Contactless Health Monitoring Powered by AI
The intersection of artificial intelligence and healthcare robotics has yielded a significant breakthrough in Chengdu, where a new companion robot named “Kangbao” (Health Baby) is redefining patient monitoring. Xinhua reports that the robot is developed by a research team at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC). Kangbao can measure a user’s heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature in just 30 seconds—entirely without physical contact.
Standing 1.2 meters tall, the robot utilizes advanced infrared sensing and microvascular vibration analysis to conduct multi-parameter physiological tests. Beyond basic vitals, Kangbao is equipped with sophisticated emotional AI, capable of identifying 13 distinct emotional states, ranging from happiness and fatigue to anxiety.
According to Tian Ling, director of the National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Next-Generation Internet Data Processing Technology at UESTC, the robot has achieved remarkable precision through numerous algorithm iterations. Kangbao currently boasts a physiological measurement accuracy of over 97 percent and an emotion recognition accuracy exceeding 92 percent, placing it at the forefront of industry standards.
Privacy-First Architecture and Real-World Deployment
A critical feature of Kangbao’s design is its commitment to user privacy. The robot is built on a knowledge hypergraph-based autonomous decision-making architecture, meaning that all collected data is processed locally through on-device inference. By eliminating the need for cloud uploads, the system ensures that sensitive health and emotional data remains secure and private.
The technology is now moving from the laboratory into real-world application. With support from local authorities, several elderly care facilities in the Chengdu area have initiated pilot programs for Kangbao. In these settings, a single robot can monitor an entire floor of a care center. It continuously records residents’ medical histories and medication schedules, generates electronic health files, and issues proactive alerts if it detects potential health risks or concerning emotional shifts.
Tian’s team is also collaborating with institutions such as West China Hospital of Sichuan University to advance intervention research on conditions such as mild cognitive impairment, mood disorders, and Alzheimer’s disease, using data gathered by these smart companions.
The Booming Elderly Care Robotics Market
Kangbao’s deployment is part of a broader surge in China’s robotics industry, particularly in the elderly care sector. The market for elderly care robots in China reached approximately 9.1 billion yuan in 2025 and is projected to grow to 10.4 billion yuan in 2026. This growth is strongly supported by government initiatives; in January, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued guidelines advocating for the widespread integration of humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces, and AI in elderly care services.
Sichuan Province has positioned itself as a central hub for this technological expansion. The region has cultivated a comprehensive robotics industrial cluster in Chengdu, encompassing industrial, service, and specialty robotics. In 2024, the core AI and robotics industry in Chengdu surpassed 100 billion yuan in scale, representing a year-on-year growth of approximately 39 percent.
The provincial government has set ambitious targets, aiming to expand its embodied intelligence industry to 50 billion yuan by 2027. Through initiatives like the “Robotics+” application scenario campaign, local authorities are accelerating the large-scale deployment of robots in healthcare and elderly care. As Tian Ling emphasized, “Our ultimate goal is to turn cutting-edge AI technologies into products that ordinary people can see and use,” a vision that Kangbao is actively bringing to life.