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At the recently held 2022 World Robot Conference, the “China robot Industry Development Report (2022)” was released. It is estimated that in 2022, the global robot market will reach 51.3 billion US dollars.

While Robots are being used in multiple scenarios, robot manufacturing, especially Industrial robot manufacturing, is also in short supply.

　　1. 4,000 robot racers compete on the same field

At the 2022 World Robot Conference last month, 500 advanced technologies and products from 136 companies and scientific research institutions were brought together, and a large number of “robot +” application scenarios were innovatively launched, vividly demonstrating that robots are being deeply integrated into manufacturing and agriculture. , medical and other industries.

This competition focuses on the three major competition directions of technology, skills and popular science, and is close to the application needs of the industry. It has set up a total of 4 major competitions, 56 competitions, BCI brain-controlled robot competition, robot application competition, and youth robot design competition. About 4,000 robot competitors compete in 142 categories.

　2. China’s market size will reach 17.4 billion US dollars

The “China Robot Industry Development Report (2022)” released by the 2022 World Robot Conference shows that the world robot market is booming. It is estimated that in 2022, the global robot market will reach 51.3 billion US dollars.

According to reports, China’s robot market is expected to reach US$17.4 billion in 2022, with a five-year average annual growth rate of 22%. Among them, the market size of industrial robots is expected to reach US$8.7 billion in 2022, US$6.5 billion for service robots, and US$2.2 billion for special robots.

Chen Zhaoxiong, chairman of China Electronics Technology Group Co., Ltd., said in his keynote speech that with the acceleration of the digital age, the use density of industrial robots in my country has continued to increase, which is far higher than the global average. The application field covers more than 60 industry categories and more than 160 industry categories such as automobile, electronics, and light industry, accelerating the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry.

　　3. Let the world’s non-hazardous work special robots become “new favorites”

In the robot “competition” arena where hundreds of flowers are blooming, compared with the familiar service robots and industrial robots, in the exhibition hall of this year’s Robot Conference, special robots used in different scenarios have become a new “hall red”.

At the booth of Shihe Technology Co., Ltd., a ship rust removal robot is adsorbing on a test ship board to remove rust “meticulously”. “This is our self-developed Highmate V40 water jet rust removal robot. Based on the flexible permanent magnet adsorption chassis technology, it has the characteristics of high load-to-weight ratio and strong surface adaptability. It can replace manpower for high-altitude operations and avoid high-risk risks. It can realize 100% recovery of rust removal wastewater, which greatly improves the efficiency and quality of rust removal.” said Lu Baoan, deputy general manager of Shihe Technology.

It is understood that traditional ship rust removal is generally carried out by dry sandblasting, which causes great pollution to the surrounding environment. The prevalence of pneumoconiosis among sandblasting workers and the incidence of cancer among surrounding residents remain high. This robot adopts a combination of ultra-high pressure water jet and disk recycling, collects the hazardous waste mud formed by rust removal through a vacuum collector, and then performs solid-liquid separation and gravity separation, and then completes after multiple filtration. Recycling of water resources, greatly improving environmental protection and cleanliness standards.

“Our goal is to ‘make the world free from dangerous jobs’,” Lu Baobao said. This has also become the original intention of Lilac Technology to develop special robots. At the booth of Lisheng Technology, the world’s first high-temperature reconnaissance robot was small, but it attracted the attention of the audience.

“The biggest highlight of this robot is that it is light and flexible. The overall weight is only 30 kilograms, and firefighters can carry it with one hand.” According to the person in charge of the booth, this high-temperature reconnaissance robot adopts a high-temperature protection design of 350 degrees Celsius, which can be compared with Go deep into the dangerous high-temperature fire field for a long time, and obtain important information such as the location of the disaster source, the spread of the flame, the degree of structural collapse, etc., so as to reduce casualties and property losses.

