The rise of robot industry in China

Recently, Jinguo, a researcher at the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, published a study in the journal Science entitled "The achievements of China's robots", commenting on the achievements made in the field of robotics in China. The article aroused a warm response at home.

In an interview with the science and technology daily, Jinguo, author of the article, said that China's robotics technology has made great strides over the past more than 40 years, and has been successfully applied in such extreme environmental tasks as space exploration, deep-sea exploration, disaster relief, and South Polar expedition. His Shenyang Automation Institute has also achieved a number of scientific research achievements in the field of robotics, involving the completion of the "dragon" manned submersible, disaster rescue robot, Antarctic and Arctic Research robots. But he told reporters that China-developed robots also face challenges in environmental adaptability, system reliability, and operational autonomy for future deep space and deep-sea applications. "Although our national robotics industry has made a lot of effort, the state of robotics and industry is not optimistic," he said.

Super 70% relies on imported high-performance electromechanical devices especially

Jinguo's "not optimistic" first question is dependence on imports. China's robot imports are mainly embodied in two levels, the import of the machine and the import of key components, both imports in more than 70%. High-performance electromechanical devices are particularly lacking in technology.

The whole research and development process of robot has requirement analysis, system design, device acquisition, ontology processing, integration testing and system application. The high performance electromechanical devices are closely related to the whole robot development process. High-performance electromechanical devices, such as motors, reducers and actuators, act as "organs" or "muscles" of the robot, which is essential for the realization of the main function of the robot. As far as robot products are concerned, the main high-performance electromechanical devices include high precision reducer, servo motor and drive.

Jinguo to the science and technology Daily reporter introduced, there have been experts to do cost analysis, most robotic products, high-precision reducer, servo motor, servo drive will account for more than half of the total cost of the robot; with a domestic 50 kg industrial robot for example, reducer, servo motor, The cost of Servo drive is 35%, 14%, 13%. These high-performance devices are currently mainly imported from Japan, the United States and Europe, such as precision reducer market by foreign Nabtesco, Harmonicdrive, Sumitomo and other large companies monopolized. Most of these devices in China are priced at twice times the original price and above, and some high-performance grade products are even banned in China.

Jinguo said that if the high performance electromechanical devices import dependence situation can not be improved, China's robot industry is difficult to develop and grow, neither a foothold in the domestic market, but also can not open up overseas markets.

One of the reasons for this situation is that our country started late in the field of robotics, the market is not mature enough, research and development investment is less, on the other hand, because of the poor convergence between research and development and application results in low input-output efficiency. Jinguo suggested that in the aspect of investment financing and output efficiency management, we can draw on the public-private partnership model of the development of European robot industry, shorten the distance between capital, technology and market.

Market is still starting to be monopolized by foreign enterprises

In July this year, Wang, president of China Machinery Industry Federation, said that in 2013 China had become the world's largest industrial robot market. Although the robot industry market prospects are very clear, but at present, domestic robots in the domestic and international market share is not high. National "Twelve-Five" "863 Plan" advanced manufacturing field Intelligent Robot subject group leader Zhao concluded that the 2013 China robot market, applied in the field of welding and other fields of more technical content of the multi-joint robot is almost monopolized by foreign investment; domestic robot mainly three axes, four axes mainly, is still in the lower unit price of the industrial robot state, mainly used in the field of low performance requirements.

In recent years, robot research and manufacturing has been developing rapidly, many local governments in the development of planning, the provision of preferential policies and the construction of large parks to develop the robot industry, into the robotics industry has gradually increased. In this respect, Jinguo also said, "in the bustling behind, we need more calm thinking." He said that in the 80 's, the United States, the robot industry has been a large number of corporate losses, although the cause of loss and the market environment is not the same, but enterprises must be profitable technology and price advantages and sufficient market capacity. The global robotics companies such as ABB, Japan Fanuc, Germany Kuka and so on have already put a lot of resources into the Chinese market in advance; in the robotic industry chain, these foreign companies have mastered the inherent advantages of upstream core components, On the other hand, through the establishment of supporting subsidiaries in the product user location to grasp the advantages of downstream industry applications, so in the price and cost to occupy an absolute advantage, will certainly annex the robot market in China, resulting in the development of domestic robot industry space will be further deteriorated.

Multi-pronged tree Chinese brand

To crack the rise of the national Robot brand, increase investment in research and development, improve core technical capacity, etc. is the only way, many enterprises have formed a consensus.

Wang Weiming, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Equipment, has pointed out four major problems in robotics development: the first is the robot industry's independent research and development ability lag behind; the second is that the key industries, such as controller and precision overhaul equipment, are heavily dependent on imports; third, the lack of policy support guidance, market application and promotion is difficult, domestic robots are difficult to enter automobiles, electronics, Bio-pharmaceutical and other fields, foreign brands occupy the vast majority of the Chinese robot market, four are overvalued market demand, all over the horse-racing project.

Jinguo also has his own ideas for the current problems in robotics development, and he recommends that the situation be improved from four levels. The first is the level of national organization management, the state requires long-term and stable investment and strengthen industry management, promote the government, production, learning, research, use and other multi-party cooperation and communication, promote the orderly and healthy development of China's robot industry. Ministry of Industry has made a special dispatch ("Industrial and information technology to promote the development of industrial robot Industry Guidance") on the development of industrial robot industry in China planning, but jinguo that this is still not enough, "management also need to further integrate our national conditions for the top level design."

He said that the domestic technological breakthrough is the second aspect of the problem to be solved. "We need to develop robot system ontology and its key components of the design analysis, manufacturing process, test testing, standard specifications and other core technology research, strengthen the robot field of cutting-edge technology and advance research, increase the independent technical reserve." "Jinguo said," in the domestic industrial development level, play now established robot Industry Technology Innovation Strategic alliance role, reduce low-level duplication and blind investment, focus on the strength of research to achieve the core components localization, autonomy, the realization of large-scale enterprises, supporting enterprises cluster, significantly reduce costs and prices. At the level of international competition, the main research institutions and enterprises in the field need to take the initiative to go abroad, strengthen the contact with relevant foreign enterprises or institutions, and take advantage of the existing technologies and markets of foreign countries in such ways as cooperation, investment, holding mergers and acquisitions, and promote their own development. ”

(Responsible editor: Lvguang)