At the recently held 2024 World Robot Conference, industrial robots broke the image of traditional assembly line automation equipment and showed the outside world the results of the implementation of cutting-edge technology.

Industrial robots are the carriers of emerging technologies and important equipment for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. my country is the world's largest producer and consumer market of industrial robots. The output of industrial robots has increased from 33,000 sets in 2015 to 430,000 sets in 2023, an increase of more than 13 times in 8 years, and the installed capacity of industrial robots has also remained the world's first.

The rapid development of industrial robots is a microcosm of China's intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation. The "high-precision" technology represented by this is also becoming a bright business card for China's new quality productivity. So, how is the industry? What are the transformation breakthroughs? How will it evolve in the future?

Industrial clusters are accelerating

Although my country's industrial robot industry started late, its complete industrial system and huge manufacturing volume have bred the world's largest market. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, my country's industrial robot output in the first half of this year was 283,000 sets, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%. According to data from industry consulting agency MIR, the overall sales volume of industrial robots in my country in the first half of the year was about 140,000 sets, an increase of about 5% year-on-year, and overall production and sales have been stable and improved.

In recent years, my country's industrial robots have achieved a historic leap from big to strong. "The key core components such as precision reducers, high-performance servo drives, and intelligent controllers in industrial robots have now formed a rich product spectrum, with greatly improved technical levels and industrialization capabilities, and significantly enhanced international competitiveness." Xu Xiaolan, chairman of the China Electronics Society, said.

From the perspective of market competition, in the first half of 2024, four domestic robot manufacturers will enter the global TOP10, one more than in the first half of 2023; domestic brands accounted for 50.1% of the domestic market share, a record high, and surpassed foreign brands for the first time in the second quarter.

At present, my country's industrial robot industry has grown from a single champion to an all-round master, forming a complete industrial chain from core components to robot bodies to system integration. According to the announcements of relevant listed companies, many robot companies such as Siasun Robotics, Estun, Efort, Maihe Co., Ltd., and Ruisong Technology have intensively received major orders for automobile automation production lines. The core components produced by Green Harmonic, Shuanghuan Transmission, Huichuan Technology, and Leisai Intelligent have also entered the supply chain system of global leading companies.

At the same time, industrial clusters are also accelerating. The "China Robotics Technology and Industry Development Report (2023)" shows that my country's high-quality robot companies are mainly distributed in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta regions, forming a multi-core industrial cluster represented by Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Among them, the robot production capacity in the Yangtze River Delta accounts for more than 50% of the country; the Pearl River Delta relies on its strong industrial foundation and the first-mover advantage of the new generation of information technology to actively cultivate the future intelligent equipment industry cluster and promote the industrial robot industry to move towards intelligence, high-end, and integration.

Application scenarios "blooming"

Behind the continuous increase in the localization rate and the strong rise of high-end fields is the profound change in industrial robot technology.

"With the vigorous rise of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, a new generation of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and sensing are accelerating the integration with the robot industry." Lu Hanchen, director of the Gaogong Robot Industry Research Institute (GGII), told the Securities Daily reporter.

In terms of software, the access to large models opens a new window for industrial robots. As the application scenarios of industrial robots gradually expand, the implementation of AI large models is expected to produce a multiplier effect of "intelligence" and "physical fitness". "AI large models can give robots the 'strongest brain', perceive the surrounding environment more comprehensively and make corresponding adjustments according to environmental changes, and decompose and execute complex tasks more efficiently." A relevant person in charge of Xinsong Robot told reporters.

In the display area of the Xinsong Robot AI large model, the above-mentioned person in charge gave the robot instructions to place the tangram through a display screen in different ways such as oral language, text, and drawing. The robot can autonomously analyze, decompose, and plan the instructions, and autonomously place the small tangram into the shape required by the command, realizing the efficient coordination of "ears, brain, eyes, and hands" under the blessing of AI technology. According to reports, this technology has broad application prospects in the fields of intelligent depalletizing, material identification and picking, and object defect detection and removal.

In the automotive manufacturing scenario, traditional spot welding operations are highly dependent on manual operation, which is not only labor-intensive, but also difficult to ensure the consistency of welding quality. With the acceleration of product replacement, production lines also need to be adjusted frequently to adapt to the welding needs of different models.

