According to the data of the 7th National Census, the average annual population growth rate in China has been at a historically low level for three decades, and it has been more obvious in the last decade. Originally enjoy the high birth rate of the demographic dividend industries, such as 3C electronics, logistics, automotive manufacturing, etc., have been facing a prolonged downturn in the birth rate brought about by the "failure to recruit workers" problem.
According to statistics from the China Mobile Robotics Industry Alliance, in 2020, China's mobile robot sales will reach 41,000 units, with a market size of 7.68 billion yuan, up 24.4% year-on-year. At a more microscopic individual company level, MiR (Mobile Industrial Robots, hereinafter referred to as MiR), an autonomous mobile robot, reported its latest financial results showing its third-quarter revenue of $13 million and a 40% year-over-year increase in global sales performance. In its previous Q1 2021 earnings report, MiR grew at a rate of 55%.
In manufacturing today, the most important use of mobile robots in actual production is handling, which can be divided into sorting mobile robots, forklift-type mobile robots, cargo transit mobile robots, traction mobile robots, and latent mobile robots by operation form, mainly used in the automotive industry, 3C electronics, chip manufacturing, logistics packaging, and other industries.
There are also two very obvious trends within mobile robots. One is the substitution of AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot) for AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle), which can better solve the task of many external interference and non-fixed line scenarios. The other is the industry rumor that "2021 is the first year of composite robots".
More economical AGVs and smarter AMRs
In a direct comparison between AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) and AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot) technologies, AGVs are less intelligent and follow existing instructions for transportation on fixed routes, unlike AMRs that can flexibly avoid obstacles and plan their own routes when they encounter obstacles on the route. Unlike AMR, which is flexible enough to avoid obstacles and plan its own route when it encounters an obstacle on the line, AGV will stop and wait for the obstacle to be removed, and will encounter various problems if the production line is crowded and the aisle is narrow.
At the same time, AMR breaks through the dependence of AGVs on external infrastructure such as magnetic strips, rails, and QR codes. In factories with high requirements for the operating environment, magnetic strips, rails, and QR codes can cause interference.
The unit price of AMR is much higher than that of AGV, and the current situation is that the global sales of AMR is not much different from that of AGV, but there is a big difference in sales volume. According to Interact Analysis, AGV sales in 2020 were $1,268.4 million, or 53.8%, and AMR sales were $1,090.3 million, or 46.2%. But AMR has grown faster in the past two years, with market share growing from 29.9% in 2018 to 46.2% in 2020.
So how is the Chinese AMR market performing? According to the China Mobile Robotics Industry Alliance, the Chinese market is expected to add 41,000 mobile robots for industrial applications (AGV/AMR) in FY2020, up 25.7% from 2019, with market sales of $7.68 billion, up 24.4% year-on-year. Among them, the AMR shipments in the domestic market will be around 2,800 units in 2020, up 86% year-on-year, and the market size will be around $560 million.
Interact Analysis forecasts that the AMR market has continued to grow at double-digit rates for the past five years and that demand, revenue and sales of AMRs are expected to surpass those of AGVs in global mobile robots by 2022.
"2021 is the year of composite robots."
In 2021, composite robots began to land in industries such as semiconductors, electric power, big data centers, and metal processing, and the industry is thus circulating the idea that 2021 is the "first year of composite robot landing applications."
Composite robots are mobile robots and industrial robots, which have human legs (AGV), hands (robotic arms), eyes (3D vision), and brain (AI). In the industrial field, the robotic arm mainly replaces the human arm to pick and place items, while the autonomous mobile robot replaces the walking function of human legs and feet, and the superposition of the two can significantly extend the functions and available scenarios of the robot.
That is, to some extent, the composite robot can integrate multiple actions to complete the workload of one or even several adult males in a factory, enhancing the level of factory automation.
For example, in the semiconductor industry, wafer cassettes are transported. Silicon wafers are the foundation of microchips, the indispensable base material for all semiconductors, and their performance fundamentally determines the speed of chip operation. The production environment for silicon wafers is extremely demanding, and all people and equipment entering the manufacturing space need to be sterile and dust-free.
In such a demanding environment, if wafer transportation and loading and unloading of materials are done manually, the operation process is extremely unstable, which may affect the manufacturing efficiency of the production line or cause contamination to the products due to the movement of personnel.
The composite robot can solve the problem of wafer transport and loading/unloading automation in clean rooms. More specifically, the MiR250 AMR with UR (Universal Robots) 10e robot arm and wafer transport carrier module can support the transport and loading and unloading of 4", 6", 8", 12" wafer cassettes and up to 3 boxes of 12" wafer cassettes.
MiR is a manufacturer in the field of autonomous mobile robots, with five models of autonomous mobile robots corresponding to the requirements of different weights and speeds, established in Denmark in 2013 and officially entered the Chinese market in 2017.
During the site visit, MiR staff introduced to the surging news reporter (www.thepaper.cn) that MiR250 AMR with MiR250 Hook can complete the hooking, traction and unloading of various trolleys, which can realize the automatic transportation of trolleys with a load of 500 kg in the interior without any human involvement. This can meet the situation of many kinds of materials in the production line, fast demand cycle and many demand starting points, and automatically deliver parts on time, thus improving the efficiency of production line workers in assembling products.
MiR250 Hook can locate and connect to virtually any type of cart deployed via a QR code or AprilTag Simply attach the QR code or AprilTag to an existing cart or shipping shelf in the workplace, and MiR250 Hook will identify each cart or shipping shelf. "Many companies, logistics centers and hospitals use different carts and transport shelves, and with this solution, it is easy to automate the internal transport of these means of transportation in a way that is easy and affordable to manage. Users do not need to modify the layout or buy new carts because MiRHook can find and connect almost any type of cart via QR code or AprilTag," added Zhang Yu, sales director of MiR Autonomous Mobile Robot China.
According to MiR staff, these five autonomous mobile robots use SLAM navigation technology based on 3D vision + LIDAR, such as the MiR600 AMR and MiR1350 AMR, which were recently released in August this year with a payload of 600 kg and 1,350 kg. The IP52 rating represents the protection level achieved by both products, protecting components from dust and water droplets and making them suitable for challenging and even harsh industrial environments.
