At present, the accelerated integration of new technologies represented by the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence with the manufacturing industry has promoted the development of intelligent manufacturing. The emergence of new technologies and products of robots has become an important driving force for the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. It not only provides an important breakthrough for the development of advanced manufacturing industry, but also provides a strong support for improving people's lives.
So, what is the prospect of the current robot industry, and what are the development trends in the future? Roboticists from around the world view the market and talk about the future at the 2018 World Robot Conference.
Rapid industrial development
From 1959 when the first industrial robot came out in the United States, robots have been widely used in all walks of life, constantly integrating into and profoundly changing people's lives. In the field of equipment manufacturing, mechanical arms are replacing workers' hands with strong load-bearing capacity and precise grasping operation. In the field of logistics, intelligent storage robots and unmanned carriers (AGVs) continue to improve transport efficiency; In the field of life services, household cleaning robots and service robots are becoming the personal nannies and minisecretaries that many families equip...
"According to statistical analysis by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the global robot industry has exceeded 25 billion US dollars in 2017, growing by more than 20%, and is expected to reach 30 billion US dollars in 2018." China's robot industry has also shown a trend of rapid growth in recent years, with the market size reaching nearly $7 billion in 2017, with more than 130,000 industrial robots produced, said Miao Wei, minister of Industry and Information Technology.
"In 2017, the overall size of China's robot industry grew at a new high, with an average growth rate of nearly 60% in the past five years." As for the market situation of Robots in China in 2017, Qu Daokui, president of Siasun Robot Automation Co., LTD., analyzed that in terms of robot types, multi-joint robot sales increased by 35.5% in 2017, becoming the domestic model with the largest annual sales volume for the first time. As multi-joint robots have high requirements for control degree and accuracy, the rapid growth of their sales has also promoted the improvement of the quality of robots in China to a certain extent.
In the application industry, the purchase volume of electronic and electrical equipment and equipment manufacturing and automobile manufacturing increased by 62.6 percent and 61.1 percent, respectively. "But these industries mainly buy foreign-branded robots, and domestic brands have a very low market share. "There is still a big gap between domestic robots and foreign ones in high-end applications." Qu daokui pointed out that the application of domestic robots has been involved in 110 industries in 39 industries of the national economy, which also shows that China has a strong market demand for the robot industry.
"Looking at the global industrial robot market, from 2011 to 2016, the compound growth rate of 12%, the main application areas are handling materials and welding, the main application industries are automotive and electronics manufacturing, the main use area is China." At the 2018 World Robot Conference, Jeff Bernstein, president of the American Robotics Industry Association, marveled at the rapid growth of the Chinese robot market.
In the US market, robot orders in the automotive industry fell 66% year-on-year in the first half of 2018, while robot sales in other industries rose 55%. "At present, the automotive industry is still a major contributor to the growth of the robot market. To maintain the good momentum of the market, it must continue to expand its application areas and strive to reach more small and medium-sized enterprises and industries." Jeff Bernstein said.
A robot that can write calligraphy (left) attracts a crowd at the 2018 World Robot Conference. The household service robot (right) shows its service skills to the audience. Each photo
Opportunities and challenges coexist
Facing such a broad industry prospect, domestic and foreign robot enterprises will certainly not miss the opportunity for development. As a leading robot enterprise in China, Siasun Robot Automation Co., Ltd. has focused on the development of a new generation of robots in recent years. "We think robots have entered the 2.0 era, and the most important sign is that the performance of the robot has changed from the speed, precision, load and reliability of the device to the ability to make autonomous decisions, move and interact." Qu Daokui believes that the new performance of the enterprise's technology research and development capabilities put forward higher requirements.
From the dual-arm cooperative robot with high flexibility, autonomous obstacle avoidance and fast configuration to the snake arm robot with high degree of freedom; From composite robots that use augmented reality to achieve harmonious human-machine interaction to mobile robots that use artificial intelligence technologies such as navigation control algorithms to perform in concert with dancers... Siasun has always grasped the opportunity by technological innovation. "At present, the development trend of robots is not limited to industrial manufacturing, through the combination of artificial intelligence, Internet of things, big data and other technologies, has already made it into art, literature and other industries." Qu Daokui said.
Liu Qingfeng, chairman of Iflytek Co.,Ltd. quite agrees with the deep integration of robots and artificial intelligence. He believes that robots should not only have stable hardware and a good appearance, but also have front-end interaction ability and backstage decision-making ability.
"Our research shows that today's robots can learn from huge amounts of data, and their skills such as translation and chess are 90 percent better than those of professionals, but their autonomous reasoning ability is not as good as that of a six-year-old child." According to Liu qingfeng, the core of the third wave of ARTIFICIAL intelligence is to use more new algorithms represented by deep neural networks to equip machines with the ability to understand, think, learn and make decisions, so as to support robots to better and faster enter all aspects of social life.
"Although the robot industry has developed rapidly, we still face many challenges." Miao wei believes that China should continue to make breakthroughs in core technologies, application areas, and legal and regulatory systems, and strike a combination of blows.
Karel Aylout, global senior managing partner at McKinsey, said the main challenge for Chinese robot companies is that their products are mostly concentrated in the low-end market, and they are sometimes unable to produce more sophisticated robots. In addition, China holds less than 1 percent of industrial robot patents, making intellectual property rights in the field relatively scarce.
Building a global ecosystem of industrial cooperation
With the acceleration of globalization, it is impossible for any country and any industry to be immune from the challenges they face. It has become a broad consensus of the whole robot industry to build a global ecological chain in line with the concept of mutual benefit and win-win.
"We are committed to opening up and cooperation and working with other countries to build a new ecosystem of global industrial cooperation." Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that most of the world's famous robot and key parts companies, such as ABB Group and Kuka Robotics Co., LTD., have invested in China and set up r&d and production bases. Siasun is setting up r&d centers in European Union, North America and Japan. Qingdao Baojia Automation Equipment Co., Ltd. and Japan Co., LTD. Fujikoshi joint venture to build robot application Research Institute, to carry out the in-depth development and customized design of industrial robots and integrated systems... A series of international exchanges and cooperation, such as technological breakthroughs, standard-setting, achievement transformation and talent training, are being pushed forward in an orderly way.
"The combination of robots and ARTIFICIAL intelligence must depend on industrial ecology." Liu qingfeng said that the future of ARTIFICIAL intelligence needs greater openness and cooperation. On the one hand, a single deep learning algorithm can no longer satisfy the application of ARTIFICIAL intelligence in the field of robotics. "AI + robot" requires close cooperation between entrepreneurs and scientists with professional knowledge. On the other hand, in addition to cooperation on innovation at the source of technology, countries should also have more exchanges on ethical, cultural and legal systems, so as to establish a more sound social security system and legal system.
While building a good external development environment, the robot's autonomous adaptability to the environment, namely "flexible intelligence", also needs to be further improved. Through continuous integration with new technologies, the robot ecosystem has changed, and technological adjustments and breakthroughs must be made accordingly, so that robots can have better performance, higher intelligence and broader development space.
