Behind China's robotic industry: low-end repeat hidden risks

The robot in the virtual world is amazing, from the Autobots in the deformed gold steel to the intelligent robot in Interstellar crossing. In reality, in two areas of industry and service, the robot industry is subverting the past development pattern.

The age of robotics is already coming. China sits in the world's largest consumer market and the largest manufacturing volume, is also facing a robot industry brought a feast, attracting the government, enterprises, capital and consumers of concern and expectations.

But behind the fiery robot, the market needs to think cold. Facing the siege of international giants, how can our enterprises break through? How to avoid the old road of automobile and PV industry? How does capital pry the industrial breakthrough?

With these questions, "daily economic news" reporters in various interviews recently, trying to restore the real situation of China's robot industry and the plight of the path of the industry breakthrough.

Among the disruptive technologies that affect the future, advanced robots are listed in the 5th place by McKinsey, a consultancy, and the trillion-dollar market is also high on the list. "The jewel of the manufacturing crown" is logically falling on the robot's head. For the industrial feast, the world's major economies, including China, have even launched a new round of industrial competition.

The Chinese robot market is the largest and fastest growing, with glossy figures looming over the robotic industry parks. 2013, China sold a total of 37,000 industrial robots, an increase of 60%.

But many years in the industry to the daily economic news reporter said that the robot age only looks beautiful, even for some companies, the "pie" may also be a "trap." From the market share to the core technology, from the industry competition to the development strategy, China's robot industry from the mechanism to the core does not seem to be clear.

China's robot sales increase by 36% annually

In 2013, the McKinsey Global Institute released the "Disruptive technology leading the global economic transformation," the report said, the impact of future disruptive technology, advanced Robots ranked 5th, ranked in the mobile internet, IoT, cloud computing and other technologies.

December 2014, Li Ruifeng, deputy director of the Institute of Robotics, Harbin University of Technology, said at a conference in Chengdu that people, data and machines would be connected to the Internet and large data to promote more advanced equipment and better service generation, "the robot will become the best carrier to accomplish this mission."

"To make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics go beyond the Beijing Olympics, Japan has decided to add a robotic athletics unit to the opening ceremony." "A person in the industry said that all countries in the world are actively responding to the new technology industrial Revolution, contending for international industry competition discourse right." The developed countries have also deployed the robot industry from the national level, including the U.S. re-industrial planning, Japan's new industrial development strategy, the Korean robot future strategy and German Industry 4.0.

Relevant statistics show that 2001 ~2013 year, the global robot growth rate of 7.2%, 2013 annual sales reached a record high of 179,000 units. 2014 is expected to exceed 200,000 units. Brokers report optimistic forecasts, the next 10 years, the global industrial robotics industry will enter an unprecedented high-speed development period.

China's robot market is the largest and fastest growing. 2013, China sold a total of 37,000 industrial robots, an increase of 60%. In 2008-2013 years, China's robot sales growth rate of 36% per annum. Currently, one of the 5 robots sold worldwide is installed in China.

At present, the number of robots per million workers in Chinese manufacturing is 23~25, below the global average of 58 units. Some analysts believe that, according to Japan, South Korea's experience, as a country per capita GDP reached about 6000 dollars, the application of robots began to grow rapidly, China has arrived at this point in time.

With the Ministry of Industry in 2013 No. 511 "on the promotion of industrial robot development Guidance," the release of the various parts of the country has introduced the guidance of robot development, from local governments to private capital, have set off a wave of robotics, 2014 also became the first year of China's robot development.

Along with it, the robotic industrial park has sprung up everywhere. Brokerage statistics show that the country has built or proposed robot industrial park (base) has more than 30. Investment quota, the existing local robot industrial park to 2020 planning investment of more than 500 billion yuan.

"There may be two robotic companies born every week in 2014." "Industry figures. At the same time, the capital market now has more than 50 robot concept companies. Li Ruifeng said, "Although many belong to the low-end enterprises, but the number of Chinese robot enterprises may be blowout." ”

Low-end repetition behind high heat

Robot National Engineering Center deputy Director, Siasun Robot AG President Qutauqui that 2014 robot industry is "Enterprise heat, government heat, the national heat." However, Qutauqui said, how to avoid low-level quality duplication and other issues, test the wisdom of the Government and enterprises.

