Wire News | Horizon Robotics Releases China's First Software-Hardware Integrated Robotics Development Platform to Build a Thriving Robotics Ecosystem

On June 14, 2022, Horizon Robotics, a global leader in edge AI computing platforms, hosted the "Hello Hobot" online launch event for its robotics development platform, unveiling the Horizon Hobot Platform — China's first integrated hardware-software, open, and easy-to-use robotics development platform. Addressing key pain points in robotics development, the platform provides developers with end-to-end services spanning underlying compute, development tools, and algorithm reference cases, effectively improving development efficiency and driving industry growth and prosperity.

At the launch, Horizon Robotics invited Binbin Liu, Product Director at ECOVACS; Di Zhang, Founder and CEO of Direct Drive Tech; Shixin Xu, Deputy General Manager at Sunny Intelligent Optics Technology; and Chunxu Hu, Founder of GUYUEJU, to share highlights of their collaborations and express their shared vision for building a robotics development ecosystem. Additionally, companies including Orbbec and LDROBOT announced their partnerships with the Horizon Hobot Platform.

Dr. Kai Yu, Founder and Chief Scientist of Horizon Robotics, announced at the event: "Horizon Robotics has established the AIoT & General Robotics Division and launched the Horizon Hobot Platform to provide an open-source, open, and hardware-software coordinated system solution for the broad robotics developer community, aligning with industry trends. We hope to join forces with extensive industry partners to jointly create a prosperous future for the robotics ecosystem."

Dr. Yu stated: "Since its founding, Horizon Robotics has been guided by the mission of 'empowering machines to make human life safer and better,' aiming to continuously deepen our work in artificial intelligence so that every vehicle and every appliance possesses environmental perception, human-machine interaction, and decision-making capabilities, thereby achieving intelligence for all things."

Dr. Kai Yu, Founder and Chief Scientist of Horizon Robotics

As the only Chinese company to achieve mass production of automotive-grade intelligent chips for pre-installation in vehicles, Horizon Robotics has shipped over 1 million units of its Journey series of automotive chips. For the robotics sector, Horizon Robotics aims to provide developers with a complete platform — not just chips, but a full hardware-software system. With this launch of China's first integrated hardware-software, open, and easy-to-use robotics development platform, offering end-to-end services from underlying compute to development tools to algorithm reference cases, the company can effectively improve development efficiency and provide comprehensive support for robotics developers.

The robotics industry has long faced challenges including low development efficiency, difficult technology commercialization, and misaligned R&D costs versus product value. Hardware and software vendors have historically operated in silos, lacking efficient collaboration and leading to persistent redundant efforts. Cong Wang, General Manager of Horizon Robotics' AIoT & General Robotics Division, noted: "As composite robots grow more complex, demands for component selection, software systems, and data iteration will only increase. Breaking down these silos and building a collaborative development ecosystem on infrastructure-level platforms is the necessary path for the industry to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and unlock productivity."

Cong Wang, General Manager of Horizon Robotics' AIoT & General Robotics Division

With this focus on cost reduction, efficiency gains, and productivity release — and to adapt to future trends in composite robotics — Horizon Robotics launched China's first integrated hardware-software, open, and easy-to-use robotics development platform. The platform comprises chips (Horizon Sunrise®), a robotics operating system (Horizon TogetherROS™), robotics reference algorithms (Boxs), robotics application examples (Apps), and supporting development tools (Tools), encompassing complete robotics development services including underlying compute, development tools, and algorithm cases to empower developers and improve efficiency with new infrastructure.

Horizon Hobot Platform

Thanks to its forward-looking hardware-software integration philosophy, Horizon Robotics independently develops edge AI chips and solutions that combine extreme performance with openness and ease of use, providing comprehensive and open enabling services for intelligent driving and broader general AI applications. The Horizon Sunrise® series chips form the high-performance, low-power compute foundation for the robotics platform. To date, Sunrise® chip cumulative shipments have exceeded 1 million units, achieving scaled mass production in intelligent robotics, smart displays, and smart home applications, with widespread deployment across multiple products from partners including ECOVACS, Xiaodu, and TCL. Horizon TogetherROS™ is optimized from the chip instruction set level; compared to ROS2, currently the most popular robotics operating system in the industry, TogetherROS™ significantly reduces communication latency and CPU usage in both unit and scenario testing while maintaining high stability. Because TogetherROS™ integrates numerous open-source models and leverages the AI engine BPU in the underlying chip to provide ample compute, developers no longer need to spend extensive time on model tuning and data training, enabling rapid deployment of AI applications. Partner Sunny Intelligent Optics achieved极致的性能优化 through deep learning optimization based on Horizon Sunrise® 3.

Another key feature of the Horizon Hobot Platform is its simplicity and ease of use. At the operating system level, TogetherROS™ maintains full interface compatibility with ROS2 and provides developers with various application tools including the Hobot DNN inference framework, Hobot Sensor modules, and commonly used robotics development tools. At the reference algorithm level, Horizon Robotics will migrate autonomous driving algorithms to robotics scenarios and open-source them in the future to accelerate industry-wide advancement. At the application example level, the platform offers developer carts, indoor service robots, outdoor mobile robots, and more, covering varying levels of development complexity and working environments to meet diverse developer needs. Additionally, Horizon Robotics' AI development tool Horizon AIDI® reduces storage costs, GPU training costs, and data annotation costs to varying degrees, enabling more efficient data mining, business development, and scenario iteration to accelerate robotics application development.

Horizon Sunrise® X3 Pi

To deliver a one-stop development experience, Horizon Robotics also announced the Sunrise® X3 Pi development board featuring high compute power and broad compatibility — the 2GB version priced at 499 RMB and the 4GB version at 549 RMB. Based on the Horizon Sunrise® X3 Pi, Xingtian, China's first AI wheel-legged robotics development platform co-created by Direct Drive Tech and Horizon Robotics, made its debut at the event.

Xingtian — China's first AI wheel-legged robotics development platform

Furthermore, Horizon Robotics will provide comprehensive and multi-dimensional developer services. These include a fully upgraded developer community, with premium ROS (Robot Operating System) courses developed in partnership with GUYUEJU — including deep custom courses for TogetherROS™ — now available; 24-hour rapid response support services; promotional support for outstanding developer projects; and special commercial discounts for partnerships reaching mass production scale. Going forward, Horizon Robotics will regularly host developer engagement activities including monthly face-to-face sessions, quarterly acceleration camps, and annual robotics competitions and developer conferences to maintain deep engagement and resonance with the developer community.

In recent years, as technology has advanced, industries have developed, and demands have grown, major tech companies at home and abroad have increasingly turned their attention to robotics: Tesla announced its humanoid robot Optimus project, and NVIDIA has repeatedly emphasized the view that "robotics will first be applied in autonomous driving, then gradually extend outward." On the eve of this explosion, Horizon Robotics will remain anchored to its mission of "empowering machines to make human life safer and better," keeping pace with the times to invest in the infrastructure of the robotics era, supporting developers with rich and easy-to-use development components and comprehensive services, joining hands with more partners to build a prosperous ecosystem, and further opening the doors to the robotics industry.

"Maintaining reverence amid surging times, staying true to our original aspiration for the promising future — we believe we will ultimately join hands to welcome a more prosperous tomorrow for the robotics industry." As Cong Wang, General Manager of Horizon Robotics' AIoT & General Robotics Division, put it, the "tomorrow" of the robotics industry requires the continuous joining and collaboration of more outstanding partners.

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