Caregiving robot is a good companion for elderly

Elderly people dealing with social isolation and loneliness are at increased risk of a variety of ailments, from cardiovascular disease and elevated blood pressure to cognitive deterioration and infection. In short, being old and alone can kill you. But robots aren't just good for improving the elderly's movement, they're surprisingly adept at keeping retirees socially, emotionally and mentally engaged as well.

The annual birth rate dropped below a million for the first time since 1899 and a quarter of the population is already greying in 2016 in Japan, that’s why the care robots for the elderly are springing up. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry expects the robotic service industry to boom to nearly $4 billion annually by 2035 -- 25 times its current level. Europe and the US are also accelerating the development and adoption of support robots.

Serving robots do exactly that. Take the Care-o-bot from Fraunhofer IPA, for example. This robot has been deployed in a number of German assisted living facilities. It is able to keep the elderly entertained by playing memory games to help keep their minds sharp. The Care-o-bot is programmed to behave like a gentleman, Dr Ulrich Reiser, Project and Group Leader at Fraunhofer IPA, wrote in a 2015 release.

QIHAN Technology’s Sanbot Elf intelligent robot, which was firstly launched at IFA Expo in last September, can overtake the responsibilities of intimate companion. As one APP controlled robot, you can have a remote caring video call with your parents or kids through the mobile APP. Make an appointment online in advance if you are bored about waiting in a hospital. The intelligent health care robot is equal to special elderly care, patient education and simple diagnosis, etc. QIHAN Technology practices the “Robot + Various Industries” strategy based on Sanbot Elf robot.

In addition, QIHAN will launch another intelligent service robot - Sanbot Nano in a couple days at this year’s IFA Expo. Different from the Sanbot Elf for commercial use especially, Sanbot Nano is designed, especially, for home use. It is the first home robot, adopting the Amazon Alexa AI system, and it gives you an outstanding voice interaction. The three-panel design of Application Integration Panel, Game Panel, and Address Book Panel on the Sanbot Nano touch screen reduces the operational difficulties and brings an incredible interactive experience for users.

These kinds of robotics in healthcare don't even need to be people-sized. Of course, growing old in a nursing home is a vastly different experience than doing so in your own home. Care facilities are, by their very nature, communal -- there's nearly always someone around. But for elderly folks who live alone, the services that robots provide must go beyond turning off lights and fetching small items.

Ryan Wu: Sanbot intelligent robot is the new carrier of future services

On August 23rd, the 3rd World Robot Conference opened in Beijing grandly. Over 150 well-known robotics enterprises took their robots to the event. QIHAN Technology’s Cloud service intelligent robot Sanbot Elf + and the newly issued Sanbot King Kong intelligent robot attracted thousands of eyeballs at the scene. The journalist from Intelligence Channel of Huanqiu had a special interview with Ryan Wu, the Vice President of QIHAN Technology, to study what advantages the first enterprise which manufactures and outputs commercial service robot has.

In the previous process, QIHAN Technology defined the orientation that Sanbot intelligent robot is the creator and popular of intelligent service robot. While, the strategy of “Robot + Various Industries” pioneers the entirely new path of service robot’s commercialization. Regarding this, Ryan Wu expressed his point of view, “robot is the new carrier after PC, mobile phone and tablet, and the goal of Sanbot robot is to create the standard hardware carrier in robotics industry. It is the carrier that improves the expanding efficiency of Sanbot robot’s applications in scenarios at high speed. ”

In the past two years, QIHAN Technology has accumulated a great number of business partners, whose businesses are retail, beauty, catering, education, health care, bank, customs and courts, etc. This composed the initial open and developing ecosystem. At the booth, journalists also witnessed the application cases of Sanbot Elf intelligent robot in the above sectors. And the three Sanbot robot convenience stores are the most typical cases of “Robot + New Retail”.

At this conference, the types of artificial intelligence robotics vary greatly, but the home robots are high-priced, or sort of toy. However, the enterprises like QIHAN Technology mostly position their products as commercial service robots. Ryan told the media, home use and commercial use are two completely demands. As far as we know, the development of home service robot is not mature, but the commercial service robot for the transformation of traditional businesses is expecting the booming. Because there is a great trend that more and more robots to assist human staff to reduce the labor cost and create new model of commerce, no matter in catering, hotel, shopping mall, elderly care sectors or in transportation, civilization and physical industries.

Ryan continued, the intelligent robot’s commercial application just begins and in the exploration stage, and each industry needs the special commercial service robots. For the partners of QIHAN Technology, we can’t image how big the commercial market of intelligent service robot is. What’s more, the expectation from human for robot is to reduce labor cost and improve the efficiency, but demand will emerge fission with the robot popularized in various industries.

With high confidence, Ryan told the audience and media, “We have always been optimistic about the future robot market, and we think that the robot’s labor assistant for commerce have great potential. For example, we launch the new model of intelligent robot – Sanbot King Kong. It is able to move at 5 m/s and carry weight over 75kg. I am confident that this robot takes the lead over Chinese intelligent robot competitors for over three years”.

If we have a careful review of Sanbot robot’s ecosystem, we can easily find out that, most of the partners perform further development according to the special pain points in the application scenarios by virtue of Sanbot robot carrier. The business model which aims to B-end market and services C-end market is the most valuable method that artificial intelligence practices into traditional businesses.

The application markets of customer service robot expanding quickly

The customer service robot market will be worth US$88 million by 2022, according to a report Tractica released earlier this week. Annual shipments are expected to increase from 2,730 units in 2016 to nearly 4,800 in 2022. The robots will be humanoid and non-humanoid, and telepresence robots, chatbots, and stationary customer interactive systems excluded.

Nearly half of this artificial intelligent robotics for customer service will be deployed in the Asia Pacific Region, North America, and Europe. According to the report, the business demand for this kind of intelligent robot is driven by the following factors: interactive marketing and re-branding strategies; the cost of human staff; customer service digitization and competition; robotics as a service for customer behavioral analytics; the shifting roles of human staff; initiatives to promote robots for the service industry, particularly in Japan and China.

The intelligent robots will be used in situations where customer interactions are standardized and repetitive -- such as in banks, shopping malls, family entertainment centers, exhibitions and events, airports and stores, Tractica noted.

Japan's Henn-na Hotel, for example, is fully staffed by robots, pointed out by Ray Wang, the principal analyst at Constellation Research.

A number of organizations already are using robots on a trial basis in the United States:

1. Mineta San Jose International Airport began using three customer service robots in 2016;
2. Lowe's introduced an autonomous retail service robot in 11 of its stores throughout San Francisco in 2016, and retail service robots also are being deployed in its OSH stores;
3. Target ran a one-week test at one of its San Francisco stores, using robots to help stock shelves and take inventory; it is considering building a concept store staffed by customer service robots.

