Xiaomi CyberDog: open-source quadruped robot companion

The quadruped robot market is not standing still and is developing rapidly every day. Xiaomi has taken another bold step in exploring future technologies by unveiling its new quadruped robot CyberDog, an open-source companion that can move independently and perform a backflip. 

In design, CyberDog closely resembles Boston Dynamics' Spot robot, but costs several times less. The robot companion weighs 3 kg. 

“CyberDog is Xiaomi's first attempt to create quadruped robotics for the open-source community and software developers around the world. Robotics enthusiasts interested in CyberDog can compete or create together with other like-minded people and Xiaomi fans, jointly advancing the potential of quadruped robots”

Powerful, agile and precise

Xiaomi's in-house servo motors give CyberDog high speed, agility and a wide range of motion. Thanks to its maximum output torque and rotation speed of up to 32 N·m / 220 rpm, CyberDog can perform a range of high-speed movements up to 3.2 m/s and complex maneuvers such as a backflip. 

The robot is built on the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX platform, with a 128 GB SSD, an AI supercomputer for embedded and edge systems that includes 384 CUDA cores, 48 Tensor cores, six Carmel ARM CPUs and two deep learning accelerators. For its owners, the robot companion handles the massive data from its sensor system without any problems. 

To fully model biological organisms, CyberDog is equipped with 11 high-precision sensors that provide instant feedback for controlling its movements. These include touch sensors, cameras, ultrasonic sensors, GPS modules and much more, giving the robot advanced capabilities for detecting, analyzing and interacting with its environment. 

Computer vision for personalized interaction

Thanks to imaging technology from Xiaomi smartphones, CyberDog has advanced environmental perception. It comes with a built-in set of camera sensors, including interactive AI cameras, binocular ultra-wide fisheye cameras and an Intel RealSense D450 depth module that can be trained using a computer vision algorithm. 

Based on this vision system, autonomous object tracking, centimeter-scale obstacle avoidance and navigation have been created. CyberDog can analyze its surroundings in real time, build navigation maps, identify destinations and avoid obstacles. Combined with human tracking and facial recognition, CyberDog can follow its owner and overcome obstacles. 

To make the robot feel like a household pet, users can control it with voice assistants by setting a wake word, or simply use the included smartphone app as a remote control. 

CyberDog can be used for the most unique tasks, and the ways of interacting with it open up unexpected possibilities. 

The robot was designed with a rich external interface, including three Type-C ports and one HDMI port, so developers can freely explore and integrate a wide range of innovative and creative hardware configurations or software systems, whether LiDAR, a motion camera or a panoramic camera. 

Open-source platform for developing new capabilities

The company believes that robotics development spans various frontier areas and is currently in a stage of global co-creation. Through open source, Xiaomi encourages developers from around the world to contribute to this field, communicate with each other and grow together. 

Although CyberDog is built on open-source algorithms, the company itself is reconstructing and optimizing core modules of its own design. For now, the robot is being released in a limited run of 1,000 units priced at $1,540 for Xiaomi fans, engineers and robotics enthusiasts to jointly explore the huge potential of the robot companion. 

Xiaomi will create an "Open-Source Community" to continuously share progress and results with developers worldwide, along with a robotics lab that will give engineers a platform to keep searching for future innovations. 

Separate video with a backflip

A few days after Xiaomi officially unveiled its CyberDog quadruped robot and said it can perform complex maneuvers such as a backflip, the company released an official video. 

Although the video is promotional and heavily edited, it still gives a sense of how the robot moves and what it looks like in motion rather than in photos. For some reason the backflip moment is not shown in full, but overall CyberDog is impressive.