Mountaineering, hiking, rescue… With the continuous expansion of market demand, special robots have begun to enter our lives more and more. “With the upgrading of robot technology and the wide range of application scenarios, robots can help humans to complete a variety of tasks. Compared with entertainment and daily services, especially in response to emergencies, earthquakes, floods and mining accidents, fires, In dangerous work such as security, robots should play a greater role.” said Chen Li, co-founder of Yushu Technology Co., Ltd.

According to the data released at the conference, since 2017, the average annual growth rate of my country’s special robot market has reached 30.7%. It is estimated that by 2024, the market size of China’s special robots is expected to reach 3.4 billion US dollars. It is foreseeable that special robots have ushered in an opportunity period of new demand outbreaks.

　4. From medical field to industrial manufacturing

　　my country has become the world’s largest application market for robots

Robot doctors, robot couriers, robot waiters… In recent years, more and more robots have appeared in all walks of life in China. Compared with robots that were “clumsy and can only do simple work” in the past, robots are now more and more flexible, and their application scenarios are becoming more and more abundant. Data shows that my country has become the largest application market for robots in the world.

Recently, a child from Hefei City, Anhui Province underwent a “radical resection of megacolon” in the First Affiliated Hospital of China University of Science and Technology. The “chief doctor” of the operation was a robot named “Daqi”. Is Robotic surgery reliable? The answer is that it is not only reliable but also has first-class technology. According to the attending doctor of the child, because the child is young and light in weight, and the operation needs to free the pelvic ganglion-free intestinal canal, it is more difficult, so the operation must be very delicate. In this regard, the stability and precision of the robot are very high. The operation lasted more than 3 hours, and the intraoperative blood loss was only 20 ml.

Medical treatment is a major field of domestic robot application. Surgical robots are known as “a new way of next-generation surgery” and have been used in many hospitals in China. Compared with previous World Robot Conferences, this year’s World Robot Conference Expo has also set up a “Robot + Medical” exhibition area, with many exhibitors. Industry experts believe that the application of medical robots in interventional medicine can not only alleviate the problem of the long learning curve of medical staff, but also achieve more precise and standardized operations in surgery, and has a large clinical application space.

Industry is also an area of ​​focus for robotics applications. As a master of digital and intelligent technologies, intelligent manufacturing led by industrial robots has become the main path for the transformation and upgrading of the domestic manufacturing industry.

In the crane manufacturing plant of Xugong Group Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., the intelligent production line runs at high speed. The entire production process only needs a worker to click the mouse, and the rest is done by industrial robots. As a world-renowned crane manufacturer, XCMG has built the world’s first intelligent welding production line for crane turntables, which realizes machine substitution, 100% pass rate for one-time welding, and more than 100% increase in production efficiency. In XCMG’s heavy-duty coating intelligent production line, the outriggers of the product are sprayed by two 7-axis spraying robots, and the paint utilization rate has increased from 51% to over 65%, which also eliminates the occupational health hazards caused by this position to workers.

The application of emerging technologies such as industrial robots and artificial intelligence has made production more flexible and efficient. Shunde District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province is the largest production base for small household appliances such as electric fans and microwave ovens in the country. Here, an intelligent microwave oven production line can offline a microwave oven every 8 seconds, and more than 20 screws on a microwave oven box. , only the last one needs to be manually tightened. Originally, the production line that could only produce one type of microwave oven can produce microwave oven products of various specifications at one time after automation and intelligent transformation.

In recent years, my country’s manufacturing industry has accelerated automation and intelligent upgrades, and machine substitution and human-machine collaboration have become a trend and consensus. According to the “World Robot 2021 Industrial Robot Report” released by the International Federation of Robotics, the number of industrial robots running in Chinese factories in 2021 will reach a record 943,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 21%, and continues to grow rapidly. At present, industrial robots have covered 60 major categories of industries and 168 middle categories of my country’s national economy. The growth in demand for industrial robots has also spawned the rapid development of industrial robot manufacturing. According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2021, the output of industrial robots in my country will reach 366,000 units, an increase of 10 times over 2015, making it the world’s largest industry. Robot market.