China's EVA Air and Japan Airlines are using customer service robots, as are Alaska's St. Mary's Airport, Scotland's Glasgow Airport and Japan's Haneda Airport. China’s Sanbot service robot is for Shenzhen International Airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, and Gongbei customs services. With instant access to a corporate database or Cloud service, robots will reduce the amount of time wasted when dealing with customer queries dramatically.

Robots can deal with standard questions, said Cindy Zhou, principal analyst at Constellation Research. However, "customers still look for humans for any real assistance with problems," she told CRM Buyer. Though it cannot work independently without human support if customer really need further help, the intelligent robot is still loved by more and more people and the application markets are very large.

Let intelligent robot help with the education for kids

With the technology developing, new worries have been emerging continuously, and one of them is whether we should let robots teach our kids. As the capabilities of smart software and artificial intelligence advance, parents, teachers, teachers’ unions and the children themselves will all have stakes in the outcome.

The pioneer in intelligent educational robot so far is, not surprisingly, Singapore. The city-state has begun experiments with robotic aides at the kindergarten level, mostly as instructor aides and for reading stories and also teaching social interactions. In other countries like China and the UK, researchers are trying to apply robots help autistic children better learn how to interact with their peers.

A big debate today is how we can teach ourselves to work with artificial intelligence, so as to prevent eventual widespread technological unemployment. Exposing children to intelligent robots for education early, and having them grow accustomed to human-machine interaction, is one path toward this important goal. While, in a recent Financial Times interview, Sherry Turkle, a professor of social psychology at MIT, and a leading expert on cyber interactions, criticized robot education that the robot can never be in an authentic relationship.

Sanbot Elf is a highly artificial intelligent robot and one of its application industries is education. No matter preschool education at home for mother language or foreign language learning, autism therapy treatment, the programmable robots for education is equal to all of these. In addition, equipped with advanced hardware, the robot is capable of remote education, school or class check-in/check-out and more in education. Sanbot Elf has been performed class education and activities in the school in Netherlands, the UK and China.

Keep in mind that robot instructors are going to come through toys and the commercial market in any case, whether schools approve or not. Is it so terrible an idea for some of those innovations to be supervised by, and combined with, the efforts of teachers and the educational establishment?

One of the biggest concerns about robotics education in school, by the way, involves humans. Children sometimes trust robots too much. Teachers and administrators could use robots to gather confidential information about children and their families, as the children may think they are talking to a robot only, rather than creating a database for future scrutiny. This could be addressed by comprehensive privacy standards, probably a good idea in any case.

It is an inevitable trend that robots are going to various industries and application scenarios with the technology developing faster and better, and going mature. And robot for education is also inevitable and unavoidable. At the same time, the robot will be assisting human with education, not replacing their jobs. Why not open your heart and let the intelligent robot education your children?

Human staff should not be taken over by AI robot entirely in customer service

In any job sector, there is always an argument of whether technology will overtake human jobs, and the contact center is no different. These arguments are always made in black and white and assume the workforce will be entirely human or entirely the robot.

However, this debate has no place for absolutes. It’s the real thing and it is happening that with the right tools and technology, enterprises can elevate the future of customer service and role of call center staff by enabling them to be more efficient, and effective, all while creating a great customer experience.

With changing technology comes uncertainty for both companies and employees. Insurance giant Aviva addressed that uncertainty head on by asking its entire 16,000 employees if they thought an artificial intelligent robot could do their jobs. Any employees who answered yes were given employment opportunities in other departments. The call center and credit departments will likely have the most transfers. It is a smart move for enterprises to address the future of customer service in the midst of technology advancements.

It does address uncertainty, but the approach must be more comprehensive and take into account that just because a robot can do a job, doesn’t mean it should. The future of customer service will always need human employees to build authentic connections and foster customer engagement, and not be overtaken by intelligent service robotics totally.

As the need for a personalized customer experience grows, robots will become even more important, and the future of customer service will be a combination of robot and human.

Here’s why: When a customer wants help with a simple task, an advanced AI robot will process it, and the robot handling that query will free up call center staff to give customers the reassurance of a human voice, empathy, and quality support of a highly-trained agent. In short, it’s important to offer customers a choice.

Regardless of the platform, customers will want to know if they’re talking to a human or a robot, so they don’t feel choiceless. Forcing customers through a robots-only route will only serve to annoy them, especially for the elderly and ignorance of hi-tech robot. It’s important to escalate the situation to an employee if the customer requests or the automated service cannot handle the service.

When interacting with enterprises, customers want consistency and an easy, great experience. To meet the needs of customers, it’s important that hi-tech enterprises or corporations focus on implementing the tools or solution to intelligent service robots that will generate positive outcomes.

With a strategy that supports both robots and human employees, customers can get the quick and easy service they need but still interact with a person when the situation calls for a more in-depth approach.

The debate about technology overtaking human jobs is a never-ending conversation. There’s no question that innovative AI robotics is here to stay and it should equip people to be more proficient in their jobs so they can create a great customer experience. The technology used in the future of customer service should be used to empower humans, not replace them.

Intelligent service robots are coming to you in a hotel

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, the travel industry is finding new and innovative ways to utilize it to better ensure a seamless experience for travelers. Now, hotels are taking the technology revolution one step further, by employing robots as hotel service helper.

CNN Travel recently reported that Singapore’s M Social Hotel - a boutique property from Millennium Hotels that was designed with millennial business travelers in mind — had rolled out a fleet of intelligent service robots for its guests. Known as AURA, the idea behind the new program is based on both efficiency and fun, with the goal of improving the overall guest experience.

In 2016, Savioke — a Santa Clarita, California, start-up intent on seeing its robot helpers in hotels across the country — got a $15 million infusion of capital to make that goal a reality. The main job of its bot, known as Relay, is also to assist with deliveries. A staff member would simply need to load him up with the requested goodies, punch in the room number and off he’d go, using Wi-Fi and 3D cameras to assist with navigation.

Later this year, QIHAN Technology released its first intelligent service robot – Sanbot Elf. The robot is with open API and SDK to enable all the integrators and robot solution developers to develop further solutions according to the scenarios they want them to work at. With the open interface, this programmable autonomous robot is available to be customized for retail, hospitality, education and healthcare. Hotel, is one of the major application scenarios of hospitality industry Sanbot Elf will work in. Passenger reception, check-in/check-out, promotional activity, special Q&A and business processing, electronic coupons and personal room services are all available to the intelligent robot.

Whether these intelligent robots will be the room service attendants of the future or simply a fun photo op at tech-savvy properties really depends on who you ask. Last year, Steve Choe — general manager of the luxurious InterContinental Los Angeles Century City — told the Los Angeles Times that one thing still missing from robot-service is that personal touch, a quality people still seek from hotels. But Lynn Mohrfeld, president of the California Hotel and Lodging Association, disagrees. In the same article, he told the Los Angeles Times that while high-end hotel guests may want — and expect — that personal touch, robot helpers could be a boon to hotels that cater to families, millennials and tech-savvy guests.

