HEBIN Intelligent Robotics: Pioneering 7-DOF Ultrasound Robot to Build an Integrated Smart Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment Platform

At the finals of the “2022 ‘Direct to Wuzhen’ Global Competition” held recently, a dark horse in the field of intelligent ultrasound robotsHefei Hebin Intelligent Robot Co., Ltd.(abbreviated as“Hebin Intelligence”) Outshone the competition to winSecond Prize, emerging as a rising star in the digital healthcare sector.

Hebin Intelligence Wins Second Prize in the Finals

Hebin Intelligence, established in August 2020, is a high-tech enterprise dedicated to the research and development, production, and sales of innovative medical devices in the ultrasound field. The company is located in the Hefei Economic and Technological Development Area’s Intelligent Technology Park, a national-level zone striving to become a “headquarters base for technology-driven listed companies,” where it neighbors a cohort of China’s emerging leading tech enterprises, including NIO, Toutiao, Lontium Semiconductor, and Kangxinwei.

Hebin Intelligence deeply integrates robotics and artificial intelligence technologies to apply high-precision, low-latency robotic teleoperation and full-stack AI solutions to the field of ultrasound diagnosis and treatment. It has established an automated ultrasound image acquisition system that meets diagnostic standards, promotes a decoupled model of ultrasound scanning and diagnosis, and builds a comprehensive smart ultrasound platform covering scanning, diagnosis, and therapy. Furthermore, the company is committed to expanding clinical ultrasound applications, aiming to fundamentally alleviate the shortage and uneven distribution of ultrasound medical resources.

As the leading domestic intelligent ultrasound robot, Hebin Intelligence has also attracted attention with its cutting-edge technological capabilities and broad industry prospects.Linear Capital, Sequoia China Seed Fundand the “First Domestic Surgical Robot Stock”Tinavisupport. As of now, the company has completedRound 2Secured tens of millions of yuan in cumulative financing.

Hebin Intelligence was co-founded by four post-80s STEM professionals who have known each other for many years: Liu Zhen, Cheng Dongliang, Xia Jing, and Huang Qi.

Hebin Intelligent Team

From their vibrant university years through advanced studies and professional careers, they have now successively entered their forties. For decades, they have remained deeply rooted in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence, driving rapid advancement and continuously shaping technological blueprints with refined expertise and profound conceptual insights. In 2021, the core team led by these four individuals was recognized asHefei High-Level Talent Team.

The company’s founders, Liu Zhen, Xia Jing, and Huang Qi, are all alumni of Harbin Institute of Technology.They have led and participated in key scientific and technological projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China as well as provincial and ministerial-level initiatives, and have also been involved in projects related to the robotics system of the Chinese Space Station. With many years of experience in medical device R&D and cutting-edge technological innovation, their team has achieved significant breakthroughs. Notably, the intelligent bionic prosthetic hand developed by Huang Qi was featured on the cover of Time magazine and was named one of the Best Inventions of 2019.

Founder Cheng Dongliang graduated from the National University of Singapore., formerly an Associate Research Fellow at the National Engineering Laboratory for Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology and Applications of the University of Science and Technology of China. With decades of dedication to artificial intelligence, he possesses profound industry insights and a proven track record in successful commercialization. He has led R&D teams to innovatively develop multiple B2B AI products, empowering traditional industries to enhance quality and efficiency, thereby earning high recognition from clients.

Hebin Intelligence prioritizes source innovation and technological independence. Its team members possess expertise in medical imaging, computer science, mathematics, general mechanics and mechanical foundations, control engineering, software engineering, and clinical medicine, forming a robust force in the integration of medicine and engineering. R&D personnel account forOver 80%, with a powerful innovation engine, it has mastered multiple core technologies and possesses fully independent intellectual property rights, with over40 Items。

Furthermore, Hebin Intelligence has partnered with several top Chinese universities to foster industry-academia-research collaboration, driving innovation from the foundational level of technology.

The company has also built a teamA world-class scientific advisory team with comprehensive expertise.This includes the Chair of the Canadian Computer Vision Research Committee, who provides Hebin Intelligence with cutting-edge international perspectives; national-level robotic scientists, who are consistently involved in reviewing R&D design proposals; directors of leading domestic ultrasound departments, who offer authentic clinical feedback; and industry peers, who generously provide guidance on commercialization, thereby raising the comprehensive competitive barriers for Hebin Intelligence.

Hebin Intelligence, a gathering of elite talents, boasts formidable innovation capabilities.

Founded just two years ago, it has pioneered world-leading7-DOF Force-Controlled Intelligent Remote Ultrasound Robot——HEBIN-RUS-T7development, and in July 2022Passed the medical device product testing conducted by the Medical Device Inspection and Testing Institute.

