenance free experience on the basis of sterilization and deodorization.
It should be noted that behind the perception hardware and algorithm model, Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 is also equipped with a new product architecture - dual core and eight cores. According to official data, its core main chip is responsible for 5 million parameter deep neural network algorithm, and real-time analysis and processing of clean reality; The computational power of the collaborative edge AI computing chip is as high as 4 TOPS, which supports the obstacle avoidance capability of the previous description with a spatial computing capability comparable to that of automatic driving. As it is configured by the product itself, this means that this robot product can achieve these capabilities only by relying on local computing.
It can be seen that on the basis of space perception, self-cleaning and other performance and experience upgrades, Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 has moved away from the category of "passive service" intelligent appliances, actively identifying the adaptive working mode of dirt switching cleaning methods, and has obviously entered the AI appliances of "active service", which is in line with the full intelligence claimed by Yunjing Xiaoyao 001.
At the same time, Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 is equipped with a possible future form of human-computer interaction. Take voice commands as an example. The voice control of traditional intelligent cleaning appliances requires users to say fixed words and instructions, and the human-computer interaction experience is not smooth. After the emergence of generative AI, Chatbot style human-computer interaction has become a consensus, which also allows users to imagine the emergence of cleaning stewards who can really understand instructions and actively respond.
Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 makes this dream come true. Its built-in NarGPT multi-mode large model newly developed by Cloud Whale can understand voice interaction in multiple ways such as single password, multi intention, fuzzy intention, etc. The Jingling Trusteeship 3.0 function can also support the refined trusteeship of the separate cleaning scheme and the historical data scheme, so that the trivial matter of ground cleaning can become a convenient experience in the hands of the cleaning housekeeper.
In addition to the cleaning context, Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 gives the cleaning robot a new use scenario - the chat attribute brought by the intelligent AI voice capability, and the escort value brought by the mobile video call and patrol function. Therefore, users can use it as a companion robot or as a family safety guard.
Can chat, know how to watch the house, and can understand fuzzy instructions to complete cleaning tasks independently... Such a cleaning robot may not be the whole of the future, but it is a node type product evolving from traditional "intelligent" appliances to AI appliances.
03. Imagination of human and machine symbiosis
Back to the cloud whale itself. The appearance of Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 can be seen as an exploration of the high-end market of Yunjing. This is a certain necessity for a brand to grow upward. The domestic technology product enterprises represented by Cloud Whale are moving from the past era of relying on convenient industrial chains to the new era of relying on brands and product power to win at low prices.
But beyond the high-end strategic layout, this is also the real demand of users. The way of life in the future may be the symbiosis of man and machine. The core pain points of the sweeping robot category are mostly concentrated in the dimension of intelligence and cleaning ability. Especially in the high-end market, what users need is a cleaning tool that is easy to use, worry free and labor-saving.
In order to have such characteristics at the same time, strong intelligent AI appliances and AI robots are the most possible way to achieve this user need. The appearance of Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 is exactly a handshake between Yunjing and high demand users based on user needs and its own technical reserves.
A product can provide a glimpse of the leopard. The technical ambition of Cloud Whale is obviously not an AI sweeper. If we analyze the technical capability of Yunjing Xiaoyao 001 as the first fully intelligent sweeping robot in the industry, we can clearly see the accumulation of Yunjing in different dimension technology sectors of perception technology, intelligent hub, mobile technology and interaction mode.
Data shows that Cloud Whale has applied for more than 1000 technical patents, including vision technology, AI large model, indoor positioning technology, high-speed motor control, various simulators and accelerators, and many other dimensions. In addition, in the previous accumulation of various cleaning electrical products such as floor washers and sweepers, a complete enterprise infrastructure such as modules and AIoT capabilities has been built.
It should be noted that generative AI is not the end. It is more like the foreword of an era, which is hastening the arrival of more technologies and calling for the formal realization of General Artificial Intelligence (AGI). After AIGC, the industry generally believes that the next wave will occur in "Embodied AI" that can learn and evolve by itself.
The shape of the sweeping robot itself is an embodied agent. In a broad sense, it has the ability to self think and understand the external environment and make appropriate actions. The technology accumulation of Cloud Whale represents the possibility of "embodied intelligence" as a specific product - Xiaoyao 001 - which can understand actions with the semantics of user interaction and identify the "prototype" of corresponding cleaning work without following the established procedures.
The science fiction imagination of the future lifestyle has been filled by the cloud whale. In the face of the anxiety and confusion in the process of changing the times, Cloud Whale has built a future full intelligent cleaning housekeeper with its own technology accumulation and demand insight to resist the coming torrent with the small happiness of life brought by specific products.
