Seven factors to be considered in the competitiveness of industrial robots

At present, the use of industrial robots in China is mainly concentrated in the automobile industry and electrical and electronic industry, arc welding robots, spot welding robots, handling robots, etc. are widely used in production. Below we will analyze the development status of industrial robots from a technical point of view.

With the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend, my country has become the world's largest industrial robot market. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by 2020, my country will form a relatively complete industrial robot industry system, with a high-end market share of more than 45%. At present, the use of industrial robots in China is mainly concentrated in the automobile industry and electrical and electronic industry, arc welding robots, spot welding robots, handling robots, etc. are widely used in production. Below we will analyze the development status of industrial robots from a technical point of view.

1Universal

Industrial robots are programmable and support multi-degree-of-freedom motion, so the application is more flexible. Although not as good as humans, industrial robots are still much more flexible than many common special machines in industrial automation (mechatronics solutions customized for a type of industrial application or a customer). When industrial applications do not change too much, the robot can be reprogrammed to meet new needs without the need for significant investment in hardware. But correspondingly, its relative disadvantage will be efficiency. After all, the special machine is customized for an application, so although the generality is sacrificed, the efficiency is optimized, and the output can be done very well in the indicator that customers are very concerned about.

2 Electromechanical properties

Industrial robots can generally achieve a motion accuracy of less than 0.1 mm (referring to repetitive motion to point accuracy), grab objects weighing up to one ton, and stretch up to three or four meters. Although such performance may not be able to easily complete some "crazy" processing requirements on Apple mobile phones, it is sufficient for most industrial applications to complete the task satisfactorily. With the gradual improvement of the performance of robots, some previously impossible tasks have become feasible (such as laser welding or cutting, which used to require special high-precision equipment to guide the direction of the laser, but with the improvement of robot accuracy, now also become possible DEK relies on the precise movement of the robot itself instead). However, compared with traditional high-end equipment, such as high-precision CNC machine tools, laser calibration equipment, or special environment (high temperature or ultra-low temperature) equipment, industrial robots are still out of reach.

3 man-machine cooperation

Traditional industrial robots work in cages because it's so dangerous (imagine a guy holding tens or hundreds of kilograms and flinging at four meters per second, no one wants to get close). The main reason is that general robots, based on cost and technology considerations, will not integrate additional sensors to sense external special situations (such as someone touching suddenly), and they will only "silly" follow the programs programmed by humans day by day. It moves all day, unless an external signal tells it to stop. Therefore, a common solution is to equip the robot with a cage. When the cage door is opened, the robot will automatically pause when it receives a signal. Safety considerations naturally bring a lot of extra costs to the robot integration. The cage may not be expensive, but after all, it is necessary to carefully consider the layout of the production line, increase the area of the production line, and change the way of human-machine cooperation, which will affect production. efficiency. Therefore, the industrial robots that have attracted more attention recently are "proud" of being able to work with people safely, such as RethinkRobotics' Baxter, UniversalRobots' PR series, and many traditional industrial robot giants (abb, kuka, Yaskawa, etc.) semi-concept semi-finished products robot. From the perspective of industrial demand, after traditional industrial robots have solved the automation requirements for precision, speed, weight, etc., it is indeed time to meet human-machine safety cooperation.

4 Ease of use

The essence of the work of traditional robots is to continuously walk one by one path point, while receiving or setting peripheral I/O signals (old and other settings such as fixtures, conveyor lines, etc.). The process of instructing the robot to do so is the robot programming. Almost every leading company has its own programming language and environment, which requires robot operators to attend learning and training. This cost begins to manifest as the scope of application of robots increases.

These manufacturers have reasons to maintain their own programming environments. First, industrial robots began to be scaled 40 years ago. At that time, there were no object-oriented and other mainstream advanced programming concepts that are widely known and widely recognized. Second, they sprout. At this stage, their own technology will inevitably be different from competitors, and it is understandable to maintain a programming method. Thirdly, because their major customers are often traditional industrial customers, such as large car manufacturers, these customers seek stability and naturally do not want your robot to spend a few years. Just jumping on the craze to change the programming method makes them have to throw away decades of experience and spend a lot of money on training and learning.

