Reported by Electronic Enthusiasts (Author: Li Wanwan)The aging process in China is advancing rapidly, with an increase of 10 million people each year. It is expected that by 2025, the population aged 60 and above will exceed 310 million, accounting for 22% of the national population. In this wave of“silver-haired tide,” the elderly care robot market is experiencing explosive growth. By 2024, the market size is expected to exceed 30 billion yuan, and it is projected to reach 50 billion yuan by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of over 30%.The surge in market demand stems from three major pain points in traditional elderly care models: there is a shortage of 5.5 million caregivers in China, a severe lack of professional nursing staff, and a heavy burden of family care. In a nursing home in Guangzhou, an intelligent walking robot helped Aunt Liu, who has been paralyzed for six years, to stand again; a nursing home in Shenzhen introduced a robot for handling bodily functions, reducing the daily usage of adult diapers from 5 to 1. These vivid cases fully demonstrate that robots are reshaping a new paradigm of elderly care services.
Policy and Technology Dual-Driven: Comprehensive Evolution of Elderly Care Robot Functions
2025 will be a key year for policy implementation. At the central level, the “Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Reform and Development of Elderly Care Services” clearly proposes to accelerate the development of elderly care technology; the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Civil Affairs have jointly launched a project to tackle intelligent elderly care service robots, aiming to complete verification in three major scenarios: home, community, and institutions by 2027. Local policies are also making efforts, with Shenzhen planning to implement 50 billion-level application scenarios by 2027, and Beijing Yizhuang constructing the“Innovation Center for Health and Care Robots.” In terms of international standard formulation, China has made breakthrough progress. The IEC63310 performance criteria for active assistive living robots used in interconnected home environments, led by China, will be officially released in March 2025, setting benchmarks for safety, privacy protection, and more for global elderly care robots. Zhejiang Province has introduced subsidy policies, including exoskeleton robots in the home aging transformation directory, providing a 30% subsidy, with a maximum subsidy of 3,000 yuan per unit.Currently, elderly care robots have formed a matrix of three major product categories. In the rehabilitation robot field, the Stardust Intelligent AI Robot S1 is conducting real scene tests in a Shenzhen nursing home, with its bionic joint drive technology assisting stroke patients in regaining walking ability; the “Three Thousand Steps” lower limb exoskeleton robot has served over 10,000 people. In the nursing robot sector, a company in Shenzhen has developed a robot for handling bodily functions that can start sensing in 1 second and fully automate the processing of waste; the delivery robot from UBTECH completes an average of 200 medication deliveries daily. In the companionship robot field, the “Xiao Xi” robot from Hangzhou has dialect recognition capabilities, accurately calling out the names of elderly individuals and providing health consultations; a generative AI emotional companionship robot exhibited in Hong Kong can simulate the voices of children for interaction.Technological breakthroughs have led to significant leaps in functionality. Huawei’s AI-assisted health sensors achieve synchronous monitoring of five physiological indicators with an accuracy rate of up to 98%; UBTECH’s smart health system integrates large model technology to dynamically adjust care plans based on elderly health data. AI technology is reshaping the“brain” of robots. The “Xiao Wu” robot from Tencent’s RoboticsX laboratory is equipped with 180 tactile detection points and, combined with a visual perception system, can safely assist fallen elderly individuals; the AI Silver Age glasses released by Shenzhen Mingzhi Cloud Technology can identify medication instructions through computer vision technology and voice broadcast medication guidelines. Large model technology is driving service intelligence, with the Zhi Ping Fang AI2RBrain model supporting natural language control, which can adjust rehabilitation plans based on patient recovery conditions during postoperative care; a brand of robot equipped with digital twin technology allows children to remotely generate virtual avatars to interact with the elderly.
Technological breakthroughs and challenges coexist, with domestic chips supporting development
Current mainstream technology routes exhibit three major characteristics. The hardware architecture adopts a“core module+expandable interface” design, such as the Stardust Intelligent Astribot S1, which reserves 20 standardized interfaces to support rapid iteration of functional modules. The software system is developed based on the ROS 2.0 framework, achieving multi-sensor data fusion, and the lower limb exoskeleton of the Mai Bu robot improves rehabilitation efficiency by 40% through AI motion analysis technology. Human-computer interaction uses reinforcement learning to optimize interaction strategies, with the“Home Assistant” series from the Shanghai Elderly Care Service Center trained with 100,000 hours of voice data, achieving a dialect recognition accuracy rate of 92%.However, the industry also faces many core challenges. In terms of data barriers, the cost of data collection in home scenarios is high, and high-quality datasets are scarce, leading to insufficient algorithm generalization capabilities. In terms of cost dilemmas, the price of medical rehabilitation exoskeletons exceeds 150,000 yuan, limiting their large-scale application. Ethical controversies cannot be ignored, such as the emotional dependency controversy raised by Japan’s seal-type robots, highlighting the blurred boundaries of human-robot relationships.The domestic chip industry’s breakthroughs provide strong support for the development of elderly care robots, building a complete ecological chain that helps achieve closed-loop control of perception, decision-making, and execution.Rockchip’s high-performance chips empower“Big Head A Liang” fifth-generation robot, integrating an 8-core CPU, NPU, and powerful GPU computing power, with a signal coverage range extended to 5,000 square meters, and the NPU supporting trillions of operations per second, reducing power consumption by 30%, capable of replacing three caregivers in Wuxi nursing institutions.Chuangyao Technology’s ESC chip assists UBTECH’s humanoid robot motion control, integrating core technologies authorized by Beckhoff, supporting multiple ports, and controlling the response delay of robot joints at the microsecond level, ensuring synchronous control of multi-axis motors, capable of performing high-precision tasks such as turning over disabled elderly individuals.Xianji Semiconductor’s HPM6E00 series chips empower the Mai Bu robot lower limb exoskeleton, with a main frequency exceeding 600MHz, supporting double-precision floating-point operations, capable of real-time processing of AI motion analysis algorithms, and constructing motion intention prediction models through multi-sensor fusion, assisting over 500 patients at the Chongqing Rehabilitation Center, with an average recovery period shortened by 40%.Runxin Technology’s low-power AI chips expand the application of intelligent health and care terminals, integrating various recognition modules, adopting ultra-low power architecture, supporting edge computing and multi-modal interaction, providing various services for elderly individuals living alone in Zhejiang’s smart community pilot.
In Conclusion
As AI chip computing power breaks through 100 TOPS and brain-computer interface technology achieves thought control, elderly care robots are transitioning from“functional replacement” to“emotional symbiosis.” However, technological development requires the construction of a triangular support system of“technological innovation–institutional design–ethical framework.” For example, the modular embodied robot concept proposed by Shenzhen Woan Robot emphasizes that elderly care technology should be“a warm guardian,” achieving non-intrusive health monitoring while respecting the autonomy of the elderly; allowing children to interact remotely while safeguarding the emotional value of face-to-face communication.
Disclaimer: This article is original by Electronic Enthusiasts, please indicate the source above when reprinting. For group communication, please add WeChat elecfans999, for submission, exposure, and interview requests, please send an email to [email protected].
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