In Hu Xinyi's view, the maturity of information technology has brought about the transformation of the robot industry, and ubiquitous robot technology has been applied. In photovoltaic and mining scenarios, Boonray Technology, which focuses on ubiquitous robots, has gradually demonstrated its advantages.

After nearly a decade of development, intelligent robot is no longer a new specie. They not only exist in production lines such as factories, but also penetrate into clothing, food, housing and transportation. However, the functional components of all kinds of robots are heterogeneous and distributed, which makes their communication and cooperation become a new problem for the whole industry. Therefore, the third generation of robot technology -- ubiquitous robot emerges as the times require.

As one of the earliest researchers to study ubiquitous robot technology in China, Professor Cao Qixin of the Machine Research Institute of Shanghai Jiaotong University has accumulated profound experience in this technology for more than ten years. Therefore, after being keenly aware of such a market opportunity, Boonray Technology, which came out of the machine research institute, began to promote the commercialization of technology.

When talking about the opportunity to set up the company, Hu Xinyi, CEO and founder of Boonray Technology, said that the development of technology is the key. "Mr. Cao is the tutor of Yang Bo who is our partner and CTO. When we were doing research, we saw such a technological trend,especially the communication and Internet of things industry technology is becoming more and more mature, we think it's time to start the third generation of the robotics market."

The trend of the combination of automation and informatization is obvious, and ubiquitous robots usher in commercial opportunities.

Ubiquitous robot technology is the product of the combination of robot modularization technology and network. Its birth is a qualitative leap over the traditional robot research and development concept, so it is called the third generation of robot technology. Compared with the study of single robot, ubiquitous robot technology pays more attention to multi robot cooperation and intelligent environment.

Hu Xinyi explained, "The focus of ubiquitous robots technology is not on data collection or how accurately a robot needs to perform an operation, but on the communication between machines, as well as the cooperation between robots and people. In short, we prefer the design of the whole system."

Because the technology itself is more global and involves more subdivision technologies, different from the robot market of single application scenarios such as industrial robots and service robots. The accumulation of ubiquitous robots in the field is relatively weak and the concept is novel, and few manufacturers are exploring in the market.

"I have worked in the automation industry for many years, especially in the business of many multinational companies before. When China's robot industry has not yet fully developed, many international companies have made excellent robots in industries and other fields. In earlier years, information and communication technologies have not been so mature, so ubiquitous robots have not encountered a good opportunity. "

As Hu Xinyi said, due to the early development of single robot industry in the world, the technology accumulation is also profound. However, due to the development of information technology, the ubiquitous robot has not been developed.

In 2015, under the tide of "machine replacement", China's robot market began to enter an outbreak period and the shipment volume soared all the time. In such an environment of demand growth and policy promotion, a large number of robot companies have emerged in China, and the industrial chain has been driven to develop. At the same time, deep learning algorithms, cloud computing and 5G communication technologies are also developing at a high speed, the process of intelligence is accelerating, and a large number of AI applications emerge.

The development of automation and informatization meet at such a time point. Driven by the demand, China's "intelligent" environment has ushered in a market opportunity for ubiquitous robots. In line with the development of the situation, Hu Xinyi founded Boonray Technology in 2015.

Integrating edge cloud technology to connect robots and Internet

To build a network for robots and application scenarios, "cloud-edge- end" is undoubtedly the optimal network structure choice. Combing with the requirements of the scene, Hu Xinyi follows this logic to build a network for customers to help them realize digital transformation.

"First, we will upgrade the automation equipment in the scene intelligently. Then, we will build an operational background similar to the IoT platform to connect all kinds of devices for monitoring, storage, data analysis and other functions. Meanwhile, we will use background analysis to realize intelligent scheduling and other functions. Finally, we need to make a cloud platform, which will analyze the data of the Internet of Things platform. It can help us to intelligent transformation of equipment, and help us improve the design of robot safety, etc."

Through the intelligent transformation of equipment and the construction of "cloud-edge- end" in specific application scenarios, based on the cooperation between upstream and downstream, Boonray Technology explored its own Logic of Product-Line.

Hu Xinyi said, "In cooperation with hardware manufacturers, we mainly make an Internet platform and algorithms for automation transformation based on their machines, including  the required modules." 

From the perspective of cooperation with DJI, based on the needs of the scene, Boonray Technology will add network connected automatic control module and airborne control module on drone, so that the drone can realize remote controlling, automatic flight and automatic acquisition. At the same time, with hardware, Boonray Technology has developed a special app that can control the flight of drone to realize flight route planning, setting of flight area, cloud connectivity and account control.

It is worth mentioning that the drone's data acquisition, transmission and processing capabilities have been significantly improved due to the addition of modules and the collaboration of software and hardware, which has also become the key point for drone to be competent for actual scenarios (operation and maintenance of photovoltaic power station). But it's not easy to be able to move machines at will. The technical team of Boonray Technology played a decisive role, and this is the reason why it makes differentiation in the industry Internet.

"Unlike Internet or algorithm companies, our team has a deep robot background and genes, which is very important."

Aiming at "small" scenarios and promoting digital transformation from demand

At present, Boonray Technology has already had a very deep accumulation of market in operation and maintenance of photovoltaic power station, and with the end of the pre-A round of financing, Boonray Technology will focus on intelligent mining. Different from the applications and scenarios chosen by many companies, Boonray Technology prefers "small" scenarios.

Speaking of this, Hu Xinyi said that the scenes in each stage were deliberate choices. "After trying a lot, we found that we should consider several aspects when choosing scenes. First of all, the scenario needs to be limited，because there is not too much interference of social factors, which is the simplest technical test and implementation scenario. Secondly, we need to consider whether customers have pain points in terms of human resources, safety, efficiency, etc.. Finally, we need to consider whether the market investment in this scenario is considerable, that is, The General Environment. "

Based on the three main dimensions, Boonray Technology has selected photovoltaic, mining and city.

Now, our focus is on mining. Hu Xinyi said, "For us, the mine is a closed and high-risk situation, and it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit miners, so this is a very good choice. At the same time, there are drones in the sky, tramcars on the ground and excavators distributed everywhere. These devices are easy to cooperate with each other, and also conducive to intelligent transformation. Through transformation, the effect is fast, and we can quickly show the comprehensive technical strength. "

In short, Hu Xinyi thinks that scenes like mining are really needed, and the so-called selection dimension is actually to explore the matching between technology and scene demand.            

He added, "In recent years a lot of people want to educate the market or educate customers. I don't think it's right. Demand exists all the time. Only when the demand is solved can you be valuable. "

"From the perspective of cost, it is a good strategy to move towards platform in the future. However, it is not easy to build a standardized platform from different scenarios. Now, we still need to do it step by step. "