Hebin Intelligent 7-DOF Force-Controlled Intelligent Remote Ultrasound Robot HEBIN-RUS-T7

Currently, most ultrasound robots on the market have six degrees of freedom. Such robotic arms can reach the scanning point with only one arm configuration. When hindered by joint limits or obstacles, this leads to failure of the scanning task.

Hebin Intelligence has developed a 7-degree-of-freedom (DOF) force-controlled intelligent remote ultrasound robot based on the anatomical structure of the human arm. By incorporating a redundant degree of freedom and multiple force sensors, the robotic arm achieves human-like dexterity, enabling it to reach scanning points through various arm configurations. This design enhances the robot’s flexibility while minimizing the impact of joint limits and obstacles.

“The core highlights of our device are reflected in”Flexible, Universal, Intelligent, and Secure“four aspects,” said Xia Jing, co-founder of Hebin Intelligence.

First, the product employs redundant robotic arms and high-precision, low-latency robotic teleoperation technology to achieve accurate, synchronized replication of expert techniques. The R&D team has also designed a portable expert control terminal, which not only makes the operation of the ultrasound robot more intuitive and efficient but also expands the scenarios in which experts can utilize it.Flexible.

Secondly, Hebin Intelligent has resolved compatibility issues in data communication, electrical connections, and mechanical interfaces between robots and ultrasound systems from various manufacturers through its quick-change probe clamping solution. The product can connect with mainstream ultrasound equipment on the market, eliminating the need for hospitals to make redundant purchases and avoiding waste of social resources, thereby demonstrating strongUniversalValue.

Furthermore, Hebin Intelligence has reserved artificial intelligence hardware and software within its ultrasound robots, enabling the R&D team to upgrade the auxiliary ultrasound scanning and diagnostic capabilities of the HEBIN-RUS-T7 at any time. Much like autonomous vehicles that can receive over-the-air updates to enhance their advanced driver-assistance systems and algorithms, this allows physicians’ remote ultrasound diagnostic work to be moreIntelligent, while also assisting junior and primary-care physicians in performing rapid, standardized, and effective ultrasound examinations.

Finally, Hebin Intelligence’s products adopt a hierarchical safety control strategy, establishing active and passive safety measures at the environmental perception layer, impedance control layer, and human-robot interaction layer to achieve layered safety control and ensure the robot’s scanningSafety。

Since its inception, Hebin Intelligence has focused on deep data mining to build its competitive moat, accumulating a vast amount of dynamic data. Over time, the accumulation of this data has constructed even higher barriers to entry.

Leveraging real-world data on stroke volume, Hebin Intelligent has developed an efficient processing workflow and toolchain, enabling R&D personnel to rapidly identify the most critical and effective data from large-scale datasets of authentic manual techniques. Meanwhile, Hebin Intelligent has established collaborations with multiple top-tier Grade A tertiary hospitals and their experts across Northeast, North, Central, and East China, ensuring accurate interpretation and application of ultrasound data.

In terms of software, Hebin Intelligent has established a high-precision robotic dynamics model and, by integrating human biomechanical modeling, has developed a high-precision adaptive force control algorithm for robotic arm ultrasound scanning. This enables its intelligent ultrasound robot to perform scans with the flexibility, safety, and efficacy of a human physician.

To address the core industry challenge of human skin compression deformation in practical applications, Hebin Intelligence has independently developed a set ofMethods for Modeling Soft Biological Tissues.This method, based on cutting-edge technologies in robotic environmental perception, ultrasound imaging, and biomechanical modeling, enables automatic and intelligent real-time modeling of soft biological tissue deformation during scanning, ensuring compliant contact.

From 4 to 40, Hebin Intelligence started from humble beginnings and has rapidly grown into a formidable enterprise.

Over the past two years, Hebin Intelligence has achieved rapid growth through pragmatic and diligent execution. The company’s first-generation remote ultrasound robot has entered the clinical stage, while research and development of the second-generation product are already underway. Significant progress has been made overall, with strategic deployments and key technological breakthroughs achieved in both autonomous ultrasound scanning robots and interventional surgical robots.

In addition, the company has showcased its prowess in various competitions. Besides recently winning the second prize in the “2022 ‘Direct to Wuzhen’ Global Competition,” Hebin Intelligence has successivelySelected for the National Pilot Project on “5G+ Healthcare” Applications by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Health Commission, included in the construction projects of the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, and listed in the 2021 Microsoft Accelerator cohort.

In terms of commercialization, Hebin Intelligence andSiLing Robotics, TinaviAchieve in-depth collaboration across the upstream and downstream sectors, with clearly defined implementation plans.

According to founder Liu Zhen, Hebin Intelligence’s dual-drive development strategy of “technological innovation and market expansion” has become clearly defined, and the company will continue to advance its commercialization through a “three-step” strategic pathway. First, it will continuously recruit top-tier market talent; second, it will fully transform its technologies into diverse product forms, such as intelligent hardware, to extend its commercial boundaries; and third, it will steadily strengthen its foundational technologies and research to further deepen its data moat.