Li Ruifeng also believes that through the integration of local parks, the establishment of a good industrial chain, instead of using the technology of repeated low-end to rob the market, Rob Resources, this will confuse the whole market pattern.

"In China, most of the time the robot refers to the robotic arm, the next generation of robots are human-machine synergy, industrial interconnection." "In Qutauqui's view, the current definition of the traditional robot is programmable devices, and the new generation of robots are fully autonomous systems, is a real intelligent robot, the application of the field has a brand-new change." As a result, the future of the robot market up to trillions of yuan, and now common robotic robots almost completely different.

In fact, the global number of industrial robots is only 1.6 million, the international replacement rate is only 5.08%, China's replacement rate is only 0.23%. Qutauqui thinks, the robot uses less, the substitution quantity is few, because the industrial robot technology is limited, in the nimble work, the inconsistent environment manufacture and the human-machine cooperation and so on domain, the traditional robot's limitation is very obvious, faces the very big challenge.

In the case of China, academician Yang Huayong of Chinese Academy of Engineering believes that China's current robotics industry is weak in innovation, key components controlled, product reliability is low, industry high-end lack.

But in fact, there are a lot of results in China's robotics patents. But there are insiders blunt, the patent results are more domestic professional, less international patent, conversion value is small, or lack of real things.

The 2014 International Robotics Association IFR released a report that China's robotics industry lacks technological innovation, including innovative ideas and creative achievements; there is no backbone enterprise that can participate in international competition, the scale is very small, the quality and reliability of key parts are 5-10 years behind the world advanced level.

"Although the robotics industry looks beautiful, it's a worrying and even a walking ice-skating sensation," he said. "China Light group Changsha Changtai Robot Co., Ltd., general manager of the international robot and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance vice President Yang also said that the same quality of robot products domestic enterprises can obtain little profit; robot production enterprises are generally small scale, it is difficult to form scale effect; enterprise human, research and marketing costs remain high , the domestic robot lacks the brand cognition and the production Practice test.

The shuffling period faces high risk

In fact, the problems of technology and products are directly reflected in the market. China's robot demand has become the world's first, even in the next twenty or thirty years are the world's largest market. But at present, the domestic robot enterprise market accounted for less than 20%, the remaining 80% were owned by foreign robot giant Enterprises.

The Changjiang Securities Research and Development report shows that 2013, the foreign brand multi-joint robot sales 22616 units, accounting for China's multi-joint installation of 92%. 2013, the Chinese market sold a total of 36860 robots, from the origin of robots, domestic enterprises occupy the market 26%, foreign capital occupies 74%.

In fact, after more than 40 years of continuous development, the international market has formed the robot industry "four families", they have been laid out in China. In the Chinese market, robot price and product reliability competition is very fierce.

Li Ruifeng said that the existing problems of China's robot development, may be the market development is not so fast, we all think that the Chinese robot development, but the real market is difficult or big, the robot application team is not enough, the maturity of the technology is not enough.

Industrial robot products have the standard high-end manufacturing attributes, heavy assets, investment cycle long. Industry insiders revealed that the current situation of domestic robot enterprises, parts industry losses, the autonomous brand ontology robot only annual sales of more than 500 units can be profitable, and system integrators profit meager.

"The sudden outbreak of the big market is a pie or a trap?" "Qutauqui at the industry conference, he believes that the enterprise must realize that the robot is not everyone's imagination of the pie, it is probably a trap." So the enterprise must be rational.

"Traditional robots have gone down the high tech altar and are facing greater risks." Qutauqui said robot is a typical "three high", high technology density, high talent density, high capital density, but the "three high" industry the entire market performance has entered a very low level of output, which let the next step of the robot who to invest, who to develop into a difficult problem.