Of course, in the industry, everyone has long thought about whether programming can be intuitive and simple, but in traditional manufacturers, except for conceptual demonstrations again and again (such as using exoskeletons, 3D images, virtual reality, iPhone, etc.), there has been no commercial practicality. Progress has made everyone feel sick when they hear keywords such as "easy programming".

But fortunately, there are still latecomers who dare to challenge, and also make achievements from scratch and become recognized selling points. Yes, I'm talking about RethinkRobotics and UniversalRobots! This also vividly demonstrates the innovator's dilemma why disruptive technologies often fail to succeed in leading companies (despite their adequate resources), but are always carried forward by later challengers. Because every time a leader takes a step further in disruptive technology, he often takes a step away from his iron rice bowl, and there are great internal and external resistance!

In any case, the ease of use of robots has begun to be valued. How to make people play with robots as quickly as iPhones without any (or too much) training has become a direction that big manufacturers have begun to invest heavily in. .

5 cost

The cost of robots ranges from tens of thousands of RMB for small models to millions of RMB for large ones. This cost is naturally lower than that of high-end professional manufacturing equipment, but it may also be higher than the automation solutions put together by small domestic integrators. However, judging from the popularity of robots in the western industry and the domestic manufacturing industry in recent years, it shows that the economic advantages of robot automation have generally reached a critical point, surpassing other alternatives (manual, or special planes). It seems that this cost Still worth it.

In fact, if you want to follow the old road of traditional robots, there is not much room for reducing hardware costs. The industrial robot is basically an open-loop motion mechanism, which relies on the high-precision cooperation of the motor and the gearbox. And most of the key components of the leading manufacturers are bought from several Japanese manufacturers. (This is also a robot made by a domestic company. Buying the same components will not be much cheaper, because Japanese manufacturers will not do it for you. How much discount does this amount give). Unless Chinese component manufacturers can calm down and work hard to catch up with Japanese technology, so as to break the monopoly for many years with a price advantage, can the development of domestic robot manufacturers be truly promoted.

The other is to take a different approach and pursue other technologies and markets. For example, RethinkRobotics even considered using plastic gearboxes to reduce costs, and use vision to make up for the loss of motion accuracy, just like the human eye to assist the delicate operation of the hand. But after all, it can't reach the sky in one step, so Baxter robot is temporarily unable to compare with traditional robots in terms of accuracy and speed, but in the application of material pick-and-place it can handle, it is enough. Perhaps with the efforts of Rethink, in the case of poor hardware, it will achieve the level of competition with traditional industrial robots through intelligent software compensation (that is, it will really subvert these traditional big manufacturers).

6 Intelligence

The reason why intelligent is the last point is that it is not the most urgent for the time being compared to the current mainstream demand for robots in the market (that is, strong, fast, and accurate). This also reflects the advantages of traditional industrial robots (hard-working, quality and quantity, good at "working") and deficiencies (but they are "stupid", too old to be taught). But it does not mean that intelligence is not important, on the contrary, companies have begun to invest in technology. For example, how to make the robot better understand the command intention of people, to understand and plan tasks relatively autonomously, without requiring people to tell it how to go one by one; Affecting image recognition, special handling is required for items on the conveyor belt) automatic adaptation; how to judge the assembly quality of parts and components through tactile, visual and auditory perception, etc.

The Americans are doing better in this regard (of course, they are also avoiding the real, because the technology and market of traditional industrial robot hardware have basically been dominated by Japanese and European companies), ROSIndustrial, RethinkRobotics, etc. are all making leading attempts.

7 Talent shortage

Industrial robots are in line with the development of the times, and the industry has broad prospects. However, the imbalance between the supply and demand of talents in this field is becoming increasingly prominent. On the one hand, robot manufacturers, system integrators and automobile processing and manufacturing industries are eager for talents.

The main reason is that compared with the explosive development trend of the domestic robot industry in recent years, the curriculum settings of training institutions such as colleges and vocational schools are still lagging behind. Although some robot manufacturers provide relevant training, there are brands that are too targeted. Insufficient promotion, insufficient supporting facilities and limited training outlets, etc., it is difficult to achieve a systematic teaching process, and it is still not well suited to the needs of scholars across the country, resulting in many aspiring to join the robotics industry.