The Domestic Robot Industry Is Quietly Rising. The Future Lightweight Robot Is A Trend.

Yao Zhiju, Deputy Secretary General of the China robot industry alliance, often asks the end users in various discussions: "why do you not use our domestic robots?" "because the domestic products are not as good as imported ones."

User answer.

"Why? Did you use it?" Yao Zhiju continued to ask, but the user replied, "No."

"Users feel very deeply about us. We admit that there is a gap between foreign products, but in fact, the gap is narrowing."

Yao Zhiju sighed.

In fact, homemade

The industry is quietly rising. According to the comprehensive data, in 2012, only 1112 domestic robots sold, and sole proprietorship and joint ventures.

Sales reached 25790 units with a market share of 4% and 96% respectively, but by 2014, domestic robots accounted for 13% of the domestic robot market share.

To some extent, this rise has posed a threat to foreign robot manufacturers.

According to Yao Zhiju, for foreign domestic manufacturers of similar products with relatively large number of applications and competitiveness, foreign machinery manufacturers basically made 15%-20% price reduction.

Learned from several channels, a number of foreign robot manufacturers will launch a 3 kilogram level multi joint robot SCARA, which is priced at an unprecedented price of about 50 thousand yuan, while the internationally renowned robot manufacturer KUKA will launch a mobile robot with a price of around 10 thousand yuan this year.

Such market cases are increasing.

"This shows that the domestic brand robot enterprises are growing, making foreign brands feel pressure, and then forcing foreign robot manufacturers to reduce their prices."

Yao Zhiju said.

However, the domestic machine still has a huge gap with the international giants on the whole level.

Robot manufacturers abroad have a history of forty or fifty years, and there are more than ten years in China. There are gaps in experience, practical ability, special brand recognition and foreign countries.

Domestic robot industry quietly rising

"China's clean robots and mobile robots (AGV) have reached the advanced level of similar products abroad, and industrial robots and special robots have applications in all walks of life."

Qu Daokui, President of SIASUN robotics automation Limited by Share Ltd (hereinafter referred to as SIASUN robot), told the Economic Observer newspaper that he can speak this sentence mainly from his confidence in accuracy, reliability and stability of his products.

It is understood that SIASUN robot can guarantee two years no fault production, mobile robot dynamic positioning accuracy can reach 0.05 millimeters, and these are internationally leading.

According to the results of the financial report, the new SIASUN robot signed orders in 2013 were about 2 billion 500 million yuan, up 56.25% over the same period last year.

The SIASUN robot marked leap in 2007, this year SIASUN achieved bulk export, rewriting the history of Chinese robots only import no export.

Now SIASUN robot's products are exported to 13 countries around the world, covering the top 500 enterprises in the world, including BMW, micro-blog, general motors and Ford.

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"Foreign countries have advanced technology in vision, force control, navigation technology and so on. We can quickly apply new technologies to our products.

70% of our customers are foreign enterprises or joint ventures. These enterprises are high-end customers, and customers have such needs.

SIASUN robot brand Department official said.

This is not just a SIASUN robot enterprise in the "fight", in fact, the domestic robot manufacturers level of technology compared with foreign countries, the gap is gradually narrowing, the domestic robot market share in the domestic robot market is also increasing year by year.

According to statistics of China robot industry alliance, the domestic robot market share of domestic robot market was 15% in 2013.

Yao Zhiju explained the data from the market segmentation: in 2013, the output of the pport robot was the first time in China to exceed foreign countries, and the leading position in the AGV trolley. In the field of dispensing and covering machinery in the three or four axis electronics industry, there were more domestic shipments.

According to Yao Zhiju, at present, there are four hundred or five hundred domestic robot enterprises. Whether or not they can achieve the scale of more than 100 million yuan can be used as an important index to measure the excellent or not of enterprises. The number of enterprises entering this category of billion yuan or two hundred million yuan from last year to this year is increasing rapidly, almost double the growth.

"The actual situation of China is that the industrial system is very complete, and it is the only country in the world that can cover 21 industrial categories. The equipment manufacturing capability is strong, especially in the machinery industry, electricity, steel and other fields.

The present market prospect is an opportunity for Chinese robot enterprises.

Yao Zhiju said.

In recent years, the performance of another domestic benchmark manufacturer, Guangzhou CNC Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou CNC") has also been greatly improved.

The company

Song Jian, director of manufacturing engineering center, told the Economic Observer newspaper that the improvement of reliability is embodied in many aspects such as the hardware design, mechanical design and software design of the product, such as mechanical line location, machining accuracy, equipment accuracy and testing means. At present, the product can guarantee half a year without fault in production. Because of its design and personnel operation, the frequent failure of the electric steam alarm has been greatly improved after the design has been improved last year.

Testing core components in water trial

For a long time, domestic R & D of robots and core components lags behind developed countries such as Japan and the United States. But in recent years, domestic robot manufacturers are also developing core components for testing water.