"The robot's teaching-free welding technology can well cope with the transformation of the manufacturing production model from large-scale production of a single variety to small batch and multi-variety production." Fang Hanyuan, market brand director of Peitian Robot under Beijing Mechanical and Electrical, told the Securities Daily reporter that the new technology uses computer 3D vision technology and deep learning algorithms to automatically identify and track welding guns, automatically plan welding paths and optimize welding parameters to ensure the shortest welding path for multiple workpieces and the least energy consumption. It greatly simplifies the welding process, eliminates the need for manual teaching and correction, and realizes a high degree of automation and intelligence in the welding process.

In terms of hardware, industrial robots are moving from a single form to a "three-head, six-arm" complex. A person related to Kuka Robotics revealed to reporters that the company plans to install a robotic arm on a high-load mobile robot so that it can complete the integrated operation of grabbing and handling alone.

In terms of materials, Wu Yiming, founder and chairman of Zhongke Optoelectronics Precision Engineering Co., Ltd., told the reporter of Securities Daily that the materials of industrial robots are generally steel, aluminum, aluminum alloy, etc., and will evolve to more advanced self-organized and other bio-manufacturing materials in the future. The general direction of material evolution may eventually be bionics, which is expected to take 15 to 20 years.

The application scenarios of industrial robots have "bloomed in full bloom". In addition to traditional assembly line operations, industrial robots are becoming the "main force" to replace workers in various high-risk jobs in the manufacturing industry. "The company's energy high-altitude high-risk wall-climbing robot can walk by adsorption, freely shuttle and inspect in complex and changeable high-altitude high-risk scenes, and directly contact the surface of inspection targets such as thermal power boiler water-cooled wall tubes and wind turbine blades." Xu Guangping, founder and CEO of Jitai Intelligence, told the reporter of Securities Daily that with the support of AI, the wall-climbing robot can perform inspection tasks autonomously, and its inspection efficiency is 150 times that of manual inspection; with high-precision defect recognition algorithms, the accuracy of equipment defect detection can reach 95%.

Moving towards high-quality development

Although the industry as a whole is stable and improving, from the first half of breaking "quantity" to the second half of attacking "profit", the problem of "involution" of industrial robots has gradually emerged.

"In the first half, a large number of manufacturers poured into the robot track. Some manufacturers did rely on forward-looking layout and market strategies (such as sacrificing profits to grab market share) to achieve certain sales, but it also invisibly aggravated the disorder of the industry. Coupled with changes in the external environment, the industry's 'involution' continued to intensify." Lu Hanchen said that in the second half, the competition in the stock market was more intense, and cost pressure ran through the entire industry chain. The profitability of robot companies is facing more severe challenges.

The reason, Lu Hanchen believes, is that first, the homogeneity of products is serious and lacks real innovation drive; second, most manufacturers have not really broken through high-end application fields, such as semiconductors, automobiles, etc., and are still clustered in low-end and medium-end application fields. This vicious cycle of "involution-unprofitable-difficult R&D-difficulty-innovation-difficulty in breakthroughs" has, to a certain extent, restricted the upward development of the entire industry.

How to break the deadlock? "Technology is always the core competitiveness." Wu Yiming believes that the biggest difficulty restricting the application of robotic arms is intelligence, that is, how robots can adapt to unstructured scenarios. In this regard, Zhongke Optoelectronics has taken a different approach and opened up the storage and transmission of information with a mathematical method that is different from the AI big model. This technology is now the first in the world and has built a broad moat for enterprises.

In addition, Lu Hanchen suggested that enterprises should work hard in the market. "First, actively go overseas to seek incremental markets abroad; second, deeply cultivate subdivided fields. In the past, the general robot market has basically become a red ocean, but for some subdivided fields, such as shipbuilding, steel structure and other fields with outstanding non-standard attributes, there is still a lot of room." Lu Hanchen said.

It is worth mentioning that the regulation of the market on the policy side also helps the industry to move towards high-quality development. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently issued the "Industrial Robot Industry Standard Conditions (2024 Edition)" and the "Industrial Robot Industry Standard Conditions Management Implementation Measures (2024 Edition)", which put forward comprehensive requirements in terms of technical capabilities and production conditions, quality requirements, sales and after-sales services.

The two documents will promote the quality and efficiency of the entire industrial robot industry chain, accelerate the standardized development of the industry, and encourage enterprises to pay more attention to R&D investment and get rid of disorderly price wars. Domestic leading manufacturers will gain advantages in competition and accelerate the breakthrough of all links in the industrial chain to the middle and high-end.

Article source: Securities Daily

Reporter: Liu Zhao

Intern reporter: Liu Xiaoyi

Release time: October 11, 2024

Original URL: http://epaper.zqrb.cn/html/2024-10/11/content_1089432.htm

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