Xiaomi has released a new video documenting the ability of its humanoid robots to work for a full, continuous 8-hour shift inside its electric vehicle factory. The task assigned to the robots is to sort console side covers and transfer them to designated storage racks.
According to the company, the robots operate independently, possessing the ability to detect and self-correct errors during the process, while directly coordinating with the production line control system. This step represents progress in Xiaomi's automation program; last March, the company began testing robots as "trainees" in its Beijing factory, and the success rate in previous tasks reached 98% before moving on to more complex tasks such as sorting side covers.
Artificial Intelligence Driving the Robots
Alongside this achievement, Xiaomi revealed the start of testing for its proprietary artificial intelligence model Xiaomi-Robotics-1. This model was pre-trained on 100,000 hours of real-world robot data and has demonstrated capabilities in executing multi-task sequences within residential environments during preliminary tests lasting 30 minutes.
What Raises Technical Questions?
Despite the impressive nature of the video, there are technical gaps that Xiaomi did not clarify, opening the door to questions about the true "autonomy" of these robots. Doubts focus on the following points:
- Power Management: The video did not clarify how the robots maintained their power for 8 hours; was this done through battery swapping, using power cables (tether), or via short charging periods?
- Operational Data: Precise figures were absent regarding the number of pieces actually sorted, the success rate during the eight hours, and the number of times human intervention was required.
- The Concept of Autonomy: Past experiments by other companies, such as Tesla with the "Optimus" robot, indicate that some displays that appear independent may actually be remotely operated by humans, which puts the credibility of the term "independent" to the test.
The clip also drew attention to the presence of wheeled robots working alongside the humanoid robots. This points to a technical paradox; while companies strive to develop the humanoid form, wheeled robots remain more efficient, stable, and consume less energy in flat factory environments, raising a question about the economic and technical feasibility of humanoid robots in traditional industrial operations.