　5. From the lowest end of the value chain to the international initiative of independent research and development

Innovative enterprises continue to emerge, and core components have achieved phased breakthroughs

Shenyang SIASUN Robot Automation Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as SIASUN), a leading enterprise in the domestic robotics industry, released its new product, the mobile robot “Xingweilai”, at the 2022 World Robot Conference. The core algorithms, control systems, and navigation methods adopted by “Xingweilai” are the innovative achievements of SIASUN’s independent research and development and even the first in the industry. It can be said that it integrates a number of leading technologies.

Although in the eyes of the outside world, “Xingweilai” shines with star light, but for Xinsong, such product innovation has become commonplace. Including my country’s first industrial robotic arm, many first (sets) of Chinese robots were born in Xinsong. Since its establishment 22 years ago, SIASUN has created more than 100 firsts in my country’s robot industry, and hundreds of robot products have completely independent intellectual property rights.

SIASUN’s digital intelligent manufacturing workshop is a kingdom of robots. Not only the products on the assembly line are robots, but the manufacturing workers are also robots. From warehousing, logistics, assembly, spraying to testing, there are scenes of high-tech scenes of “robots making robots”.

“The robots engaged in production in the factory are all made by ourselves.” SIASUN President Zhang Jin told reporters, “SIASUN is a robot company with the most complete product line in the world. It not only produces single robot products, but also provides overall smart factory solutions. For example, in the field of automobile manufacturing, we have developed China’s first industrial robot with a load of 120kg, etc., taking the lead in realizing the large-scale application of domestic industrial robots in the field of automobile welding.”

Talking about the reasons for the company’s success, Du Zhenjun, president of Siasun Central Research Institute, said that the first reason is the improvement of scientific and technological innovation capabilities. Since 2013, the company has obtained a total of 621 authorized patents, the R&D investment has increased by about 8 times, and the R&D team has increased to more than 4,000 people. Relying on innovative breakthroughs, SIASUN not only solved the situation that domestic industrial robots depended on imports, but also realized the first export of Chinese robots.

In Du Zhenjun’s impression, over the years, the company has experienced too many “from 0 to 1”. Countless new challenges have been received, and the company’s reply is “no problem” when faced with the customer’s “can it be done” question. The most impressive example for Du Zhenjun was the “8 Minutes in Beijing” at the closing ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, where 24 Xinsong mobile robots perfectly cooperated with roller skating dancers. “When the director team approached us, the R&D and production cycle from project planning to cooperating with robots was less than 4 months. And the requirements this time were completely different from the past. The mobile robots we made before were mainly used in factories, paths Most of them are straight lines and circular arcs. But this time it is for performance, with complex action designs, and requires multiple robots to interact with actors accurately.” Du Zhenjun said that in order to complete this task, the company has specially developed a new navigation control. Algorithms, never imagined before, can accomplish so many technological breakthroughs in such a short period of time.

According to the data of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in recent years, domestic innovative robot companies like Xinsong have emerged. parts, etc. Chongqing Huashu Robot Co., Ltd. is one of the 101 companies. Wang Xuli, executive deputy general manager of Wasu, introduced that at present, the company has conquered more than 300 core robot technologies, and the autonomy rate of core components exceeds 80%. What makes Wang Xuli particularly proud is that the company has overcome the problem of the core system of industrial robots in my country, and realized the localization of the modular driver MCU under the condition that it is difficult to find one core. And through innovation in robot structure and control algorithm, it has won the first invention in the world.

Ten years ago, my country’s robot market was still dominated by overseas products, and domestic robots could only do system integration for foreign investors, which was at the lowest end of the value chain. From imitation to originality, the enhancement of independent innovation capability allows Chinese robot companies to gradually occupy a place in the fierce market competition. Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said: “In recent years, the basic capabilities of China’s robotics industry have been significantly improved, and core components have achieved phased breakthroughs. Some key technologies in core software, represented by the robotic operating system, have made progress and have been put into practical applications.”

Article source: Workers Daily, Sohu Government Affairs, New Times China.com