Per reporter: Chen Ting Per editor: Liu Xuemei
While admiring the charming heroism of the ice and snow athletes "soaring around and moving for nine days", the audience also gradually discovered that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is a veritable "black technology" Olympic Games. 360-degree VR technology, renewable energy, temperature measurement Band-Aids, sign language broadcast digital human system, comprehensive system core cloud, one after another scientific and technological innovation, dazzling.
Among these "black technologies", the existence of service robots is particularly eye-catching, whether it is the "epidemic prevention robot" that washes the dust for athletes, or the fully automatic cooking robot that is familiar with various cooking techniques such as frying, frying, cooking, and frying, all of which have made a big splash at this Winter Olympics.
Behind the lightness and proficiency of the players' "Ling Bo micro-step cornice walking on the wall", in the words of Mr. Jin Yong, "I don't know how much hard work it takes"; these service robots are the same, and the companies behind them "don't know how much effort it takes" to make even the simplest movements accurate.
From this point of view, this Beijing Winter Olympics is more like a "military parade" of domestic service robots.
It can also be seen from the large-scale appearance of service robots at the Winter Olympics that the robot industry, which has always been "high and low", has long developed a variety of application scenarios. At the same time, with the gradual entry of service robots into people's daily lives, the market size is also growing year after year.
As far as the mainland is concerned, according to CCID, in 2020, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the demand for China's service robot market ushered in explosive growth, and the market size reached 28.38 billion yuan, an increase of 37.4% year-on-year. With the intensification of population aging and rising labor costs, the demand for service robots has great potential, and it is expected that the market size will reach 75.18 billion yuan by 2023.
Source: SADI Consultants
The new potential market space is attracting capital to increase, and there is no shortage of star capital "escort". From the perspective of investment and financing, according to the analysis of Ruibeast, there were 220 investment and financing incidents in robot companies in 2021, with a total amount of about 22.605 billion yuan. Shun China, Shenzhen Venture Capital, Sequoia China and other well-known investment institutions have layout robot companies in 2021. From the perspective of the number of financing rounds, it is mainly concentrated in series A and B, with the most rounds A.
Under the impetus of the Beijing Winter Olympics and capital, domestic service robots can be said to be sitting on the cusp, however, behind the heat, the development of related unicorns is not smooth.
During the Winter Olympics, Purdue Technology, which completed 1 billion financing in 2021, is also attracting attention because of the news of layoffs in the dust. According to the company's internal employees, since the end of last year, Purdue Technology has laid off thousands of employees.
Behind this tide of "machine substitution", if you really want to lead consumers into the future technology world of "robots optimize human life", service robot-related enterprises still have "difficulties" to pass.
Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and an associate professor at the Hillhouse School of Artificial Intelligence at Chinese Min University, told the Daily Economic News reporter that the main application scenarios of current service robots are mostly B-end, C-end home robots are few, and service robots applied to the home level in the narrow sense are only sweeping robots. ”
As a key part of the future world, the opportunity for service robots has loomed, so can this Winter Olympics become a "catalyst" for its full market? How many more barriers do you need to break through?
Beijing Winter Olympics: Service Robot "Story"
In all corners of this Winter Olympic Games, service robots are everywhere, which can be called a robot "general mobilization".
The first thing that attracts attention is amphibious robots. On February 2, the 2022 Winter Olympic Torch Relay held in Beijing Winter Olympic Park, the 255th stick torchbearer is an amphibious robot, and the 256-bar variable structure robot achieves accurate docking ignition underwater, realizing the first robot underwater torch relay in olympic history.
The smart restaurant in the main media center of the Beijing Winter Olympics is the place with the highest concentration of robots, and it has become a place for Internet celebrities to punch cards at the beginning of the Winter Olympics. According to reports, the Chinese and Western cooking and cocktail preparation processes of smart restaurants are completed by robots. After diners scan the QR code at the table to order, the dishes are transported to the top of the table through the cloud rail system at the top of the restaurant, landing with the cable, hovering in front of people for their access.
In addition to the big food and beverage robots and amphibious robots, in many corners that are not noticed, robots are everywhere. According to relevant reports, robots such as epidemic prevention and control, life services, digital communication and torch relay performed their duties in each field of the Winter Olympic Games, escorting and empowering the event, and providing high-tech support for athletes and the media.
In fact, in order to mobilize robots at the Winter Olympics, according to media reports, as early as 2019, the Beijing Winter Olympics Service Robot Innovative Product Evaluation Contest has been opened, for apartment occupancy, awarding, mobile vending, community distribution, a la carte food delivery, equipment delivery, tour translation, security inspection 9 categories of 9 major application scenarios 11 kinds of service robots, including Jingdong, Meituan Dianping and other 47 companies 84 robot products registered to compete.
Jingdong told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that Jingdong Logistics has successively put into use 14 outdoor intelligent distribution equipment and 3 indoor intelligent distribution equipment in a number of Winter Olympic venues, based on intelligent planning paths and intelligent driving technology of autonomous movement, serving the material distribution and baggage handling in the venues during the operation of the Winter Olympics. Among them, the indoor intelligent logistics robot is an indoor intelligent distribution equipment serving the logistics field, which can carry items with a weight of 30-300 kilograms and realize unmanned and contactless terminal distribution in the venue.