If you’re really willing to hand your hotel experience over to commercial humanoid robots, there’s also the Henn na Hotel, a.k.a. the Weird Hotel, in Sasebo, Nagaski, Japan, where automated workers — some of them rather human-looking — will do everything from checking you in to carrying your luggage. The future is now.

“Sanbot Elf + Various Industries” leads the robotics development trend

On August 23th, Sanbot Elf customs service robot, Sanbot Elf litigation service robot, Sanbot Elf healthcare robot and Sanbot Elf education robot are all going to the Etrong International Exhibition and Convention Center to bring all the attendees the grand occasion of Sanbot commercial service robots at the World Robot Conference. QIHAN Sanbot team will show the achievement of “Sanbot Elf + Various industries”.

QIHAN Technology is the core exhibitor of World Robot Conference 2017 and its exhibition booth will cover over 350 square meters. At the ecological application exhibition area, audiences will witness the powerful Sanbot Elf service robot group – Sanbot Elf which works for banks, customs, courts and schools are all together to highlight the conference.

For example, Xiaofa litigation service robots who work in Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court, Sihui People’s Court, Guangzhou Baiyun Area People’s Court are the hotspots in litigation industry. Xiaofa is capable of laws & regulations inquiry, procedure guidance, laws & regulations query, case query, litigation cost calculation, lawsuit papers check-in and other convenient and fast litigation services.

Sanbot shopping robot, developed and issued by QIHAN Technology and Huayang Xintong based on Sanbot Elf robot will also debut at the same area at the World Robot Conference. The intelligent retail service robot, especially for offline retail store, majors in the jobs of attracting customers, activity promotion, shopping guidance and interpretation, electronic coupons, payment collection and membership card processing, etc. And the MPS (Multi-service Platform System) enables business to control all the Sanbot Elf intelligent robots in different stores.

The whole ecological exhibition area gather all the application scenarios in different industries, therefore visitors can have a glance of working epitome of Sanbot Elf in various industries – customs, healthcare, bank and education, etc.

Sanbot can be fused with serious kinds of solutions and applied in different scenarios, which never breaks up with the commercial road QIHAN Technology has been practicing. Adhering the concept of “Robotics-as-A-Service”, QIHAN team designed powered fundamental functions at the preliminary phrase: rich perception, flexible interaction, semantics understanding, facial recognition, self-location, auto-charge, intelligent safe guard and many other AI technologies, which make the great integrator and carrier of intelligent service robotics.

In addition, QIHAN R&D team deployed the open sources and offer accessible SDK for all the robot solution developers and integrators. So developers and integrators will use Qihan Cloud and Sanbot ROS platform and combine the request of scenarios to develop customized service robot. This accelerates the speed Sanbot commercial service robots goes to various industries and thousands of families.

Unmanned Convenience Stores VS Intelligent Retail Service Robots

On August 8th, the first unmanned convenience store in Shenzhen, called WellGO, officially opened. People who enjoy going to stores and shopping can now experience something completely new and exciting.

WellGO is located in the Rainbow building and is the first store in Shenzhen based on ultra high-frequency RFID technology, which is used in unmanned retail convenience stores for 24-hours a day. It is 12 square meters with 6 shelves, a curtain, a coffee machine, and roughly 300 different products. And the shopping processes are very simple: member identification, one step checkout and buy and talk away the product.

There is another option, a store with intelligent retail service robots. The Sanbot Elf robot invites guests to the store, adding to the fun. This robot brings the advanced solutions of “artificial intelligence robot”.

First, the design of Sanbot Elf is eye catching. A blend of advanced software and hardware with an elegant and aesthetic design attracts the attention of massive onlookers. The focus is to attract new customers.

Next, the functionality of Sanbot will please the customers. The commercial humanoid robots can entertain customers, advertise products, help customers learn more about the products, greeting customers, helping them find items on sale, and so much more. This enhances the experience.

It is worth noting that Sanbot will record interactions at the store. With Sanbot, management will be able to see what the customers like, which product required the most explanation by Sanbot, which product was bought the most, and even more product-related data. Sanbot advanced AI robot allows the store to collect and analyze big data.  

From a current point of view, unmanned convenience store like this one can save this amount of manpower, rental costs, but the real savings are yet to be seen. The new retail store will service robot has a lot of potentials and will create big changes in the world.

The AI era will eventually arrive, whether it will be here and gone in a flash or last a while. So, unmanned convenience store VS artificial intelligence robot, which one will you choose?

Three features to be discussed about intelligent service robot at WRC2017 summit

The World Robot Conference (WRC) 2017 is on the way. The WRC event will attract the largest quantity of new generation innovative robotic products and the most passionate professionals and scholars in robot industry. What’s more, Chinese senior state leaders will attend the significant event.

There's no question that massive highlights will debut at the conference. Among the highlights, there is one to be mentioned. On the afternoon of August 23rd, WRC2017 - Robotics Commercial Application Summit & the Opening Ceremony of the First Innovation Competition will be hold in Room A and B on the second floor.

Firstly, there are two heavyweight elites that will attend and share their points of views of the present robot markets and the future development of intelligent service robotics at the summit – Tan Jianrong and Pan Zhengxiang. Tan is the Chinese Academy of Engineering and was invited to be the Chief Scientist of QIHAN Technology Co., Ltd. in July. While Pan Zhengxiang is the member of IET (The Institution of Engineering and Technology) and doctor in HIT (Harbin Institute of Technology).

There are three features about the summit in the following processes:

One, at the summit, the subject is not how long we need to realize the all-sided intelligence, but it is the very problem each Chinese intelligent robot manufacturers care for: After such a long time development, how can the commercial robots for sale be combined and applied to the actual application scenarios?

Two, it is the first time that this actual problem will be talked about at this kind of large-scale world-class conference. At the WRC2017 - Robotics Commercial Application Summit, organizer will invite the robotics application operators to the stage and have a face-to-face communication, spreading their hearts to the robot manufacturers, robotic solution developers, and integrators.

Three, most of the prediction and assessment of the future robot markets from the robot manufacturers are similar - Their marketing & sales planning transfers from B2C to B2B and the applications of artificial intelligence robotics in service industry require vertical operators’ further development by combing the industrial pain points and application scenarios.

So as to practice the essential to the summit, the guests are representative: including the investors to new robot startups, robot manufacturing enterprises, and suppliers, robot operators who are digging out the marketing value and senior analysis companies that devote to the potential of advanced AI robots.

In addition to the points of views of robot applications and markets, the guests will perform live dialogs at the scene. When the robotic application operators throw out the question such as “The service robot is not as excellent as we expected”, how will the manufacturers, analysts, and investors answer? And what are the other’s solutions of the robot when manufacturers inquiry the advantages and disadvantages of B2B and B2C in robot industry?

