Professor Chen Lijvn delivered a fascinating and informative lecture on intelligent robots' role in libraries on December 16, 2020.
The professor introduced the topic from four perspectives.
He started with the origin of robots. Robots can date back to the Spring and Autumn period (approximately 770 to 476 BCE), when Lu Ban, the master carpenter, invented wooden birds, wooden oxen and gliding horses. This means that robots also have a long history in China, which is brand new knowledge for many students.
After that, Professor Chen introduced the concept of intelligent robots as an integration of various technologies, including machinery, computers, communication, electronic circuits, materials, automation and artificial intelligence. According to the professor, intelligent robots need the abilities to feel, to think, to make decisions and to take action. There are six key technologies in intelligent robots research: natural language processing technology (also an important field in artificial intelligence), used for effective natural language communication between humans and computers; multi-sensor information fusion technology; navigation and positioning technology, including laser simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology and visual SLAM technology, used so that the robot knows where it is, where it should go and how to get to the destination; route planning technology, used to find the most desirable path; robot vision, used for efficient and accurate processing of visual information; intelligent control. The professor also emphasized that intelligent robots are vital in national development and we need to be fully aware of the importance of relevant research.
Then, Professor Chen showed his team’s work, intelligent robots for book stocktaking. Stocktaking has been a difficult task in libraries as manual stocktaking takes lots of work and time and the scanning device is neither convenient nor efficient. Nevertheless, intelligent robots will do an excellent job. The research mainly applies radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for efficient data transmission and accurate positioning. It involves six key technologies: RFID space perception, multi-modal autonomous navigation, visual obstacle avoidance (to avoid prominent books in the path), vision-based spine information identification (to identify books via visual information when RFID fails), human-machine interaction (used in FAQ robots). With their invention of the first stocktaking robot in the world, Professor Chen’s team obtained over twenty domestic patents, several international patents and even a gold medal in the Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions.
At the end of the lecture, the professor conveyed the idea of "Chinese dream, my dream" to the students. He hoped that the students can make efforts and strive for perfection in the nation’s robot development so China’s robots will gain more recognition and reputation in the world. His words were educational and profound for the students.
