The hottest industrial robot market is dominated b

The industrial robot market is dominated by foreign countries

although the robot market in China is in great demand and the robot market is also very hot, due to the lack of high-end technology, many demanders prefer to import second-hand robots from foreign robot manufacturers such as KUKA and abb, rather than purchase domestic industrial robots to put into the production line. What on earth is this? How big is the gap between domestic robots and foreign robots

the industrial robot market is occupied by more than half by foreign countries

because the biped balance technology of humanoid robots is more complex than crawler and wheeled robots, it will inevitably bring quite high costs, and it is not as reliable as crawler and wheeled robots. Therefore, compared with the humanoid robot like terminator T800 seen in the film, the "grotesque" industrial robot is now the mainstream in the robot market

as early as 2013, China has become the world's largest industrial robot market. In 2014, the sales volume reached 57000 units, with a year-on-year increase of 56%, accounting for 1/4 of the global sales volume, with a year-on-year increase of 55%, and the holding volume increased to 190000 units

however, as the robot market continues to boom, abb, KUKA, FANUC and Yaskawa account for the vast majority of the global industrial robot market share. There is a big gap between domestic robot enterprises and the four foreign giants abb, KUKA, FANUC and Yaskawa

in 2014, the sales volume of self owned brand industrial robots was 17000 units, accounting for 7.45% of the total sales volume of global industrial robots; In 2015, the sales volume of independent brand industrial robots was 22000, and the domestic market share was still less than 20%, and the share in the global industrial robot market was still less than double digits. In 2016, foreign brands accounted for more than 60% of China's industrial robot market. In terms of relatively high-end multi joint robots with more than six axes, foreign brands accounted for more than 80% of the market

due to the strong support of the state for the robot industry, there are also many domestic enterprises that fish in troubled waters through policies. Many enterprises play concept listing financing or arbitrage policies, and relatively few have core technologies. Moreover, there are still small and scattered problems in the whole industry. The number of industrial robot related enterprises in China has reached more than 1000, but more than 90% of the robot companies have an annual output value of less than 100million yuan, and many manufacturers sell no more than 1000 units per year (only when the annual output exceeds 1000 can the scale effect be initially formed). Even domestic robot leading enterprises such as Shenyang Xinsong have an operating revenue of only 1.69 billion yuan in 2015, In the first quarter of 2016, the operating income was 354million yuan, which was significantly different from the operating income of foreign giants of tens of billions of yuan (in 2016, the net cash flow of FANUC company in Japan was 686.6 billion yen, about 41.5 billion yuan)

there is a large gap between the core technology and foreign countries.

the core technology of robot includes human-computer interaction technology, control technology, environmental perception and sensing technology, material technology, artificial intelligence and other aspects. The key components include precision reducer, controller, servo motor and high-performance driver, and the above key components are largely dependent on imports, Take the reducer that accounts for the highest proportion of robot hardware cost as an example: precision reducer can be divided into harmonic gear reducer, cycloid pin gear planetary reducer, RV Reducer, precision planetary reducer and filter gear reducer. It is the core component of industrial robot, accounting for about 35% of the cost of the whole machine

at present, most of the global precision reducer Market is occupied by Japanese enterprises. Japanese harmonic is the leader in the field of harmonic reducer, accounting for about 15% of the global market share. Japan nabtesco is the world's largest manufacturer of RV Reducer and cycloidal pin gear reducer, and its global market share in the field of RV Reducer is about 60%...

although some units or enterprises have emerged after China has focused on the localization research of precision reducer, It can also partially replace foreign products in the field of high-precision cycloid pin gear reducer and harmonic reducer, but in 2015, 75% of precision reducers were still imported from Japan

the controller is equivalent to the brain of a robot, which is used to issue and transmit action instructions, including hardware and software: hardware is the industrial control board, including some main control units, and the signal processing part of the Dongjiakou Economic Zone in the West Coast new area of Qingdao, where the Jinneng science and technology new material and hydrogen energy comprehensive utilization project with a total investment of about 20billion yuan has been signed. Although many independent brands have mastered the relevant technologies of controllers and developed industrial robot controllers based on CPU, DSP and FPGA, most of the CPUs used are arm, and many of the DSP and FPGA used are from Texas Instruments and Xilinx. Although there are robot controllers based on godson, due to the short time of product launch, few manufacturers have purchased them at present

the software part mainly includes control algorithm, secondary development, etc. independent brands have solved the problem of whether there is one, but there is still a gap with foreign countries in terms of stability, response speed, ease of use, etc

in addition, in terms of servo motors, Japanese companies account for about 40% of the global market share, while German brands such as Siemens, Bosch and Schneider account for about 30% of the global market share. The overall share of domestic companies accounts for about 10%. In terms of drives, 80% of domestic drives are imported from Europe, America and Japan