Even so, Qutauqui is still confident. He believes that the future of the global robot industry in the next 5-10 years will be a big change in the pattern, China is likely to be the birth of a group of excellent robot enterprises. The key is to use the market approach, open, international and continuous exchanges.

In addition, Qutauqui that the window period is very critical, the key point of China's development in 2015, global enterprises in China's layout is basically completed, this time really into the white-hot competition. China's technology industry is likely to shuffle after 5 years.

The market is equal to the global enterprise, under such conditions, because the Chinese enterprises are confronted with foreign competition prematurely, the enterprise growth time is gone. Qutauqui put forward, "We are still in the cradle, suddenly faced with such a big competition, Chinese enterprises How to grow?" ”

China to develop robot industry roadmap

Similarly, many in the industry worry that the Chinese robot industry may repeat the mistakes of the auto industry. Some industry entrepreneurs sigh that China's auto consumption has become the world's largest market, but where has the Chinese auto industry gone? China has lost the development opportunities brought by the big market. "We do a lot of high-tech industry, but China's industry chain division of labor almost into the lowest end of the processing and manufacturing, the robot industry in the future will have such potential risks." ”

Faced with the "internal and internal challenges" of the robot industry, many people in the industry have proposed to focus on developing autonomous technologies to achieve localization of robotic components.

But Qutauqui does not seem to agree with this view. "China should use the big explosion of the robot market to develop the robotic industry chain, including parts and components," he said. But it does not mean that Chinese robot parts do go up, the Chinese robot industry can become the world's first. ”

For China's robot competitiveness and domestic parts of the relationship, Qutauqui that can be through the unconventional development of resource integration development, if still in accordance with the conventional development, can only chase farther, never beyond.

Qutauqui that the core technology is still to have, but completely rely on their own core technology, it is likely to lose the development of the robot industry a major opportunity. Because the current competition is not simple with several technologies, a few products can compete, first of all, to see the comprehensive strength of enterprises, the enterprise model.

There are a lot of robots. Business owners believe that robot enterprises should be combined with Internet enterprises to learn the latest foreign models, the use of global capital, the introduction of global talent, to learn from China's electric business development model is the future development trend.

But Qutauqui suggested that the robotics industry should be designed at the national level, focusing on the development of international robotics, and that no international enterprise could become a world-class industry. China's high-speed rail model is a good example of the country's main resources concentrated in two companies, using domestic market outbreaks to train China's own high-speed trains. Therefore, one of the most important ways for robots to succeed in the future is to take the path of integrating resources.

On the question of "creating in China", December 20, 2014, at the International robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry conference in Chengdu, the 11th session of the CPPCC Vice President Zhang Meiying said that the promotion of robotics and intelligent equipment industry development, first of all, from the application market to help enterprises in accordance with market demand to improve production, manufacturing processes, Logistics transportation process and service means, through the establishment of automated production lines and information means to gradually improve the level of science and technology.

Not long ago, the Ministry of Industry and the media said that the next step from a number of aspects to strengthen industrial management, and further promote the development of robotics industry, including the organization of the development of China's robot road map and robot industry "Thirteen-Five" planning. The roadmap and planning include strengthening the policy support to the robotics industry, exploring the establishment of the robot industry admittance system, building the docking platform of production and demand, promoting the popularization and application of industrial robots, and carrying out the work of cultivating the demonstration base of the robot industry.

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Industry trends

Service robot will welcome blowout China must break through the bottleneck of "human-machine interaction"

Every journalist Du Yu music from Chengdu

As the high-end field of the current service robot industrialization, the breakthrough of human-machine interaction technology has been a threshold. But in the opinion of the relevant experts, the technology gap between China and foreign countries is not big in the service robot, China is expected to achieve a "corner overtaking" within 3-5 years.

December 21, 2014, in the "Service Robot Industry Analysis" Sub-forum, Singapore Academy of Engineering, the Director of Robotics Research Center, international robot and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance vice President Ge Shuzhi stood in the spotlight of the lecture, not without pride to say "robot into the family, into the community, This is not a prophecy. Six or seven years ago, he was vigorously advocating the study of "human-computer interaction," the world-class key issue. At the time, however, it seemed that "human-computer interaction" was somewhat distant at home.