In the 2009-2010 year, SIASUN robot developed a drive and motor that can replace foreign components and use it on its own products.

According to Yao Zhiju, all parts of Guangzhou CNC (reducer, servo motor and control system) are independently developed, and the reducer can also scale. Last year, the reducer installed in the six axis robot reached more than 100 units, nearly 10% of the output of the six axle robot in China.

"Independent research and development of parts and components, if there is no foundation in itself, to re develop a product and achieve reliable, stable and high performance, it will take a long process, including technology, personnel, channels and funds to consider in many ways. Guangzhou CNC has predicted many years ago that China will go through the stage of pformation and upgrading of low-end manufacturing industry to high-end R & D industry, so it will invest in independent research and development very early."

Song Jian said.

On the one hand, it is difficult to reduce the cost of the core components of the domestic robot, and on the other hand, how to ensure that the products of several manufacturers perform the greatest performance when they are used on the same machine, but all the parts are different from one manufacturer, and the manufacturers are very clear about their products.

Song Jian further said.

Although domestic robotics companies are growing, Yao Zhiju also acknowledges that there is still a gap between the production technology of Chinese robots and foreign countries, especially in the field of automotive welding.

He explained that the number of robots purchased in China's auto industry is the largest, about 50% to 60%.

The Chinese auto industry has been monopolized by foreign capital for a long time, and the production line equipment providers are also brought from abroad. The European series uses KUKA, ABB and other manufacturers, while Japanese auto brands are commercial robots in Japan, such as Kawasaki and Japan. Thus, strict thresholds and mature technical specifications have been formed. The market structure of robots in the domestic automotive industry has been set up, and domestic robot brands are hard to enter.

The gap between basic components is not small.

"The core components of a robot are divided into three parts, namely, servomotors, control systems and decelerator. The former two are relatively easy to develop, but the reducer is very difficult, which is a bottleneck of domestic technology."

Yao Zhiju told the Economic Observer newspaper that the difficulty lies in the large torque, the very high pmission ratio of the robot, and the high accuracy of machining.

Nabo Teske, Hammer Nako, Sumitomo and other foreign companies monopolized more than 90% of the domestic robots in the reducer area.

The foreign robot manufacturers of the four big families of KUKA and ABB are using their components.

Yao Zhiju believes that the domestic robot products with poor accuracy, short life and unstable quality will take time to accumulate, and there will be no shortcut to improve the data through the use of feedback data.

"Many enterprises have entered the field of robotics and have not been developing for a long time. Instead, they have taken a short and fast route. After they are assembled, they are pushed to the market very quickly. The whole process is too short, and many things are not done meticulous and meticulous, so the quality of products is difficult to guarantee."

Song Jian said.

The future: lightweight robots?

The domestic robot production enterprises are hard to catch up with the pace of robot production technology in foreign countries because of their late start in the traditional industrial robots, but they may find new opportunities in the field of lightweight robots.

In April 9, 2015, RethinkRobotics company launched a new generation of "Sawyer" industrial robots.

It is reported that the Sawyer robot "height" 3.3 feet, the overall design continues the previous generation friendly human-machine interaction style, has the friendly smiling face on the touchscreen, has the common sense software design to enable it to communicate with humanity friendly.

Rethink said the robot was priced at $29000 and will be available for sale this summer.

Sawyer will become a useful supplement to RethinkRobotics Baxter's dual arm industrial robot.

Baxter, which came out in 2012, is an innovative human-machine interaction robot which is different from traditional industrial robots. Its main purpose is to move heavier objects, and the cost is far lower than that of industrial robots, so it has unparalleled adaptability and safety.

Yao Zhiju said that this lightweight robot would not be too fast and would not cause damage to human beings, emphasizing human-machine coordination, easier operation and more flexibility. It is the direction of the future development of the robot industry, and it is also the common pursuit of robot manufacturers.

"SIASUN is also developing this kind of robot, used in the 3C industry. At the end of last year, the prototype has already come out."

Qu Daokui said.

He has his own understanding of this product, which he believes is a new direction in the field of robotics development.

"Because different markets need different types of robot products, the former robot products are mainly used in machinery, automotive parts, and the speed accuracy is high. Now the market has new demands in the field of 3C and other fields. The original robot is not suitable for 3C field, and requires more flexible products. In addition, in some mechanical or automotive fields, robots can do their own work separately, while in the 3C field, people and robots may need to work together, which requires robots to have certain safety."

Qu Daokui said.

Many experts say that this kind of lightweight robot can be produced by many domestic robot enterprises, and the technical difficulties can basically be overcome.

Light robot and pure industrial robot operation environment is different, different requirements, the control system, servo motor and other main parts accuracy requirements are not as high as traditional industrial robots, the price of procurement may be reduced, which is good for domestic robot manufacturers. In the field of lightweight robots, the gap between domestic and foreign robots is not as big as that of industrial robots. At present, foreign countries are only producing prototypes, and there is no mass production and scale effect.