Feng Yan, reporter of Science and Technology Daily, Wang Chun
Open source public robots, driverless taxis, electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft...... On July 4, the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-level Conference on Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence will be held at the Shanghai World Expo Center. During the conference, there will also be an unmanned driving experience activity and exhibition of "Ground-to-Air Intelligent Mobility, Moving the Future". The reporter was the first to explore the camp and get a glimpse of the upcoming exhibits.
On July 1, the reporter visited the National and Local Co-construction Humanoid Robot Innovation Center (hereinafter referred to as the "National and Local Center") in Zhangjiang, Pudong, and visited the scene training of the open source public version of the robot "Qinglong" to be announced at the conference. At present, the application scenarios of "Qinglong" centralized training include stable walking, weight-bearing walking, grabbing objects, sorting food, etc. Jointly awarded by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Shanghai Municipal Government, the Guodi Center will be located in Pudong in May 2024, and one of its core goals is to develop an open-source humanoid robot public version machine. During the conference, there will be 7 "Green Dragons" displayed in the main forum and sub-forums of the conference. In June, the Center has open-sourced the whole body dynamics software package of "Qinglong", and after July, the Center will share more job data and pre-trained models. At present, 14 units have signed joint open source related agreements with the national and local centers to obtain the materials required for production and processing, or to jointly process, debug, and research with the national and local centers.
"Green Dragon" in training. Photo by Feng Yan
At the unmanned experience venue of "Ground-to-Air Intelligent Mobility, Moving to See the Future" in the Pudong Expo Park, the reporter took an unmanned taxi. Open the app, specify the pick-up stop, and in a few moments, a taxi without a driver will drive in front of you. During the taxi driving, I saw the steering wheel turning by itself, and several kilometers of road stopped at a red light, went at a green light, turned, followed the car, and gave way to the car...... The speed is smooth and the "driving" is smooth. There are a total of 10 unmanned taxis at the conference, which are provided by industry leaders SAIC SAIC and Pony.ai. Ordinary citizens will have the opportunity to hail driverless taxis in the experience area with a total mileage of 10 kilometers around the venue and 18 intersections to experience the feeling of future travel by using relevant apps or mini programs.
Driverless taxis on the move. Courtesy of Pony.ai
After getting off the unmanned taxi, walking into the exhibition hall that was still being arranged, a small plane full of science and technology attracted the attention of reporters. The electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, named "Shengshilong", is being approved by relevant departments for airworthiness and is expected to be licensed for manned flights in 2026. The "Shengshilong" cabin is teardrop-shaped, the appearance is silver-gray and black, the wings are stretched to both sides in the upper part of the cabin, the total width is about 15 meters, and the composite wing structure is adopted, in addition to the fixed wings, there are 10 lift rotors at the top, and 3 tail thrust rotors at the tail. Composite wing aircraft can both fly vertically during takeoff and landing, and can cruise horizontally at a certain altitude, which is more energy-efficient than helicopters. As a purely electric-powered aircraft, it does not cause interference and noise on the ground when flying at low altitudes below 300 meters.
"Shengshi Dragon" in the exhibition hall. Photo by Feng Yan
It is reported that a total of nearly 30 companies participated in the unmanned driving equipment exhibition at the "Ground-Air Intelligent Mobility, Dynamic Future" experience venue. In addition to driverless taxis and unmanned aircraft, there are also autonomous charging vehicles, L4 autonomous autonomous unmanned logistics vehicles, unmanned minibuses, unmanned retail vehicles, etc.