If you’d like to learn robot application market, listen to the robot leaders’ intelligence and have a live interaction with elites in service robot industry, come to attend the WRC2017 - Robotics Commercial Application Summit & the Opening Ceremony of the First Innovation Competition that is organized by CAIA (China artificial intelligence robot industry alliance) on the morning of August 23rd.

The commercial application of service robot is extensive in the coming Era 3.0

With the continuous development of science and technology, robot industry has burst out in recent years. Some humanoid robots have been showing in the novels, dramas, and films, etc.

Massive investments are going into artificial intelligent robotics, and a great number of robot startups emerge and the trend of “Hundreds of Flowers” comes out sharply. Even though the real humanoid robots is not satisfying to people, they are still paid high attention to by the society.

Recently, the Development Planning of New Generation issued by Chinese State Council lightens the fire of robot industry. As is mentioned in the planning, China will invest more to the development of intelligence industry, accelerate the training and collection of AI talents and create AI innovation Highland, to promote Chinese AI theory, technology and application to the world’s leading level and make China the AI innovation center in the world.

At the same time, huge markets and trillions-of-volume development scale are certain to promote the development of artificial intelligence and the robot will go into the Era 3.0 more powerfully and faster. So, how is the potential of service robot to commerce?

Actually, the labor costs have been growing especially in medical, healthcare and bank industry, etc. While the commercial humanoid robot can replace some human staff at some positions, which saves much cost and thus get the care and favors of investors.

As is predicted by authoritative organization, only the marketing scale of service robot in the whole world will reach up to $45 billion. And the scale will grow to $82 billion by 2021 with compound growth rate up to 16.19% during 2017 and 2021.

According to the analysis, marketing development of intelligent service robotics will increase continuously with the automatization and the growing demand of mobile robot from logistics industry. In addition, the marketing demand of service robot will be benefited greatly from the increasing robot applications in health care industry and educational organizations.

However, everything has two aspects, so is service robot. Service robot is popular for home and business indeed, but the technology and engineering are not mature enough, consumers’ expectations are too high and the transformation of traditional industry needs some time. Right now, the investors and enterprises are working hard on service robot while the popularization is not good by robot demanders. The development of service robot is limited consequently.

Only to find the real pain point of marketing, adopt practical, standard and mature modular technology to meet the requests of partial markets, does the advanced AI robot have marketing scale. Meanwhile, service robot’s scale-up is able to drive the practicability and standardization of related technology and components, which realize the cost control of service robot effectively and promote the development of AI robot industry.

Sanbot received high praise from Shenzhen Software Industry Association

Introduction: On August 7th, the consultant and executive president Deng Aiguo and vice secretary Yu Weiguo from Shenzhen Software Industry Association had a great visit to QIHAN Technology and deeply learned about the product and technical R&D ability of the unique-design Sanbot intelligent robot.

On the afternoon of August 7th, Mr. Lin Lvde, the president of QIHAN Technology, accompanied Mr. Deng and Mr. Yu to have a deep visit to QIHAN Headquarters and showed the patented Sanbot robot.

When talking about the application and development of software, Lin told the association, “As a ten-year leading company which majors in intelligent manufacturing, QIHAN has got the powerful intelligent manufacturing ‘gene’. While QIHAN positions itself one as one strong provider of ‘AI + Internet Cloud service’. In the era of big data, the future development of artificial intelligent robotics not only needs the innovative breakthroughs in hardware manufacturing, but requires to develop suitable intelligent robot based on the software application, big data and Cloud computing. And the most important is to apply the commercial service robots to various application scenarios for intelligent services. Therefore, QIHAN pays high attention and invests a lot into the software development. 70 percent of QIHAN staff devote to the development of terminal application, system and AI algorithm.”

Mr. Lin continued, in order to deliver Sanbot intelligent robot to various industries, QIHAN created one “Robot + Qihan Cloud + App” three-in-one ecosystem.

QIHAN Technology opens the technical standards and offers SDK package to attract global integrators and developers to work on the development of robotics solution. Qihan Cloud is one key strategic deployment of developer ecosystem – through Qihan Cloud, all the partners have got the secure and reliable computing and data processing service; further robotics solution development also require the services of Qihan Cloud. In sum, improving software R&D level and building the Qihan Cloud platform has significant meaning to the long development of QIHAN Technology.

Deng and Yu, as the senior representatives of Shenzhen Software Industry Association, expressed high approve of the leading developing strategy of QIHAN Technology and appraise the open-platform strategy of QIHAN Sanbot robotics. Deng said, “The development of China software technology industry needs the creative and innovative spirits like you, and I hope more enterprise members of our association to build the partnership with QIHAN, to enlarge and strengthen ‘Robot + Various Industries’ and contribute more to promote the building and development of Chinese AI industry.”

Seven Development Trends for Robots in the Future (Part 2)

3: Looking more humanlike

As scientists develop more advanced intelligent humanoid robots, they will use the human body as a reference point. Japan has been leading the world in “realistic” robots, but China has some “realistic” robots as well.

The future of robots is to reach a point where robots will look just like a human. Even from a far distance, the robot will look like a human.

4: Durability Increases

Intelligent robots will have a tougher exterior and be able to go through more wear and tear. They will be able to be fixed easier and will last longer. 

5: Extended battery life

These sophisticated robots need power to exhibit all of their incredible features. This requires a lot of power and the batteries of robots are getting bigger and storing more energy to keep up with the consumption levels. But, these batteries are hard to make. The robot’s body has a limit on how big the battery can be. This new robot battery will take a while to develop.

There will be multiple solutions to the energy storage availability problem in the future. On a larger scale, fusion power could be a solution. If fusion energy could be harnessed into a robot, then a robot would have a limitless power supply. But, this kind of power supply is still a far cry from reality, and achieving fusion is very difficult. Also, the future will have better energy reserves, and this will also include batteries. Temporary power storage will decline as permanent storage efficiency becomes more efficient. Intelligent service robots will also be able to charge faster and hold that charge longer in the future.

6: More Logical Analysis Ability

Humans have a large capacity for thinking and analysis. Reading, debating, writing an article, and more are all controlled by the brain. Even simple tasks such as walking, breathing, and balancing are actions we do not even “think” about. But, for advanced humanoid robots, this requires a lot of complex computations. In order for robots to be closer to humans, scientists and engineers will have to continue to improve the logical analysis program. This will increase a robot’s intelligent. Soon, robots will have the logical ability to have conversations, recognize when their battery is low without any prompting from a human user. Basically, logical analysis will help the robot accomplish many tasks automatically, which will help mankind become more efficient.

