Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has spent the last few years branching out of the phone market. Alongside smartphones, the company also makes fitness tech, TVs and more. Now, the tech giant's robotics division is aiming to take on Boston Dynamics with the Xiaomi Cyberdog.
The Xiaomi Cyberdog is an experimental, open-source robot dog. An official press release describes the robot as a device for “Xiaomi Fans, engineers, and robotic enthusiasts.” However, it's not entirely clear what the company hopes to accomplish.
What's the point of Xiaomi Cyberdog?
From the press release, it seems that the Xiaomi Cyberdog exists to further the state of quadruped robotics. This is evidenced by its remarkably cheap price; the first 1000 units will retail for just 9,999 Yuan. That's the equivalent of £1,117. The second-wave release will likely cost a fair bit more, but that only exacerbates the fact that Xiaomi is working to further robotics for the sake of it.
The press release states that the Cyberdog is a very impressive machine. The device “can analyze its surroundings in real-time, create navigational maps, plot its destination, and avoid obstacles. Coupled with human posture and face recognition tracking, CyberDog is capable of following its owner and darting around obstructions.” Additionally, the Xiaomi robot dog can respond to its owner’s voice or a smartphone app.
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Gimme some sweet specs
As far as robot specs go, the Xiaomi Cyberdog is impressive for its price. Boston Dynamics’ $74,500 robot dog Spot can run at 3.9m/s with loads of 5.2kg. In comparison, Xiaomi's pup can run at 3.2m/s with loads of 3kg. Put in cooler words, this dog can job. Oh, and it can also backflip!
The machine is powered by a massive group of sensors and cameras all over its body. There's working GPS, an Intel RealSense D450 depth-sensor, a fish-eye camera and more. Furthermore, Nvidia’s Jetson Xavier AI platform allows the robot dog to act like a real pet.
Unfortunately, there's no release date for this robot dog at the time of writing. However, when it is available, they’re likely to sell out quite fast.
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