Why Not Cobots?
In Shenzhen, China, the seven-year-old Youibot Robotics has emerged as a leading player in the compound robotics industry. Guided by its mission to “provide reliable mobile robotic productivity for industrial upgrades,” the company is charting a course toward realizing the blueprint for embodied intelligence.
“Embodied intelligence is not exclusive to humanoid robots,” remarked Guan Jian, Youibot’s Marketing Director. “From a scenario-driven perspective, mobile manipulation robots that integrate hands, eyes, and brains represent a typical humanoid-inspired approach. These robots effectively combine with embodied intelligence technology.”
If that’s the case, why not compound robots?
“The value of the robotic arm in compound robots lies in its greater flexibility and freedom, enabling the end-effector to delve into extremely confined spaces,” Guan explained. “Such robots serve as our remote ‘eyes,’ ever-present ‘brains,’ and indispensable on-site ‘hands.’ I believe this aligns closely with the concept of embodied intelligence that we increasingly focus on.”
Determined to demystify the misconception that “embodied intelligence equals humanoid robots,” Youibot has proven its stance by showcasing tangible results.
In extreme environments such as offshore oil rigs, desert terrains, offshore wind farms, and open-pit coal mines, Youibot employs embodied intelligence technologies to enable intelligent inspection and unmanned operations within factories and substations. Through the collaborative interaction of distributed mobile robot networks, these robots perform tasks efficiently, ensuring enterprise operational safety.
“In high-voltage substations, for instance, our ARIS-HSR intelligent inspection and operation robot exemplifies embodied intelligence in a niche industrial scenario,” Guan noted. “Now in its fourth generation, this robot features a robotic arm equipped with three distinct end-effectors, including a visual acquisition device. Every ‘organ’ on this robot has evolved specifically for substation environments. Its ultimate goal is unmanned operation and maintenance, which far exceeds its initial purpose of merely mitigating human risks.”
Embodied Intelligence: A Distributed Approach
Guan emphasized that in most B2B scenarios, the environments and tasks faced by embodied intelligent products are relatively stable throughout their lifecycle. “Instead of deploying a humanoid robot to perform all tasks across an industrial site, it is far more efficient and adaptive to employ purpose-built robots tailored to specific scenarios,” he explained.
Youibot has adopted a distributed embodied intelligence strategy within energy facilities. Various mobile robots are assigned to specific operational areas. When one detects an anomaly, it alerts the central system, which then orchestrates the coordinated response of other robots, ensuring the facility’s seamless and safe operation.
“At Youibot, we leverage a standardized autonomous mobile chassis to rapidly configure compound robots according to different scenario requirements,” Guan explained. “This ability to solve real-world problems for clients has been our technological focus since 2018.”
Youibot believes that embodied intelligence will first enhance the generalization capabilities of industrial mobile robots, particularly in perception. This shift means that robot control systems will become increasingly universal, minimizing the need for extensive code rewriting or complex logic adjustments for different scenarios.
Historically, industrial mobile robots were custom-built for specific scenarios, with limited autonomy and generalization capabilities. Youibot’s unified control system now supports deployment across industries such as semiconductors, renewable energy, and 3C manufacturing. Its generalization and intelligence capabilities have matured through practical application, enabling robots to perceive, analyze, and make decisions across diverse use cases, ultimately boosting productivity.
Achievements in 2024: A Milestone Year
In 2024, Youibot achieved numerous milestones in embodied intelligence. The company deepened partnerships with Huawei, Rockchip, and other tech giants. In May, it launched the Industrial Inspection AI Large Model Platform V1.0, signifying the completion of its vertically integrated AI capabilities for industrial applications.
Leveraging Huawei’s Ascend AI Compute Platform, Youibot utilized the MindSpore framework for algorithm development and model training, significantly enhancing AI vision recognition accuracy and processing speeds in industrial contexts.
The company also deployed advanced AI system architectures, combining the Atlas800 MindIE inference engine for centralized processing with edge computing solutions based on the Atlas200I Ascend AI processor. This hybrid approach empowers robots with robust real-time analytical capabilities, bringing embodied intelligence closer to reality.
Through scalable applications of industrial AI vision algorithms, Youibot has provided intelligent inspection services to over ten sectors, including energy, electric grids, coal mining, petrochemicals, rail transportation, smart archives, and data centers.
Why Embodied Intelligence?
In his seminal work, Alan Turing envisioned two potential pathways for artificial intelligence, now recognized as non-embodied and embodied intelligence. From this perspective, it’s not that “intelligence” relies on embodiment, but rather that embodiment relies on intelligence.
The evolution of mobile robots across industries reflects a gradual shift from static, mechanical operations to dynamic, intelligent solutions. To transcend application boundaries, robots must continually enhance their intelligence capabilities.
For compound robots, in particular, the rapid growth of smart manufacturing demands machines equipped with advanced visual perception and cloud-based AI brain support. These intelligent compound robots are poised for accelerated adoption.
Embracing the Embodied Intelligence Era
As the industry transitions from robots performing singular tasks to systems capable of multimodal information processing, fusion, and precise three-dimensional manipulation, robots have evolved into autonomous entities with comprehensive capabilities for sensing, computation, decision-making, and execution.
At Youibot, the components of a compound robot—its mobile base, robotic arm, end-effectors, and sensors—are seen as individual industries. However, when integrated into a cohesive system tailored for a specific scenario, they create societal value.
This philosophy underpins Youibot’s commitment to embedding “reliable mobile robotic productivity for industrial upgrades” into its corporate DNA. By continually iterating its robot technologies for niche scenarios, the company has become a trailblazer in embodied intelligence and industrial upgrades.
Today, seven years after its founding at Xi’an Jiaotong University, Youibot collaborates with over 500 global industry leaders. From semiconductor ion implantation workshops to offshore wind-to-hydrogen projects, Youibot’s robots are revolutionizing productivity across sectors.
As a frontrunner in compound robotics, Youibot’s innovations in embodied intelligence offer valuable insights for the industry. Embracing this rising tide, mobile robot companies must approach embodied intelligence with an open mind, adapting the technology to their unique trajectories and unlocking their full potential.
