Industrial robot industry entered a period of rapid development

For years, China has been the number one industrial robotic application market in the world and one of the fastest growing industrial robots in the market. Recently, the reporter visited a number of listed companies in the robot industry with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to understand the status quo and future trends of the industry. Insiders pointed out that at present the domestic industrial robot products and the international level there is a certain gap, but the key components of the core technologies are gradually catching up, localization of industrial robots is accelerating. China's industrial robot industry is expected to maintain its rapid growth in the future.

Domestic technology gradually catch up

From a structural point of view, industrial robots from the reducer, servo motor, controller, the body composed of four major components. However, the top three components with the highest technical difficulty have been monopolized by foreign-funded enterprises in recent years. The manufacture of domestic robots is severely limited by the number of key components. At present, this situation is gradually changing.

According to insiders, at present, there are not many manufacturers that independently develop and manufacture the core components of controllers such as controllers, servo motors and speed reducers. With the strong support from the government and the surge in market demand, more and more domestic manufacturers have emerged as newcomers. At present, China has made breakthroughs in key core technologies of robots as an important strategy. Some domestic manufacturers have overcome some of the key problems in key core components such as retarders and servo motors.

To Eston, for example, the company is one of the few domestic manufacturers with independent intellectual property rights of the robot core components such as controllers, AC servo, reducer, the production of various types of core components are widely used in the field of automation and control, market share Rate in the domestic brands are among the best.

"After many years of research and development and investment, the company's industrial robots and intelligent manufacturing system products have obvious advantages in the fields of welding, palletizing, loading and unloading, bending, etc. Some products such as bending robots and their working units have reached the international Leading level. "Wu Bo, chairman of Eston told reporters.

SST has independent intellectual property rights in the control and drive technology of robot body, and independently developed six-DOF industrial robots, SCARA, network-based servo system and other innovative products. Ji Yi, chairman of the company introduced the company's benchmark scara robot is an international brand, the production of robots in the first half of this year the number of sales exceeded one thousand, established in the domestic robotics and motion control industry's leading technology position.

"At present, the key technologies of core components are making major breakthroughs, some of which have realized the application of small batch industries and reduced the external dependence on the core components of the industry." The head of a reducer manufacturer in China said that this will reduce the cost of domestic robots , Will also break the constraints of foreign brands.

The role of capital markets appears

With the help of the capital market, some companies have successfully raised capital to expand their production lines to seize the market size and voice. Some companies have merged and acquired business synergies, laid the industrial chain and advanced technologies in the industry. While driving performance, technology and scale improvements, it will also promote the rapid growth of China's industrial robot industry.

Such as the new issue of convertible bonds successfully raised funds 880 million yuan. "From the future trend of development, the company lack of capacity for robot products, convertible bonds raise investment project is one of the company to solve the problem of insufficient production capacity of robot products." The company official said.

In 2016, Eston added 950 million yuan of financing to R & D and industrialization of robot intelligent manufacturing system and upgrading and upgrading of robot intelligent factories. "At present, the production capacity of our robot body is about 2000 sets / year, with enough orders in hand, but with tight production capacity. The company has prepared for the rapid expansion of the market. The 180-mu industrial robot and intelligent manufacturing industry under construction Park capacity planning for the 15,000 sets of robots. "Eston chairman Wu Bo introduction.

In the meantime, Eston completed the acquisition of a number of overseas investment and mergers and acquisitions such as TRIO in Britain, MAi in Germany, BARRETT in the United States, layout of cutting-edge technologies in advance and the development of TRIO controller + ESTUN servo system Motion Control Complete Solution.

Many robot enterprises with the capital market to build a complete industrial chain layout. In June of this year, SST reached RMB41.5 million for its acquisition of R & D, manufacture and sales of servo drives and other motion control system products. It has passed the control layer, driver layer, execution layer and equipment of intelligent manufacturing equipment field Layer, engineering applications and other physical layer, creating a "core components - ontology - application - information" of the complete industrial chain development pattern.

In addition, HKUST Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. acquired Yongkang Electromechanical Co., Ltd. and China Automation Precision Automation Co., Ltd. last year and completed the complete industrial chain layout of "intelligent transfer robot arm (hand) -AGV (foot) -flexible production line (body)" .

Rapid growth will continue

In the recent two years, the demand for downstream industrial robots is hot, and the scale of ontology manufacturers increases day by day, driving the development of domestically produced core components manufacturers. The breakthrough of core components helps the ontology manufacturers to reduce costs and further promote the industrial application of industrial robots , Forming a virtuous circle.

Under such circumstances, localization of core components and parts has become apparent, and the proportion of domestic industrial robots in the total sales volume has steadily risen. "With the constant maturation of domestic technology, the proportion of domestic industrial robots will be further enhanced." Zhao Wenqing, the chief secretary of Section Yuan, said.

Yang Rui-chun, president of HKUST, said that currently China's independent research and development of automobile body flexible welding automatic production line has broken the monopoly of this high-end field by foreign companies, the market share is expected to further improve.

However, a number of industry insiders pointed out that the problems faced by domestic replacement of parts and components are on the one hand the market share is low, on the other hand, the quality reliability and stability still needs to be improved, especially the high-end robotics algorithms and Germany, Japan and other international giants still have a certain gap.

A senior executive of a large public company said that the company currently sourced complete solutions for high-end customers, purchasing the core components of industrial robots mainly from foreign-funded enterprises. "We can not afford to risk the risk of a combination of quality and performance issues between our product offerings and the domestic products we buy, and unless the customer specifically requires localization, we still tend to source foreign-owned products on the core components."

However, the source said that the domestic industrial robot products have a higher price advantage, used in the field of low-end manufacturing more and more large-scale. "The large domestic low-end manufacturing market provides opportunities for the development of domestic industrial robots, and with the gradual opening of the high-end sector, China's industrial robot industry will continue its rapid growth in the future."

According to the latest statistics from National Bureau of Statistics of China, the output of industrial robots in China from January to October this year reached 104,800 units, an increase of 68.9% over the same period of last year and maintained its rapid growth.

"At least three years in the future, China's industrial robot industry compound annual growth rate will not be less than 30%." The executives said.