7: More and More Functions

Robots are here to help mankind. To do this, robots must be able to be able to accomplish a number of tasks. This can include a receptionist or home assistant. Will you use the intelligent service robot to clean your home, remind you of your daily tasks, or video chat with friends or help look after your children? When going outside, robots can help you carry heavy objects or even be your own personal bodyguard. In the further future, sci-fi may become a reality. Transformer robots may even become a reality. One robot could be a car, humanoid robot, speaker, and more.

At present, we do not know the future of artificial intelligence robotics for certain. There are so many possibilities and so many people working with robotics that a definitive future is out of the question. Some certainty in the future is the smart automatic GPS navigation and the automation of self-driving cars will be in robots, in fact, it is already becoming a function.

Of course, the questions today is, are people smarter than robots, or are robots smarter than people? People may have invented and built robots, but robots are constantly learning. Humans work 12 hours a day, sleep 8 hours a day, and have fun for 4 hours a day; however, robots work 24/7. As long as the robot has power, it will continue to learn and accumulate knowledge, some even faster than humans. This must be taken into account on the future development of robotics.

Seven Development Trends for Robots in the Future (Part 1)

Today, the development ofartificial intelligent roboticscan be characterized as: Horizontally, the application uses are expanding,from 95% of industrial applications to more fields of non-industrial applications. Vertically, there are more and more different types of robots, some are looking like more human like, while others are becoming very small, some say as small as a grain of rice. Robots are becoming smarter and more enhanced. 

Development Prospects of the Robotics Industry

One of the most positive parts of “Made in China 2025” is the robotics industry. The robotics industryis expected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2025. From this assessment, $260 millionwill come from advanced medical robotics in hospitals; 1.4 trillion will come from industrial automation and business service tasks. The use of robotics in the business industry is equal to $75 million in full-time employees. Also, smart home robots efficiency will save $500 billion.

Future Development Trends of Robotics

The development of robots is the next industrial/technological revolution, leading humanity in a new and advanced direction. In theory, a robot with “consciousness” is a highly advanced AI robot, but consciousness can be divided into simple consciousness and complex consciousness. Of course, the human consciousness is still way, way more advanced compared to a robot’s. And, today’s robot’s “consciousness” is still in simple consciousness. The future consciousness of intelligent robots is in the following developments:

1: More perfection of the language function

Because robots will be interacting with humans, the language function must be perfect. To achieve perfection, the robot’s internal memory must store a lot of speech patterns and an extensive vocabulary. A robot’s language ability relies on how much language data is stored. 

As time moves on, the language function of artificial intelligent robots will become better and better. This is undeniable. Soon, robots will be able to learn multiple languages faster than a human. In addition, robots can utilize the self-reorganization vocabulary ability. This means that they are communicating with humans, they can automatically use relevant of similar phrases if they are confronted with statements or words that or not internally stored. This ability of being able to respond to a previous sentence in a logical way is a form of consciousness.

2: Perfecting the movements

A robot’s movement is similar to a human’s. Human gestures are very diverse, waving, shaking hands, walking, running, jumping, and more gestures are all human movements and actions.Robots can imitate some of these movements, but they are slow and rigid.

Intelligent service robots in the future will have more realistic movements, having them seem more human like. Robots may soon be able to have movements that many humans cannot do such as a somersault or handstand.

3: Looking more humanlike

As scientists develop more advanced intelligent humanoid robots, they will use the human bodyas a reference point. Japan has been leading the world in “realistic” robots, but China has some “realistic” robots as well.

The future of robots is to reach a point where robots will look just like a human. Even from a fardistance, the robot will look like a human.

China seeks to lead the automatic manufacturing and intelligent service

China's manufacturing industry revolution is at the full speed as more and more industries introduce robots to upgrade the manufacturing speed and quality and customer experience.

"Industrial robots will witness a 'golden period of development' in the next 20 to 30 years in China with the transformation and upgrading of Chinese manufacturing," Luo Jun, CEO of the International Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance, an industry think tank, told the Global Times, a hot daily Chinese newspaper.

Meanwhile, intelligent service robots that can be used as domestic assistants and in hospitals, hotels and nursing homes are becoming increasingly known to the public. Government initiatives to improve the quality of China's industries, such as "Made in China 2025," have sought to support the country's robot industry.

Sun Ying, deputy president of the Zhejiang Robot Association and head of a robotics firm in Hangzhou, told the Global Times that her company's sales revenue reached 200 million yuan ($29 million) last year, up from just 600,000 yuan in 2012 when the company was established. Sun's company mainly provides industrial robots for the detection of flaws and measurements to the logistics, automobile and optical communication sectors. 

"Most of our robots were sold to factories in southern China in the past, but starting this year, our market has expanded to European countries including Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland following China's Belt and Road initiative," Sun said. Meanwhile, the company is also eyeing the service robot industry, establishing a new branch last year to develop advanced medical robotics for nursing homes, according to Sun.

The National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee, a national advisory organ, said it predicts that more than 150,000 industrial robots will be sold in China by 2020, with more than 800,000 in service by then. The committee added that the sector will be worth tens of billions of yuan and will be globally competitive, thepaper.cn reported.

China has struggled to keep pace with Western countries in developing and researching programmable autonomous robots, and the techniques behind core components of industrial robots, such as electrical machinery and controllers, are monopolized by Japan and Germany, according to Luo. 

To encourage Chinese scientists to develop robotic technology, China has allocated 600 million yuan for 42 robotics programs this year, the Ministry of Science and Technology said in August. Luo suggested the government step up efforts to develop next generation advanced AI robots which use artificial intelligence in order to narrow the gap with Western developed countries.

Sanbot has been given the honor to be a part of China Merchants Bank

The Shenzhen China Merchants Bank branch is taking off on its “light bank” track with a ceremony in Shenzhen Futian CBD (Central Business District). Many leading representatives of commercial financial institutions and Merchants Bank attended the ceremony.  Sanbot, one of the advanced humanoid robots in the world, was invited to be the greeter at the ceremony, adding new intelligent elements for the new direction of the Shenzhen CMB branch. 

China Merchants Bank is the pride of Shenzhen. 30 years ago, China Merchants Bank started the trend of Chinese banks becoming joint-stock banks. The Shenzhen branch is very important and founded in 1944 and has grown at a very fast pace. Because of this, on June 20, the Shenzhen China Merchants Bank branch officially moved to the Shenzhen Futian CBD. The ceremony consisted of many leaders of major financial institutions, cooperative listed enterprises, and government departments, all of whom were celebrating. 

Sanbot service robot was the MC, arriving early in the morning to greet over 300 guests as they arrived one by one, reminding them to sign the wall and to play videos about CMB. Sanbot played music to liven the atmosphere(The song of China Merchants Bank). Sanbot also helped people order coffee. 

Now, Sanbot serves as a greeter in the Shenzhen China Merchants Bank. The financial industry will pay more and more attention to the values Sanbot brings to the table, which is not only saving the bank time but also improving customer experience. Sanbot commercial robot for sale energize “Robot plus Finance”to bring great potential commercial value to fiscal development. 

