An Interview With Shenyang Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd. Director of Human Robot Interaction Department, Xiao-Dong WANG
Xiao-Dong WANG received the B.E. degree in Information Engineering and M.E. Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University (China), in 2001 and 2004 respectively. In 2007, he received Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Tokyo (Japan) and joined Information Technology Laboratory of Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan) to engage in R&D of audio signal processing and multi-language automatic speech recognition and became subsection chief of core technology section in 2012. In 2013, he joined Tsukuba Technology Co., Ltd. (AIST Venture in Japan), as section chief of R&D Department to direct R&D of Non-Destructive Testing techniques and systems, including laser-ultrosonic visualization , phased-array ultrosonics, portable X-ray. In 2015, he joined Shenyang Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd., as director of Human Robot Interaction Department to lead R&D of speech interaction techniques and multi-modal fusion.
Q: What is your most recent project / news?
Since service robot project launched in our company, we have been working on key techniques development in four areas including public service, medical assistance. So far, some product lines based on these techniques are brought to market and get good response, for example bank service robot and restaurant service robot.
Q: Could you tell us about a compelling use case using one of your robots?
I prefer bank service robot for this question. This robot can certify and guide customers to expected service windows for further procedure after some voice interaction. It can also lead customers to destination if they like. It is also possible to remember VIP customers or frequenters to provide direct service more efficiently.
Q: What lessons have you learned from your customers so far?
Customers are focusing more on the ability of intelligent interaction, especially the speech recognition and natural language understanding, which pushed us to step up efforts to deep R&D and cooperation and multimodal integration.
Q: What surprised you on the 2015 robotics market?
Service robots become more and more accepted and corresponding market grew fast, for example exhibitaton/guidance service robot, the personal mobile robot, personal housecleaning robot, entertainment service robot.
Get a glimpse of the future of robotics
If you’d like to learn more about the future of robotics, I invite you to attend the Innorobo Keynote on May 25 in Paris: “Impact and challenges of the robotics revolution – Horizon 2030”. In the Market session, along with Xiao-Dong Wang of Shenyang Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd., Dan Kara of ABI Research, Steve Cousins of Savioke, Albert Yefimov of Skolkovo Foundation and Colin Lewis of Robotenomics will discuss:
- What are the main differences between the Asian, European and American markets?
- What is the current status of professional service robotics?
- Better understand threats and opportunities for each market.