Xiaomi’s full-size humanoid robot, CyberOne, has been trained to play drums. The robot was able to complete its drum performance in three steps. First, it automatically parsed out the beat from an input Midi music file to generate a drum sequence. Then, using an offline motion library and online calibration, a motion trajectory synchronized with the drum sequence was generated. Finally, the robot’s body was controlled to complete each movement through a whole-body controller.
According to reports, the most difficult part of CyberOne’s drum performance was playing long sequences of drum rhythms while ensuring that its movements were continuous and collision-free. To address this issue, the Xiaomi Robotics Lab team extracted the basic beat and optimized it by creating an offline drum beat motion track library. This enabled CyberOne to generate a continuous track that matched any drumbeat.
The robot stands 5’9″ (177cm) tall, weighs 114 lbs (52kg), and has a 66-inch arm span (168cm). During the event, it was seen shuffling on stage, albeit with slightly less fluid motion than a real human. “CyberOne supports up to 21 degrees of freedom in motion and achieves a real-time response speed of 0.5 ms for each degree of freedom,” Xiaomi explained in a statement.
There is a global labor shortage, and the company’s goal is to develop humanoids that can replace the human labor force. Second, humanoids are the most technically advanced type of robot, and they may be the most difficult to design. Xiaomi plans to apply this technology to problems in other robot forms, such as quadrupeds, robotic arms, and even wheeled robots. Finally, the Chinese electronics manufacturer wants to be the most technologically advanced company in China, and humanoid robots can help with that.
In designing the newest version of CyberOne, Xiaomi has formed a complete set of automatic drumming methods for robots to perform different songs. Moreover, the experience gained in designing this humanoid will pave the way for the development of other musical instruments that can be played by robots.