the gap between the application field and foreign robots

due to the technical gap mentioned earlier, foreign robots are superior to domestic robots in terms of technology progressiveness and maturity. In the relatively complex multi joint robot market, foreign companies account for more than 90% of the domestic market, and the six axis or more high-end industrial robot market in high-end industries such as automobile manufacturing and welding is mainly occupied by Japanese and European and American enterprises, Domestic six axis industrial robots account for less than 10% of the new installed capacity of industrial robots in China

in contrast, domestic industrial robots are mostly concentrated in low-end application fields, such as handling, palletizing and other low-end robots. The application fields are mostly in household appliances and basic manufacturing, and the added value is low. Thus, in recent years, although the demand of Chinese robot market and the product sales of domestic robot enterprises have both increased, many robot enterprises are in a state of loss

there are some problems in cost control

as mentioned earlier, many domestic enterprises have to purchase reducer, servo motor and other parts at a higher price than foreign local manufacturers because many key parts of domestic robots depend on imports. Moreover, the price for domestic enterprises to purchase foreign reducers was once three times that of foreign local manufacturers, and the price for foreign servo motors was once twice that of foreign local manufacturers... As reducers, servo motors, and controllers account for about 35%, 25%, and 15% of the total cost of robots, it is very difficult for Chinese robot enterprises to control production costs

in contrast, many foreign industrial robot manufacturers are themselves suppliers of core components - FANUC of Japan is the world's largest professional manufacturer of numerical control systems, and Yaskawa and Panasonic are one of the world's largest motor manufacturers, which makes foreign robot manufacturers have a natural advantage in cost

in addition, foreign robot manufacturers can also obtain relatively favorable purchase prices with huge purchase volume and signing exclusive agreements. These factors together lead to the fact that it is difficult for Chinese robot enterprises to compete with foreign enterprises in terms of price if they want to ensure the same product quality as foreign similar products

historical reasons for the gap

as for the gap between the robot industry and foreign countries, we should treat it with an ordinary mind. We must not deny the whole China after the tribe, so that the arc surface of the indenter and the test piece form a straight line manufacturing industry. Lagging behind people in the robot industry is caused by historical reasons on the one hand, and there is also a long-term gap with western countries in terms of resource investment

the development of modern industrial robots began in the mid-20th century. One of the first direct development drivers was to work in a nuclear radiation environment. In 1947, the Argonne Institute of the United States developed a remote control manipulator that can operate in a nuclear radiation environment. In 1948, a mechanical master-slave manipulator was developed

in 1954, Daval of the United States designed the first electronically programmable industrial robot. In 1965, Massachusetts Institute of technology successfully developed a robot system with visual sensors that can recognize and locate simple building blocks. In 1967, Kawasaki heavy industry company of Japan introduced robots and technology from the United States, established a production plant, and trial produced the first general-purpose robot made in Japan in 1968, and then promoted robots in various fields

after decades of technology accumulation, foreign robot enterprises have accumulated rich industry experience and technology, which is the reason why they are so powerful in today's international robot market. In contrast, the development of the robot industry in China is much later. It started in the early 1970s. Naturally, there is a certain gap between China and foreign countries in technology

in addition, in the early years, the capital investment of countries in the robot industry was relatively small compared with the investment of western countries in the same period. Take Japan as an example. After the introduction of American robot technology, Japan spared no expense to develop and promote, while the European Union spent a lot of money to support new robot research projects, covering the complete value chain from technology research and development to product deployment, and reached strategic cooperation with industry and academia

many problems of domestic robots are not the problems of robot manufacturing enterprises themselves, but the weak industrial foundation of our country. Moreover, robots are high-tech integrated with many disciplines such as computer, mechanical engineering, electronics, information sensors, control theory, materials, artificial intelligence, bionics and so on. As a late developing country in industry, at this time node, China's civil robots are at a disadvantage compared with Europe, America and Japan, which is rooted in the gap in human, material and financial investment in the past decades, As well as the gap between China and the West on the basis of industry, Chinese people don't have to feel sorry for their temporary backwardness

can we repeat the process from imitation to transcendence?

in the official robot industry development plan (year), it is pointed out that we should focus on the core parts such as high-precision reducer, high-performance robot special servo motor and driver, high-speed and high-performance controller, sensor, end effector, and compare them with the tensile test, so as to finally realize the localization and replacement of core parts

the plan emphasizes the need to break through the top ten landmark products of arc welding robot, vacuum (clean) robot, fully autonomous programming intelligent industrial robot, man-machine cooperation robot, double arm robot, heavy-duty AGV, fire rescue robot, surgical robot, intelligent public service robot and intelligent nursing robot

then, the technological gap with foreign countries is here. What are the specific measures

in view of the fact that many so-called robot enterprises in China are not doing technology sincerely, they are quite arbitraging from policies and the stock market