Powering a robot with your body is hot business in China’s hardware capital

At IO-AI Tech, A startup located about 45 minutes north of downtown Shenzhen, China, has glimpsed a strange new frontier for blue-collar business. Workers wearing the company’s virtual reality headsets, handheld controllers, and remote-controlled motion trackers Humanoid robots For workplaces such as factory floors and stores. the a company It wants the robots to do useful work, like stocking shelves and picking items out of boxes, but it also wants to collect training data that could allow the robots to one day operate Independently.

To demonstrate the technology, the company invited me into its offices, where I was allowed to control 10 robotic hands, each from a different company, using a custom motion-tracking glove. The device instantly transmitted my finger movements to all 50 automated numbers.

I’m a little embarrassed to say that the first thing I tried with this futuristic equipment was getting all 10 hands to flip the bird. After getting this out of my system, I was impressed by how quickly my movements transferred to the robot hands, and how easily the technology transferred in both directions – I could feel the ball being placed in one of the bionic hands.

The company also let me try out a system being tested by a Chinese supermarket chain. Using a VR headset and a pair of handles, I attempted to pick up boxes of medicine from the shelf. It was confusing at first: I had to adjust to a slight difference between my movements and the robot’s movements that I could see through the headset. However, after a little practice, I stacked the shelves like a robot boss.

Elsewhere, I saw people wearing virtual reality headsets and body-tracking sensors One ready player. In one of the large rooms, I saw workers using a range of different systems to control the slimness Unity of Humans. One person was walking around with the Unitree robot at his side, and the machine mirrored their movements inside a mock apartment. The human operator, wearing a headset and watching the scene through the robot’s cameras at eye level, made the necessary movements to remove a shirt from the hanger and fold it.

IO-AI is developing technology that transfers a person’s movements to different robotic forms, a useful proposition given that there are dozens of different humanoids and Robot hands On the market in China today. The startup’s algorithms also need to combine human control with a certain level of autonomy, because a person and a robot will not always be the same shape, size and weight. Without some ability to move independently, the robot may lose its balance.