First, robots can help improve the efficiency of banking operations and reducing customer waiting times. Despite the increase in the speed of banking network services in recent years, but people are still waiting for a long time before they can be helped. This leads to irritated clients.   In this scenario, the Sanbot intelligent robots can help alleviate the situation. This is done by Sanbot providing customers with guidance, helping them queue in line, help with basic banking services, which greatly reduces wait times. 

Second, the robot assists the bank in marketing promotion. Sanbot has a quite few advantages over a human namely, nodeviation, no emotional fluctuation, and can work 24/7. Sanbot can continue to provide face-to-face business, consulting, and guidance services to customers as well as proactively introducing the bank’s new services, great deals, credit card services and letting the customer use their phone to connect to the bank.  

Finally, in addition to these advantages, Sanbot comes with security features. QIHAN has the world’s leading security technology. Sanbot advanced AI robot can be combined with the current security system of the bank in order to achieve independent patrols, avoiding obstacles, audio/visual surveillance, alarms, and a series of 3-D security functions. 

The president of the Shenzhen China Merchants Bank branch, President Yeu, said in in his speech yesterday that the opening of the new office building in the Shenzhen branch of CMB is a new starting point, which will build towards the goal of the “light bank” that will provide quality financial services for nearly 9 million customers, over 150,000 local businesses, and the general public.

The Sanbot robot has been given the honor to be a part of China’s Shenzhen branch new journey. In the future, artificial intelligence and innovative technology will help the banks to upgrade to the next level.

Human and robot’s cooperation will probably be the main trend in financial consultant industry

If you are one robot fan who is always caring about the robotics affairs, you must know about Alexa robot from Amazon. Right now, this robot is playing the role of consultant for customers in UBS Group AG in Switzerland. With this progress, Alexa may make the appointments, analysis the stock and even invest into stock.

In recent years, robot consultant is becoming one kind of fashion. According to one investigation from CNBC, even though the consumers who use the robot consultant are limited, their interest in robot consultant is continuously growing.

As was reported from BBC, in the era of fast-developing artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence robotics is replacing human staff and going into financial department. Nowadays, the most of the transactions have been performed by robot independently in the Stock Exchange in New York and London.

Is the robot consultant just one kind of fashion? No. For individual users, robot consultant not only helps to choose and manage the balanced investment portfolio, but the cost is lower than general consultant companies. And this is one reason why the robot consultant is paid high attention to.

Of course, more enterprise clients prefer to communicate with human consultant to get the customized investment idea. Because they don’t think it reassuring to hand high amounts to the robot consultant. What’s more, the human consultant is able to give more proper ideas to enterprise clients in deed. However, this kind of humanoid service robot can exist because most of the work has high relation to its data statistics and data analysis.

As you may know, it is not easy to make one accurate and suitable solution. It requires not only the special analysis ability and judgment, but the powerful data processing ability. For example, the data that three consultants process in one day is easily handled by AI arithmetic within one hour. That is one advantages of robot consultant.

According to incomplete statistics, in the USA, there have been more than 200 companies who are investing in the blue ocean market of robot consultant and the financial giants such as Blackrouck, Fuidlity, Vanguard and some others are among them. City Bank pointed out in one of its reports, “In the future 10 years, the capital of robot consultants probably reaches 5 trillion US dollars and it is a great piece of meat undoubtedly.

With the heat of “robot consultant is taking the place of human consultant” topic, some specialists insist in the questionable voice. James Gorman, the new “King of Wall Street” and the CEO of Morgan Stanley, pointed out, “robot consultant can only attracted part of the clients and they cannot replace all the analysts, strategist and investment consultants.”

Yes, we have to admit that, the present robot consultant cannot be called “professional”. Therefore, the combination consultant mode of human and intelligent service robot will probably be the main trend and best choice in financial consultant industry in the future years.

Sanbot helped out the showing ceremony of Transformers 5: The Last Knight

On the early morning of June 23th, the film of Transformers: The Last Knight, which has been being called the “Box Office Killer”, debut in a great number of theatres in China.

Just right before the movie, each theatre began various kinds of promotion activities that publicized the movie brought sales volume in their theatres. While the tickets were sold hotly, Shenzhen Theatre of Huayi Brothers Media Group outstood with an amazing action, introducing Sanbot intelligent humanoid robots to boost the theatre. The action was to make one of the hottest industries– AI to serve movie industry, creating the new performance of domestic movie marketing promotion.

When movie fans went into the Huayi Theatre, a group of Sanbot service robots were offering different kinds of services: customer reception, movie publication, broadcasting trailer, attracting massive fans to stop to have a look. Many of them weresurprised by the integrating mode of “Robot plus Movie” and they applauded and had interactions with the cute andintelligent humanoid robots.

As theleading artificial intelligent robot, Sanbot’s AI image matched well the roles’ metal characteristics in the movie. The whole new combination of “Robot plus Movie” proves the era of promotion-oriented and the applications of the intelligent service robotics are infinite.

At the warming-up scene, movie fans could easily watch the trailer of transformers 5 movie. The customized movie promotion mode, powered by Sanbot robot, not only improved fans’ cognition experience to the movie, but raised the fans’ enthusiasm to see the film. In addition, the multi-functional Sanbot is a smart customer receptionist, guiding and interpreting the road, ticket inquiry, membership card processing, etc. As the moving publicizing assistant that can walk independently, avoid object automatically and broadcast movie advertising fragment at the same time, Sanbot never stopped the movie fans to have fun and brought them new movie experience.

As known to most of the movie fans, Huayi Brothers Theatre is the affiliating theatre of Huayi Brothers Media Group. As one of the most influent all-around entertainment brand, Huayi Brothers has always been considered the pioneer and leader of Chinese entertainment industry. This time, its Shenzhen theatre teamed up with one of the hottest AI carrier –Sanbot humanoid service robots to add intelligence factors for the Transformers: The Last Knight. The cooperation of strong brands created one splendid and special movie showing ceremony with future technology, as well as the new promotion in the movie industry.

QIHAN Technology gained the Red Sail Concept Innovation Award

[Introduction]Last week, the Red Sail Award of the forth Shenzhen Electronic Equipment Industry came out. Among the 45 enterprises who gained the awards, QIHAN Technology, thanks to the advanced design of Sanbot intelligent humanoid robot, gained the Concept Innovation Prize at the event.

On July 27th, 2017, all the award winning enterprises of the Red Sail Award gathered together at the Night of EeIE2017 Innovation Achievements & the forth Industry Design Red Sail Award ceremony in the Shenzhen Civil Center. As the leader of artificial intelligence, QIHAN Technology was invited to the event grandly and gained the Concept Innovation Prize of the forth industry design Red Sail Award.

