China is the world's biggest customer when it comes to industrial robots, but most of those in use here are imported. Zhu Haihong hopes to help rectify that imbalance by offering the market mechanical devices that don't require complex and expensive central controllers.
Seven years ago, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University graduate quit his job in the US after more than 20 years there to return to China. He founded his own robotics company called UIrobot.
At his booth at the recent China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair, visitors were mesmerized by the dynamic exhibit of 200 colorful balls rising and sinking, while two robots below sorted the plastic pieces and put them on a conveyor belt to repeat the process. The mechanical arms sorted 150 pieces of plastic every minute.
Most of us think of robots as clunky machines that require complex programs to mimic human behavior.
"In fact, a robot does not necessarily work like that," Zhu said, noting that his products are just a combination of mechanical arms, each separately controlled.
Not far from Zhu's booth was an exhibit from the Swedish-Swiss multinational ABB. There, a robot was moving components from one box to another, taking almost half a minute for each maneuver.
The ABB robot was encased behind protective glass, whereas visitors were free to come up and touch any part of Zhu's machine.
"That's because mine are easier to control," Zhu said.
The ABB robot was backed up by a meter-high controller storing the program of commands. Zhu's machine was controlled by an individual app for each segment of command.
That cuts to the heart of a problem faced by the robotic industry. Can mechanical devices be trusted to work safely alongside humans?
News reports of incidents where human workers were hurt by robots that ran amok aren't common, but they are disturbing.
In 2014, ABB introduced a robot named YuMi. As the name "you and me" suggests, the device was designed to work freely alongside humans without any protective casing.
A built-in camera tells YuMi whether there is a human nearby who may interrupt its work.
"If you touch YuMi, it stops at once." Wu Wenting, marketing communications supervisor of ABB robotics, told Shanghai Daily at the exhibition.
But is that enough assurance?
"As long as a robot needs a central controller, you can never rely on the machine itself," Zhu said. "That function only works when the controller's program functions correctly. If it doesn't, you never know what the robot could do next."
Centrally controlled robots are set up with a range of overload capacity, which, in turn, could produce a larger force than intended if it all goes wrong, he explained.
"That's why previous industrial robots needed to be locked up," Wu said. "They could hurt you with great force if a set procedure is disturbed."
Zhu said his machines are safer because only one component of action can be interrupted at any one time, not the whole machine. Sensors in each of the component stop work if any one sensor is disrupted.
The graduate in automation said he has received more than 50 patents on his machines. Without central controllers, his robots are much cheaper than conventional models. His sorting machine, for example, sells at a unit price of less than 150,000 yuan (US$ 23175), about two-thirds less than comparable rivals. Several communications-equipment manufacturers have placed large orders.
At the 2010 Shanghai Expo, there was an exhibit display 1,080 synchronized floating balls. It cost 100 million yuan to stage. Zhu said with his algorithm, the cost could have been as low as 3 million yuan.
Zhu said his robots can be globally competitive.
"Speed, quality, reliability," said Zhu. "Even though overseas brands have already taken the largest slice of the market pie, their products still need quite a lot of improvement."
He added, "What's most important for my technology is 'control theory' I learned at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The key lies in algorithms, which is the software control that will determine improvement in robotic technology. It doesn't matter where it's produced. It's only a matter of who masters the mathematics best."
