Domestic industrial robot dilemma: absence of core components

The lack of core components is the dilemma and key of domestic industrial robots, which makes China's industrial robots carry a heavy burden from birth and are in a dilemma.

In China, industrial robots have a large application market, as early as 2014, Wang Ruixiang, then president of the China Machinery Industry Federation, said that China has become the world's largest industrial robot market.

However, according to China's industrial robot market share in 2017, the current domestic robot market is still Japan Fanuc, Yaskawa, Germany Kuka, Sweden abb "four families" firmly controlled in the hands, domestic robots only 32.8% of the market share. And most of these competitions are still concentrated in the low-end areas, high-end areas of domestic industrial robots, even less than 5% of the market share. It can be seen that compared with international counterparts, domestic robot enterprises in the domestic and international market share is not high, the technical level is still a large gap, the entire country's robot technology and industry status quo, is not optimistic.

Why are domestic robots in such an awkward situation?

Many robot manufacturers react, the main problem of domestic robots is that the core components can only be imported, the cost can not be reduced, and it is difficult to form mass production, even if the robot is successfully sold, the important components are from imports, only a small number of enterprises have the ability to achieve independent research and development of a certain type of component, resulting in the need to sell more expensive than foreign products. Create a vicious circle in the market.

The lack of core components is the dilemma and key of domestic industrial robots, which makes China's industrial robots carry a heavy burden from birth and are in a dilemma.

In general, industrial robots have three main parts, which are reducer, controller and servo system. In most robot products, these three accounts for more than half of the total cost of robots. Robot industry research expert Luo Baihui has analyzed that taking a common domestic 50 kg industrial robot as an example, the cost of the reducer, servo motor, and servo drive accounted for 35%, 14%, and 13% respectively.

If you think of the robot as a person, the controller is the spine and brain of the robot. A controller with a serial or parallel structure, with a flexible programmable system, used to control a robot or assist a human in completing a task. In comparison, the gap between domestic and foreign countries in this area is the smallest, because the technical difficulty is not large, so some of the more mature robot companies in China are able to independently develop.

The reducer is more like the joint of the robot's hands, feet and even the whole body. As the most basic mechanical part, it helps the robot to carry out turnover and call as a whole. The robot reducer is mainly divided into rv reducer and harmonic reducer. At present, 70% of the world's precision reducer market is occupied by Japan's Hamanaco and Nabotsk, especially in China. And foreign brands with good quality high-quality reducer, often spend 2 to 3 times the price in order to purchase. Fortunately, the domestic reducer in the past two years is also vigorously developed, especially competitive. For example, in 2017, the domestic reducer market demand of about 300,000 units, the domestic reducer accounted for about 20% of the market, the demand for foreign reducer also dropped from nearly 85% in 2016 to less than 80%. I believe that in the near future, these two figures will be closer.

Practitioners generally believe that the survival environment of domestic robot core components is the most difficult, and the biggest technological gap is the servo motor system. Servo motor is the execution unit of robot and the main factor affecting the performance of robot. The European and American servo overload capability led by Siemens, Rockwell, etc., is strong, and the dynamic performance is good, while the Japanese brands led by Yaskawa Panasonic, etc., account for the small size and the price is cheap; As for the country, although some domestic manufacturers seem to be able to produce servo motors, but the reliability can not meet the requirements, the failure rate is too high, few robot manufacturers dare to use. In China's servo market, Japanese products with more advanced technology and performance occupy nearly 60% of the Chinese market with good cost performance, followed by Europe, the United States and Taiwan, accounting for 20% and 10%, respectively, while the domestic servo motor market share, from 2015 to 2017, only less than 20% of the share.

The most important instrument of the state must not be given to others. Let these core components to achieve localization, high-end, increase research and development investment, improve core technical capabilities, etc., is to open up the two arteries of domestic robot problems, crack the key factors of the rise of national robot brands, but also the domestic robot more than 100 difficulties, the only way to rise. Only in this way, domestic industrial robots can reduce manufacturing costs, maintain better stability and brand reputation, and fully improve our market competition rate at home and in the world.