For many years, China has been the world’s number one industrial robot application market and one of the fastest growing markets for industrial robots. The reporter recently visited the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and visited a number of listed companies in the robotics industry to understand the current status of the industry and future trends. According to industry insiders, there is still a certain gap between domestic industrial robot products and the international level, but the key technologies of the core components are gradually catching up, and the localization replacement of industrial robots is accelerating. In the future, China's industrial robotics industry is expected to continue its rapid growth.
Domestic technologies gradually catch up
From the structural point of view, the industrial robot consists of four parts: reducer, servo motor, controller, and body. However, the top three components with the highest technical difficulty have been monopolized by foreign-funded enterprises in recent years, and the domestic robot machine manufacturing is severely restricted by the key components. At present, this situation is gradually changing.
According to industry insiders, there are not many manufacturers that have independent R&D and production of robot core components such as controllers, servo motors, and speed reducers. With the vigorous support of the country and the surge in market demand, more and more domestic companies have emerged as a result. At present, China has made breakthroughs in the key core technology of robots as an important strategy. Domestic manufacturers have overcome some of the challenges in key core components such as retarders and servo motors.
Take Eston as an example, the company is one of the few domestic manufacturers with independent intellectual property rights for robots, controllers, AC servos, speed reducers, and other core components. The various types of core components produced are widely used in the field of automation control. The rate is among the best in domestic brands.
"After years of research and development and investment, the company's industrial robots and intelligent manufacturing system products have obvious advantages in welding, palletizing, loading and unloading, and bending. Some products such as bending robots and their work units have reached international standards. Leading level.†Eston chairman Wu Bo told reporters.
Xinshida has independent intellectual property rights in the control and drive technology of the robot body, and has independently developed innovative products such as 6-DOF industrial robots, SCARA, and network servo systems. The company’s chairman Ji Yu introduced that the company’s scara robots are international brands, and the number of self-produced robots in the first half of this year has exceeded 1,000 units, establishing the leading position in the domestic robotics and motion control industry.
“At present, key technologies for core parts and components are making major breakthroughs. Some of them have achieved industrial applications in small batches and have reduced the dependence on the core components of the industry.†The head of a domestic reducer manufacturer stated that this can reduce the cost of domestic robots. It will also break the restrictions of foreign brands.
The role of the capital market appears
With the help of the capital market, some companies have successfully raised capital to expand production lines and seize market scale and discourse power; some companies have merged and acquired business synergy, and laid out industrial chains and industry-leading technologies. While driving improvement in performance, technology, and scale, it also promoted the rapid growth of China's industrial robot industry.
For example, the successful issuance of convertible bonds by Xinshida successfully raised 880 million yuan. "From the perspective of future development, the company's robotic product capacity is insufficient. One of the convertible bond raising and investment projects is to solve the problem of insufficient productivity of the company's robotic products," said the company's responsible person.
Eston passed a fixed increase of 950 million yuan in 2016 for projects such as R&D and industrialization of robotic intelligent manufacturing systems and robot intelligent plant upgrades. “At present, the company's robotic body production capacity is about 2000 sets/year, and there are sufficient orders in hand, but there is a situation of tight production capacity. The company has prepared for the rapid expansion of the production capacity, and is currently constructing 180 acres of industrial robots and smart manufacturing industries. Park capacity planning for 15,000 sets of robots.†Eston chairman Wu Bo introduced.
At the same time of increasing production capacity, Eston completed the acquisition of British TRIO, holding of German MAi, equity participation in BARRETT and other overseas investment mergers and acquisitions in the United States this year, laying out advanced technology in advance and developing a TRIO-based controller + ESTUN servo system. The complete solution for motion control.
Many robot companies use the capital market to build a complete industrial chain layout. In June of this year, Hyundai acquired Shanzhe Controls, which started with the development, manufacture, and sales of servo drives and other motion control system products, for 405 million yuan, and used the control layer, drive layer, executive layer, and equipment of intelligent manufacturing equipment. Layers, engineering applications and other physical layers, to create a "core components - ontology - application - information" of a complete industrial chain development pattern.
In addition, HKUST has successively acquired Yong Gan Electromechanical, Hua Xiao Precision, and Guanzhi Automation last year and completed the complete industrial chain layout of “Smart Transfer Arm (Hand)—AGV (Foot)—Flexible Production Line (Human)â€. .
High-speed growth will continue
In the past two years, the downstream demand for industrial robots has been booming, and the number of manufacturers of on-body robots has been increasing. This has driven the development of domestic key component manufacturers. The breakthrough of core components has helped the ontology manufacturers reduce costs and further promote industrial applications of industrial robots. , forming a virtuous circle.
In this situation, the trend of localization of core components has become apparent, and the proportion of domestic industrial robots in total market sales has steadily increased. "As the domestic technology continues to mature, the proportion of domestic industrial robots will further increase." Zhao Yuanqing, director of Keyuan shares, believes.
According to Yang Ruijun, president of HKUST Smart, the auto production line for flexible welding of automobile bodies independently developed by China has broken the monopoly of this high-end field by foreign companies, and the market share in the future is expected to increase further.
However, a number of industry sources pointed out that the problems faced by domestically produced spare parts are the low market share. On the other hand, the reliability and stability of the quality still need to be improved, especially the high-level algorithm of robots and Germany. Japan and other international industry giants still have a certain gap.
A large-scale listed company executive stated that the company’s current procurement of industrial robots and core components from foreign companies is a complete solution designed for high-end customers. “We cannot afford the risks that can be caused by the superposition of quality and performance issues between our own product solutions and domestically produced products. Unless customers specifically request localization, we still prefer to purchase foreign-funded products in core components.â€
However, this person said that domestic industrial robot products have a higher price advantage, and they are increasingly used in the middle and low-end manufacturing industries. “The large scale of China’s mid- and low-end manufacturing market has provided opportunities for the development of domestic industrial robots. Coupled with the gradual opening up of high-end fields, the future of China’s industrial robotics industry will continue to maintain rapid growth.â€
According to the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's industrial robot production reached 104,800 units from January to October this year, an increase of 68.9% year-on-year, and continued to maintain rapid growth.
"At least three years in the future, the compound annual growth rate of China's industrial robot industry will not be less than 30%." The above executives said.
Incremental Encoder is commonly used, and Absolute Encoder is used if there are strict requirements on position and zero position. Servo system should be analyzed in detail, depending on the application situation. Commonly used incremental encoder for speed measurement, which can be used for infinite accumulation measurement; Absolute encoder is used for position measurement, and the position is unique (single or multiple turns). Finally, it depends on the application situation and the purpose and requirements to be realized.
Incremental Linear Encoders,Linear Optical Encoder,Linear Position Encoder,Encoder Bearing Tester
Yuheng Optics Co., Ltd.(Changchun) , https://www.yhenoptics.com