To show off the technology, the company invited me to their offices, where I was allowed to control 10 humanoid robotic hands from a different company, using a custom motion-tracking glove. The device instantly transferred my finger movements to all 50 robotic digits.
I’m a little embarrassed to say that the very first thing I tried to do with this futuristic gear was use all 10 hands to flip the bird. After getting it out of my system, I was impressed by how quickly my movements transferred to the robot’s hands, and how smoothly the technology moved both ways – I was able to feel the ball placed in one of the electronic hands.
Courtesy of Will Knight
The company also allowed me to try a system that is being tested by a Chinese convenience store chain. Using a VR headset and a pair of grippers, I tried picking up medicine boxes from a shelf. At first it was confusing: I had to adjust to the slight differences between my movements and the robot’s movements that I could see through the headset. However, after a little practice, I was stacking shelves like a robot-boss.
Elsewhere, I saw people wearing virtual reality headsets and body-tracking sensors reminiscent of Ready Player One. In a large room, I saw workers using various systems to control small unitary humanoids. A person walked around with a Unitary robot next to them, and the machine mirrored their movements inside a simulated apartment. The human operator, wearing a headset and viewing the scene through the robot’s eye-level cameras, went through the activities required to remove a shirt from a hanger and fold it.
IO-AI develops technology that transfers a person’s movements to various robot forms – a useful offering since there are dozens of different humanoid and robot hands on the market in China today. The startup’s algorithms also need to combine human control with some level of autonomy because a person and robot are not always the same size, shape and weight. Without the ability to move independently, the robot could lose its balance.
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