BYD's largest single investment in the field of embodied intelligence has been finalized, targeting Pacini's tactile perception technology with an investment of over 100 million yuan.
Recently, PaXini Tech, a leading enterprise in tactile perception and humanoid robots, has received a strategic investment of over 100 million yuan from BYD, the leading Chinese new energy vehicle company. It is reported that this is BYD's first significant equity investment this year and, to date, its largest single investment in the field of embodied intelligence.
According to official information, PaXini Tech was founded in June 2021. It is one of the few domestic enterprises that can achieve independent control of high - precision multi - dimensional tactile sensors and has a complete product matrix of multi - dimensional tactile "sensors - dexterous hands - humanoid robots". The founding members of the company come from the Kanno Robotics Laboratory at Waseda University in Japan, the birthplace of the world's first humanoid robot. They have innovatively developed a 6D Hall array tactile sensor, endowing robots with human - like tactile perception capabilities. At the same time, they have built a full - stack embodied intelligence technology system from hardware packaging, data collection, algorithm integration to the construction of the first VTLA embodied intelligence model. PaXini Tech is a globally leading supplier and technology pioneer in this field.
PaXini's 6D Hall array tactile product matrix
After a two - year hiatus, following Zhipu Robotics, BYD has once again increased its investment in the field of embodied intelligence, focusing on tactile sensing technology. As a leading enterprise in the global new energy vehicle field, BYD has long ranked at the top of the market value of domestic automobile enterprises, and every move of it attracts wide attention in the industry. This investment is BYD's in - depth recognition of PaXini and also a strategic layout after careful consideration.
PaXini's 6D Hall array tactile solution may be the key to breaking the deadlock in the implementation of embodied intelligence
More than 70% of human physical interactions and over 90% of fine operations rely on hands. However, due to the bottleneck of tactile sensing technology, robots lack the tactile modality extremely. For a long time, they have been restricted from achieving dexterous grasping and fine operations like humans. Therefore, tactile sensors are called the key to the "perceptual awakening" of robots and are also one of the 35 "chokepoint" technologies in China.
After a systematic evaluation of global tactile sensing technology routes and multi - dimensional comparative tests of mainstream solutions such as visual - tactile, capacitive, and resistive, BYD finally selected PaXini's self - developed 6D Hall array tactile sensing technology solution.
According to Hard Krypton, based on this technology solution, PaXini has launched a self - developed high - precision array multi - dimensional tactile sensor. This tactile sensor is realized by the self - developed HAPTA heterogeneous multi - core array software and hardware architecture, integrating an array of ITPU multi - dimensional tactile sensing units and a self - developed tactile algorithm that can collect and analyze data in real - time. It can achieve 1,000,000 (one million) ultra - high tactile samplings per second, synchronously capture 15 types of tactile perception information such as six - dimensional force (three - dimensional force + three - dimensional torque), material, temperature, and rebound, and with a fine force recognition ability of 0.01N across the full range, output at a high frequency of 1000Hz, far exceeding that of humans, providing the industry's top human - like rich and delicate tactile interaction information for embodied intelligent agents. In addition, through high - manufacturability design, automated calibration, and testing technology, PaXini has bridged the gap between the research and industrialization of tactile sensors, breaking many long - standing development constraints in the industry, such as single perception dimension, poor consistency, insufficient durability and reliability, high price, and poor usability of traditional tactile sensors. It has taken the lead in realizing multi - dimensional array force perception and the analysis of multiple physical properties such as material, temperature, and texture, with an industrial - grade service life of over 3 million times, and has achieved large - scale mass production with high reliability, ranking first in global shipments.
The core competitiveness of PaXini's 6D Hall principle lies in its highly reliable and precise magnetic field capture and analysis technology with a combination of software and hardware. At the hardware level, through the self - developed heterogeneous multi - core chip array, it can achieve the IP68 waterproof and dust - proof level while fully capturing the fine - grained magnetic distribution changes caused by micron - level displacements. At the algorithm level, its unique fast magnetic inverse solution algorithm can distinguish the internal magnetic field and external interference from the rapid changes in the magnetic distribution, thus achieving interference immunity. Its unique non - linear fast mechanical solution algorithm is integrated into the heterogeneous core, which can complete the mapping from small displacements to the multi - dimensional force distribution on the contact surface at a millisecond - level rate.
This independent breakthrough of high - performance tactile sensing technology against the wind and the breakthrough of the constraint of high - precision perception by high costs give PaXini great potential in promoting the large - scale industrial transformation of embodied intelligence. Therefore, it stands out among many solutions and has won the high recognition and investment from the industrial chain giant BYD.
PaXini's 6D Hall array tactile sensing unit
Strategic cooperation and industrial synergy: the two - way pursuit of embodied intelligence and the automotive industry
In addition to the breakthrough in tactile sensing technology, according to its official website, PaXini has built a full - stack multi - dimensional tactile product matrix of "tactile sensors - dexterous hands - humanoid robots" based on the 6D Hall array. Among them, the dexterous hand DexH13 is the world's first dual - modality robot end with "multi - dimensional tactile + AI vision". Its four fingers have 16 high - degrees of freedom (13 active + 3 passive). One hand integrates 1140 multi - dimensional tactile sensing units and an 8 - megapixel AI hand - eye camera, enabling multi - dimensional force perception and dexterous and refined operations with hand - eye coordination. The humanoid robot TORA - ONE is equipped with more than 2000 multi - dimensional tactile sensing units on both hands, has 53 degrees of freedom throughout the body and an adaptive height adjustment ability of 1.46 - 1.86m, which can meet the needs of various complex and refined operations in different scenarios such as security inspection, logistics, supermarkets, healthcare, and precision assembly, showing strong generalization ability.
Application scenarios of PaXini's humanoid robots
Therefore, the cooperation between BYD and PaXini is a comprehensive industrial synergy. According to Hard Krypton, PaXini's technology has potential cooperation scenarios with BYD in multiple fields. This cooperation will give full play to the advantages of both sides and achieve mutual benefit and win - win results: PaXini is expected to stand out in the future industrial competition of embodied intelligence, trigger product rapid iteration from the application end, and lead the industry development; while BYD will take the initiative in the intelligent upgrade and industrial layout of the automotive industry.
The resonance of capital and industry: the tactile perception field has reached a watershed
BYD's strategic investment is essentially a deep penetration of industrial discourse power into the underlying core technology links and a lock - in of the technology route. This move not only shows the strong optimism of the industrial leader towards PaXini's technology route but also reflects the capital's judgment on the value anchor point of the embodied intelligence industry - whoever masters the physical interface of tactile perception will control the key to the industrial implementation of humanoid robots. In addition to BYD, a trillion - level automobile enterprise, PaXini revealed that its 6D Hall array tactile sensors have been mass - supplied to leading domestic and foreign humanoid robot enterprises, making it the only tactile sensor supplier with large - scale application in the field of humanoid robots at present.
Looking at the bets and preferences on the capital side and the industrial side, the tactile perception and embodied intelligence fields may have reached a watershed. PaXini's 6D Hall array tactile sensing technology is accelerating the formation of a technology closed - loop of "perception - decision - execution" for humanoid robots, continuously promoting the actual implementation and industrial transformation of embodied intelligence, and moving forward with the absolute advantage of "high - tech advantage and barrier - high - volume production industry leadership - leading customers' guidance".
This article is from the WeChat official account "Hard Krypton", published by 36Kr with authorization.