Xiaomi unveils CyberDog: a customizable quadrupedal robot

Chinese electronics company Xiaomi has unveiled CyberDog, a four-legged robot that the company describes as nicer than others in its class. The company made its announcement on its Twitter feed, calling it a “real beast.”

CyberDog is very similar in appearance to Boston Dynamics’ Spot, although it is sleeker and smaller. In its announcement, Xiaomi appears to promote its robot dog both as a friendly robot that can behave playfully and as a dog that can be intimidating when used by law enforcement or the military. More directly, the company appears to have created CyberDog as a research investment – they have kept the price very low, at just under $ 1,600 (Spot costs $ 74,500) and are offering to sell 1,000 at anyone who wants one, although the offer seems to be primarily aimed at engineers who would be willing to add features and capabilities to the robot.

CyberDog weighs around 3kg and can run at just over three meters per second. It also has six microphones and multiple cameras strategically placed on its body surface with imaging sensors and has 128GB of on-board storage. It moves with the help of servomotors that the company has developed in-house, which give the robot a maximum torque of 32 nm. Inside, the robot sports a specialized version of NVIDIA’s Jetson Xavier NX, which Xiaomi describes as the world’s smallest AI computer, suggesting the robot dog is capable of learning new tricks.

Native technology can be seen in videos posted by the company. CyberDog is able to track a person like a puppy. It can also choose its owner’s face from a crowd and can respond to facial and postural cues. To demonstrate his physical prowess, Cyberdog is shown doing a backflip. Perhaps more importantly, CyberDog has learned to look into the eyes of the person who interacts with it and react in a manner similar to a real puppy, giving it the character traits the company claims.

Xiaomi has set up a space for the project in its Xiaomi Open-Source community, perhaps hoping that robotics enthusiasts will start writing code for CyberDog, giving it more visibility and helping Xiaomi build a reputation as a major player in the field of robotics.

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