The appraisal and selection of industry design Red Sail Award was held by Shenzhen Electronic Equipment Industry Association and Shenzhen Intelligent Equipment Industry Association and undertaken by New Wisdom Media Institute. The competition is aimed to improve the entire innovation level of Shenzhen electronics and intelligent manufacturing industry design and to achieve the leap-type transformation from “Made in China” to “Made in China with Wisdom”.

The appraisal and selection was launched from April, 2017, and Sanbot Elf, as one of the most advanced robots in the world, participated in the event. After serious of screening-out and selection from the good, finally, QIHAN Technology, together with Konka, Jaguar and other 15 enterprises gained the Concept Innovation Prize of the forth industry design Red Sail Award.

The winning Sanbot Elf is an advanced humanoid robot, with height of 90.2CM and more than 60 sensors distributing around the body such as PIR Body Induction, IR distance sensor, IR Sending and ReceivingInduction, gyroscope sensor, touchscreen sensor, etc. The 360-degree surrounding sensing matrix design and the hidden sensors around the whole body creates the rich sensing abilities, which makes the sense of hearing, vision and touching sense superior to the competitors.

What's more, Sanbot Elf is equipped advanced facial recognition, voice interaction, independent walking, object avoidance, auto recharging and many other advanced functions. HD Laser projector before its head, 10.1 inches visual touchscreen and the flexible walking system with three all-orientated wheels makes Sanbot Elf much more outstanding than other humanoid robots.

This time, Sanbot, highlighted among the 310 items from 226 enterprises, gained the Concept Innovation Prize. It not only was another approval of the continuous innovation of QIHAN Technology, but pushed QIHAN to go on with the further development and innovation for Sanbot's artificial intelligence robotics with prospective thought and vision and to accelerate the upgrading transformation from “Made in China” to “Made in China with Wisdom”.

China Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Innovation Conference 2017 to be held in Beijing

Themed by “Intelligent Innovation, Intelligent Manufacturing, Intelligent Fusion”, China Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Innovation Conference 2017 will be held on September 2^nd in Beijing.

The goal of this conference is to promote a healthy and sustainable growth of China’s AI and robotics industries, expand cut-edge technologies, industry dynamics and enterprise experience and improve the influence of Chinese AI and Chinese intelligent robots in the world.

Artificial Intelligence is a challenging field and research in this field is especially difficult. For over half a century, people have been trying to prove theoretical theories and solving the technical difficulties of AI. In recent years, great progress has been made and new thought, now concept new theory and technology have been coming out in this field, which is becoming an important source for a new wave of science.

China Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Innovation Conference 2017 will provide a platform for all participants to discuss how to enhance the level of independent research and development of artificial intelligence and advanced AI robot in China and practical abilities. This includes independent IT industrial systems and a basic industry capability. Promoting machine learning, intelligent manufacturing, and a Smart life are also included. The conference also focused on in-depth applications and industrial transformation in the fields of intelligent industries and National Defense Security, as well as analyzing the development trend in the industrial environments of AI and artificial intelligence robotics through intensive research. All of this is to help enterprises seize these rare development opportunities, which is helping many industries and further helping the robotics industry towards success.

The highlights of the forum were: Meeting and listening to top AI experts in person, sharing new perspectives about new technology, discussing the robotics industry and its future, AI, the development of the fusion of Big Data, research and production, well-known representatives from various enterprises, and the development and direction of “Made in China 2025.” To discuss this roadmap, 300+ robotics and AI experts shared their ideas.

Attendees included: Internet company executives, AI and robotics companies, technology specialists, entrepreneurs and other C-Level executives interested in using robotics, venture capitalists, AI consultants, technology solution providers, domestic smart equipment/robotic firms, robotics industry distributors, programmable autonomous robots/equipment integrators, intelligent industry robot chains/ VC/ servo systems/ driver systems/ and core suppliers, well-known media channels, and local government leaders.

In the future, AI technology will further promote deep integration of similar technology, emerging technologies, and new industries, and promote the revolution of IT.The China Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Innovation Conference extends an invitation to you and looks forward to working with you about the AI and Robotics industry for the future together, usher in the era of intelligence.

Sanbot robot goes into pharmacy and creates new marketing model

Recently, intelligent medicine sales robots appear in numerous pharmacies in China. The sales robots not only broadcast the functions of health and nutrition medicine, but also answer related health care questions and perform interactions with customers. The intelligent humanoid robots were hired by Mckin, the Chinese well-known healthy food and health care products. The robot, with model number of Sanbot Elf, is manufactured by QIHAN Technology.

Intelligent robot breaks the barriers of offline retail.

The online-to-offline shopping model is becoming general as the E-shopping becomes hotter and hotter, which pushes medicine retailersto offer door-to-door services step by step. Serious of Apps now promote that they can send the medicine with half an hour, which is more and more convenient to customers. Thus, the offline pharmacies are less competitive compared to online ones.

As the leading manufacturer of healthy food and health care products, Mckin hired artificial intelligent robots to support its sales service in the pharmacies.This helps build intelligent offline sales system and makes a whole new marketing demonstration in the intense market competition.

“The robots broadcast the advertisement of health care products and promote the functions of the products, which is more reliable than human’s promotion. Because the advanced humanoid robot gives the feeling of reliability as AI big data know much better about the using scope than human brains. Using robot to deliver product information not only eliminates the customer’s psychological repellence, but also promotes their desires to buy the products.” One product manager from Mckin introduced.

Artificial intelligence goes into pharmacy and creates new marketing model.

It was the first case that offline pharmacy introduced artificial intelligence to perform the promotion. As far as I learned, the retail promotional artificial intelligent robot is the commercial chain solution issued by QIHAN Technology.

Sanbot intelligent robot, which is used in chain business, has been introduced by supermarkets, department stores and chain convenience stores and garnered praises by a great number of retailers and customers. Retailers adopt the advanced AI robot as interactive carrier, which saves much cost compared with human labor. For the chain business, QIHAN Technology designed a leading robotics system for chain business – Multi-service Platform System. Through MPS, retailers can customize and create tasks for Sanbot on a PC, tablet or smartphone and distribute them to a fleet of Sanbots over the QIHAN cloud.

Sanbot intelligent robot used in chain business is capable of entertainment interaction, remote shop-keeping, advertising promotion, product introduction, customer reception, exhibition and more business models. Till now, the customized robot has been introduced by pharmaciesin Chongqing, Nanchang, Fuzhou, Hefei, Jinan, Kunshan, Lanzhou, Baoji, Nanning, Luoyang and some other first or second level cities. 

Commercializing intelligent robot and making businesses and customers benefit and experience the actual commercial value from commercial service robots are the businessconcept QIHAN Technology has been practicing. The cooperation with Mckin, which fuses artificial intelligence into medicine retail area, is another achievement of QIHAN’s “Robot plus Various Industries” strategy.

