/ Asahi/Guangzhou, May 09, 2022 -- China's robot industry has entered the fast track of development since 2020. On the one hand, the rapid release of market demand catalyzed by the epidemic; On the other hand, the fading demographic dividend and the continuous rise of labor costs also boost the small steps of various types of robot enterprises. The segmented robot products are becoming more and more abundant. Whether from the policy level or the market demand level, the next 5-10 years will be a critical period for the development of China's robot industry.
It is foreseeable that during this period, the business forms of robots will continue to be rich, the process of marketization will be promoted rapidly, and there will be enterprises and product forms that continue to innovate in the field of segmentation. From industry to commercial services, and then to special applications, a number of subdivisions of the track began to break out under each large module. We should not only strive to solve the "bottleneck" problem of core components, but also realize the goal of robot localization replacement and application development to medium and high-end industries.
According to the in-depth analysis of mobile robots, especially inspection robots, security patrol robots and composite robots, we find that the key technologies of robots at present include vision, sensing, human-computer interaction and mechatronics, etc., which are the products of multidisciplinary and high-tech cross integration. Among them, the application of machine vision has been relatively mature, and multi-sensor collaboration has also been realized. Some artificial intelligence technologies have reached the international leading level. However, from the perspective of market demand, the existing robot products can not meet the intelligent needs of users, intelligent perception and other key technologies seriously restrict the development of robots. For example: the vast majority of mobile robots on the market have no auditory perception!
By analogy with the way humans acquire information, vision accounts for 70% and hearing accounts for 25%, so a robot with only "eyes" and no "ears" is not intelligent enough. "Listening" is the ability of sound acquisition, while "perception" is the more critical ability of sound analysis, which is powerless by ordinary pickup products.
In view of the above industry pain points, Xi 'an Lianfengxun Sound independently developed a set of "mobile robot auditory perception system", rich and diverse product forms, can meet the mobile robot in various subdivided application scenarios of different auditory perception needs.
Application 1. Park/factory inspection robot
The inspection robot is equipped with an auditory sensing module to collect ambient sound data in real time. Based on the internationally advanced ESR environmental sound target recognition technology, it analyzes and processes environmental noise, automatically extracts acoustic features, conducts model training and comparison records, and monitors the sound field status of the target area online on the robot system platform. When the noise is found to deviate significantly from the normal state, The system generates alarms in real time.
The product design of acoustic sensor separated from the core board card makes the installation more flexible. It can adapt wheel type, rail type, track type and other mobile robots at will. The product architecture of embedded edge computing hardly occupies the robot's own resources and greatly reduces the workload of integration development. The ultra-wide band range of 10Hz-60KHz can achieve full coverage from infrasound to ultrasonic frequency bands, which enriches the robot's functions and expands more application scenarios.
In the requirements of routine inspection, visual output of sound signal, feature extraction, main frequency/decibel monitoring and alarm, environmental sound filtering and noise reduction, collection, monitoring, storage and other functions can be realized.
For special subdivision scenarios, corresponding algorithms can be used. For example, intelligent inspection robots applied to power transformation and distribution systems can detect partial discharge generated by transformers, high-voltage switches and other equipment. Abnormal sound detection and recognition of rollers, with rail inspection robot, commonly used in coal mine, steel, cement manufacturing and other widely used belt conveyor industries; Industrial inspection robots match the fault monitoring algorithm of rotating equipment, which can realize real-time monitoring of the working noise state of pump and motor equipment in the region.
Application two, security patrol robot
As the international anti-terrorist situation becomes more and more serious, the demand for military police or riot patrol robots is also emerging. This kind of robot can be equipped with embedded intelligent air sonar array to realize real-time acquisition and processing of environmental sound signals, transforming passive monitoring into active inspection. Intelligent air sonar array is used to upgrade and blind the head of the robot's original monitoring camera. When abnormal sound signals occur within the monitoring range (such as: call for help, collision, explosion, alarm, gunfire...) , the sonar array will respond in milliseconds, quickly locate the sound source, and drive the head to the direction of the abnormal sound for inspection. Combined with the corresponding audio and video processing technology, the system will automatically save several seconds of audio and video files before and after the alarm event occurs, without massive review and query, accurately obtain the complete evidence chain, greatly saving the police and security manpower.
It can achieve 360° omnidirectional real-time monitoring, with clear targets and targets, solve the problems of large blind area, difficult forensics, not real-time caused by the unknown direction of conventional monitoring technology means, and break the limitations of the existing video surveillance system which can only view images in real time and query after the event, and the low degree of intelligence. Based on embedded edge computing system, intelligent air sonar array can be used with most of the cloud head or monitoring ball machines in the market through ONVIF protocol, and the necessary information can be output by standard HTTP protocol. Only a little development is required to complete the integration of robot sound ball linkage.
Application 3. Special inspection robot
Based on the profound accumulation of Lianfeng Xunsheng in microphone array technology and acoustic signal processing technology, the sound-optical integrated detection module uses beamforming algorithm to acquire sound source distribution data, and combines the sound source distribution data with the video image to make the dynamic presentation of the changing sound source. The product not only has the functions of traditional acoustic camera sound acquisition, image acquisition, sound source positioning and visualization, but also innovatively integrates infrared module, which can carry out real-time thermal imaging detection and multidimensional diagnosis of equipment faults. One module is compatible with multiple functions, making complex simple.
Equipped with the power system inspection robot, it can obtain excellent detection effect for steady or high transient sound sources, stationary or moving objects. Patrol partial discharge fault, can achieve remote, without stopping, accurate fault location and background visualization and other functions. Even if the power switch cabinet does not open the cabinet door, it can still clearly and accurately determine the position of the office in the switch cabinet. With the use of rotating lifting head, no dead Angle patrol work area. Inspection robots for petrochemical systems play an important role in replacing manual inspection in toxic and harmful gases, high-risk and high-explosive environments. In the process of daily production, storage and external transport, once the high-pressure gas leaks, turbulence will be generated at the leakage site, and the turbulence will generate sound waves with vibration frequency related to the size and geometry of the leakage hole. The sound waves with larger leakage holes have lower frequency and can be heard by human ears. The acoustic frequency of small leaky holes is higher, often more than 20KHz, which belongs to the ultrasonic model. At this time, the inspection robot equipped with the sound-optical integrated detection module can show great power. Products with stainless steel shell design, fully meet the explosion-proof certification requirements, suitable for oil production, gas production plant, pipeline valve room, natural gas companies, oil field power system and other industry equipment inspection.
In addition, the fused infrared thermal imaging function can be used for fault detection of motor temperature defects, which is suitable for inspection of buffer tank, heating furnace, progress valve group, gas pipeline, dehydration post, oil post, gas collection post, boiler post and other scenes in the petrochemical industry. Use auditory perception ability to empower mobile robots, so that the robot senses can be upgraded to "see, hear", more comprehensive and intelligent.