Authoritative statistics revealed that in the world, the current service robot close to 25 million sets, 28 billion dollar market, the 2017 service robot is expected to surpass the industrial robot, to 50 billion ~700 billion dollars.

2017 output value 70 billion USD

Beijing Aerospace University professor, the National 863 plan "XV" robot theme expert Group leader Wang Tianyao also said, "The service robot age, is quietly approaching us." ”

The authoritative report revealed that, in the world, to the family personal service robot and special environmental services dedicated robot products sales, personal, family, industry service-oriented service robot close to 25 million sets, 28 billion U.S. dollars, more than half of the industrial robot market. Wang Tianyao estimated that the 2017-year service robot output exceeds the industrial robot, reaching 50 billion ~700 billion dollars.

Wang Tianyao also cited as an example, "irobot clean robot growth of more than 25% a year, the Leonardo da Vinci medical surgery robot net profit of more than 35%, the Israeli wearable rehabilitation robot Company market value reached 8 billion U.S. dollars, the domestic big Xinjiang unmanned aircraft Sales 3-year growth 80 times times." ”

"Robot from industry to service, especially the innovative service robot has the characteristics of explosive growth, by the vast number of investors attention." Wang Tianyao stressed.

Wang Tianyao explains that this area is a paradise for young people to start a business, not only creates the practical technology, but also creates the market demand, but because does not have the unified product form and the technical system, is still in the decentralized high speed development stage, but all has the high growth, for instance the family clean autonomous vacuum cleaner, the window-cleaning machine, the monitor, the medical surgical robot, Can wear medical rehabilitation robot, military UAV and ground reconnaissance robot, logistics mobile robot and so on.

At the beginning of 2014, Google proposed to purchase 3.2 billion U.S. dollars smart home company Nestlab, to enter the digital home field opened a "convenient channel." According to the Wall Street Journal, Google's ambitions may be more than that, with the aim of controlling the user's "Basic necessities".

Breakthrough "Human-machine interaction" problem

"Manipulation is important to service robots. For example, we often talk about robots that help us clean our rooms and clean our desks, and many people study this field but industrialization is unsuccessful. But there are a number of specific robots, such as a hospital robot to help us carry things, is a kind of manipulation. "said Matthew Mason, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States.

Matthew Mason admits that robotic manipulation is a big challenge in family services. They need to identify some straightforward and straightforward actions. That is to say, the service robot needs to start with some simple actions of simulating human beings to achieve manipulation. In fact, the ultimate goal in this area is to achieve "human-computer interaction."

Compared with industrial robots, service robots are much more difficult to realize human-computer interaction. Wang Tianyao explains, "from the carrier, the mechanical to the perception, to the intelligent control, coupled with the related interaction, the robot system in the industry is complete, can borrow and support each other, but in the service robot is difficult to support, including software, perception, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction." ”

December 20, 2014 afternoon, in the CCTV "dialogue" live scene, a microphone delivery service robot, the slow operation of the normal. Helpless, the host had to ridicule that the service robot seems to go a long way.

In fact, security considerations have become an important reason for the slow development of service robots over the years. Relevant experts believe that Japan in the service robot, especially the maintenance of the elderly accompanied by the robot technology to do a good job, but still not a large range of industrialization, the core factor is the fear of runaway robots.

In Ge Shuzhi view, the service robot is not only a simple superposition of functions, the robot does not necessarily have to have arms and legs, but must have a dialogue and other emotional interaction. He stressed that "human-computer interaction must be safe, must be interactive, must be adaptive, which involves a number of key technology breakthroughs." ”

Jianwei, director of the multi-model Technology Institute at Hamburg University in Germany and vice president of the International robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance, also expressed optimism, "China is smaller than the foreign gap, because we have a good price advantage, there is a large user market, easy to test, service robot is completely likely to overtake in 3-5 Compete with other countries in Taiwan. ”

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)