Meet the new generation customs service robot

[Background] To respond to the call of “Internet plus Public Service” (proposed by the State Council), on October 1st, 2016; Gongbei Customs introduced Sanbot intelligent robot to create “Intelligent Customs” and named the robot Xiaohai. Since October 1st, the customs service robots have witnessed an average of 340,000 people per day at customs. 

After 9 months, Gongbei Customs welcomed a new generation Xiaohai customs service robots. Compared to the original version, this new and upgraded generation customs service robot comes with many more advantages. The following are just a few of the advantages:

1. The new generation is much taller, making it easier for adults to use. Travelers do not have to bend over to operate and interact with Xiaohai robot.
2. The arms, manufactured using 3D printers, are upgraded to be more human like and even have moving hands.
3. A thermal imaging function was added onto the pedestal of the robot: one HD camera helps the robot to lock onto the inspected object and the thermal imaging camera captures the thermal image.

All of the apps are customized for customs passenger services and inspection services, such as 

　　　　　　　　　Passenger inquires
　　　　　　　　　Random inspections
　　　　　　　　　Translation
　　　　　　　　　Tax Inspections
　　　　　　　　　Background checks
　　　　　　　　　Facial recognition
　　　　　　　　　and more  

Let’s have a look on how the robots help customs officials with customs services.

• Dispersing Information: Sanbot broadcasts notifications through voice and video to help guide first-entry and multiple-entry passengers (usually planning on staying for roughly 15 days) on which channels to go through. Also, the content on the big-screens connect to Sanbot advanced AI robot via HDMI for a matching broadcast to help better notify passengers. 

• Informing travelers about important laws: Sanbot never stops broadcasting and informing travelers about customs laws, regulations, and forbidden contraband items, helping passengers to abide by the laws and regulations and give them the knowledge report any illegal activity.

• Inquiry Services: In Sanbot’s system, this intelligent service robot is capable of answering thousands of frequently asked questions about customs services. A traveler only needs to activate/wake-up Sanbot. There are three ways to wake-up Sanbot customs service robot and start asking questions. Passenger can click the microphone App, call “Xiaohai, Xiaohai” or they just stand in front of the robot and Sanbot will wake up when its camera detects a passenger’s face via facial recognition. During the inquiry, passengers can choose to call a human service person if the robot cannot answer some special or extremely specific questions.

However, some passengers complained about the interactions with the service robot and how they were not as good as expected. Chen Lei, the customs service robot engineer from QIHAN Technology, responded to the customs officials and media, “During rush hour, the loud noise affects the robot’s voice recognition and this is the drawback of most voice recognition systems; and the other reason is that the customs content in the robot are professional and written in a standard dialect, and it may not recognize it if the passengers’ questions are too colloquial.”

With the intelligent AI system powered by IBM Watson, Sanbot supports text translation, voice translation and more translation techniques in 10 languages for passengers’ inquiring services. In addition, passengers can check out their goods’ tax through Sanbot’s Tax Inspection App when they go through customs clearances.

Thermal Imaging Inspections: A thermal imaging function was added onto the pedestal of the robot: one HD camera helps the robot to lock onto the inspected object and the thermal imaging camera captures the thermal image. With this function, the most advanced robot helps custom officials examine passengers’ bags, suitcases, etc. and is mainly used beside the inspection line. The function reveals the covered goods that people cannot see with the naked eye. It helps monitor whether passengers smuggling undeclared or contraband materials, improving the customs officials’ speed and accuracy and dealing with customs inspections and combat smuggling effectively.

Sanbot can perform even more functions for customs inspections. Once the one-key defense is deployed, Sanbot will send an alert once a moving object is detected in the specified areas; if a criminal’s ID information is inputted into the robot’s database, Sanbot sends the alert to customs officials once the suspect is detected so the officials can do further inspection on the suspected passenger, fighting against crimes and effectively guarding people’s safety.

Robots make the future of healthcare more advanced

What does the future of healthcare look like? For the past decade, cutting-edge technology has led to medical advancements and innovative practices that have reshaped healthcare. Today, healthcare professionals have the tools, computing power and collective research, to effectively diagnose and care for their patients. From augmented reality to 3D printed drugs, the healthcare industry is truly living in the future.

Recently, the healthcare industry has explored leveraging robots in everyday care, from streamlining administration tasks to improving healthcare practices. Intelligent service robots offer a new way to collect and share data, while expediting the process at the same time. Below are practical ways in which robots can be deployed in the healthcare environment to assist healthcare professionals and improve patient experience:

1. Automate Diagnostics: Roughly 130.4 million ER visits occur in the United States each year. With the abundance of patients requiring medical attention, it is critical that doctors are able to diagnose patients in a timely manner. To ensure an efficient use of time, advanced medical robotics can be used to assist doctors in streamlining visits by automating practices including checkups, testing, diagnosis and prescriptions. 
2. Protect Patient Privacy: As new technology devices emerge, privacy has increasingly become a top concern for patients, healthcare providers and hospitals. To ensure that patient records are kept secure, an open API humanoid robot can be programmed to connect with a hospital’s private cloud server, ensuring patient’s confidential information can only be accessed with hospital credentials.
3. Entertain Patients: Hospitals often have the negative connotation of being a scary place. To make patients’ visits more enjoyable, robots can provide entertainment by dancing, playing games and communicating using voice commands and gesture control capabilities.
4. Shorten Wait Times: In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the average Emergency Room (ER) wait times were roughly 30 minutes and the average treatment times were about 90 minutes, resulting in wait times of roughly two hours. To reduce long wait times and improve the patients’ experience, intelligent robots can be deployed in waiting rooms for a variety of applications including assisting patients waiting in the ER with their administrative paperwork.
5. Enhance Physical Therapy: In addition to waiting rooms, service robots can assist with physical therapy sessions. Using a projector or touch screen, robots can display instructional videos to help patients learn the proper technique for rehabilitation exercises.
6. Comfort Children: Hospitals can be a foreign place for children. To ease any concerns children may have prior to their appointment, a robot’s touchscreen can be used to tell stories, display educational materials, or stream videos to calm a child during stressful situations.
7. Overcome Language Barriers: As global travel continues to grow, the percentage of patients who visit a hospital outside of their native country increases. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a programed language database, robots can help doctors communicate and quickly diagnose patients from abroad.
8. Provide 24/7 Care: Robots equipped with cameras and sensors can also assist patients by performing around-the-clock patient monitoring, ensuring that patients receive constant care. Additionally, as the care robots for the elderly, robots can connect to wearables such as a heart rate monitor to keep an eye on a people’s vitals and contact a healthcare professional should an issue arise.

The applications for robots in the healthcare environment are continuing to grow, and some of the top hospitals in America are already deploying robots to help reduce costs, streamline operations and improve the patient experience. Ultimately, the future of robotics in healthcare will be determined by implementation, but for now the future looks bright.