According to Deng Chao, head of the system of the hardware research and development department of Jingdong Logistics, the indoor delivery robot deployed in the Wukesong stadium, independently developed by Jingdong Logistics, focuses on providing indoor unmanned delivery services, independently perceives and locates the surrounding environment through high-precision sensors such as lidar, ultrasonic probes, and depth cameras, and then combines with Jingdong's self-developed SLAM navigation and positioning algorithm to achieve low-speed unmanned driving in indoor scenes and can provide efficient contactless delivery services.
Feng Yanjiao, partner of CIC Insight Consulting, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the "Science and Technology Olympics" are the characteristics of this Beijing Winter Olympics. "The inspection robot of the Winter Olympics can realize the functions of public space patrol control, mask detection and early warning, thermal infrared temperature measurement, disinfection and so on." Unmanned restaurants use meal-making robots, coffee robots, food delivery robots, etc. to automate the whole process of ordering, preparing and serving. Feng Yanjiao said.
Unlike industrial robots, which have been widely used in the automotive industry, the robots that appeared in the Winter Olympics are all service robots.
Depending on the field of application, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) divides robots into two categories: industrial robots and service robots. Service robot refers to an autonomous or semi-autonomous robot used in non-manufacturing and service-oriented, which can be engaged in cleaning, escort, navigation, transportation, sales, security and other work, mainly including personal/home service robots and professional service robots.
Service robot sits on the "outlet"
In the industry's view, the service robot "general mobilization" of the Beijing Winter Olympics has a far-reaching impact on the industry.
Du Ruosuan, an analyst at CCID Consulting Intelligent Equipment Industry Research Center, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the application of service robots in the Winter Olympics reflects the new height of the current development of domestic robots.
From the perspective of application scenarios, the service robots in this Winter Olympics are widely used in epidemic prevention inspections, event services and diversified scenarios covering daily life and form a "closed loop", which makes up for the gap in the past application scenarios in family, education, business and other aspects; from a technical point of view, many service robots use the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence algorithms, machine vision, multi-sensor technology, etc., indicating that domestic technology has achieved many breakthroughs in the "card neck" link of the industrial chain.
Du Ruosuan mentioned that according to the "closed-loop" application of service robots in epidemic prevention inspection, event services and daily life scenarios at the Winter Olympics, domestic service robots can show their skills in many applications, such as disinfection and cleaning, security inspection, mobile vending, logistics sorting, vehicle refueling, tour translation, cooking and delivery, etc., and the scope can be promoted to cover schools, stations, tourism exhibition halls, film and television variety shows, commercial performance activities, government and enterprise offices and other scenarios.
It is worth mentioning that the biggest difference from previous Winter Olympics is that this Year's Beijing Winter Olympics is under a lot of pressure to prevent epidemics, which is why many service robots can show their abilities in the Winter Olympics.
Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee officially announced the preparation of wukesong venue services, intelligent logistics robots shoulder the heavy responsibility Image source: Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee official website
Feng Yanjiao said that the common use of the Winter Olympics on the one hand reflects the infinite possibilities of service robot scene applications; on the other hand, it reflects the development trend of "contactless economy" in the post-epidemic era. The application of various scenarios of the Winter Olympics will once again push the service robot market to the "outlet".
"The application experience in application scenarios and technologies in this Winter Olympics can be gradually extended to the entire industry, helping to achieve industrial self-reliance and self-reliance." Du Ruosuan said.
Du Ruosuan revealed that at present, the mainland service robot is in the stage of accelerated development. First, with the continuation of the impact of the global new crown pneumonia epidemic and the intensification of domestic aging problems, the market demand for service robots has shown explosive growth; second, with the gradual improvement of the maturity of related technologies in China, breakthroughs have been made in key links of the industrial chain such as machine vision, speech recognition, motion control, navigation and positioning technology, and the industrial chain has gradually become autonomous and controllable, driving the rapid development of the service robot industry.
At the same time, the service robot industry has also received repeated policy support. In 2021, the state issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Robot Industry", which clearly requires strengthening core technology research, actively exploring service robot subdivision application scenarios, and striving to reach the international leading level of the comprehensive strength of the mainland robot industry by 2035, and robots have become an important part of economic development, people's lives and social governance.
Diverse application scenarios, but not really "deep" thousands of households
Behind the great popularity of service robots in the Winter Olympics is a domestic service robot industry that has accumulated a certain amount. In fact, under the subtlety of consumers, service robots have begun to gradually enter thousands of households, and the market space is gradually opening.
According to reports, service robots include household service robots and commercial service robots. At this stage, China's commercial service robots are still in the early stages of development. The "Daily Economic News" reporter learned that China's commercial service robots began to achieve commercialization around 2014. At present, it is mainly used in scenarios such as restaurants, hotels, KTV, hospitals, office buildings, etc., and can realize diversified functions such as item delivery, guided reception, ground cleaning, and disinfection.
Tianjin Normal University released 6 unmanned vehicles last year on Double 11 to perform delivery to the building Image source: Courtesy of the enterprise
Specifically, Feng Yanjiao said that commercial service robots can replace waiters to deliver dishes and recycle dinner plates in restaurant scenes; alternative receptionists to welcome guests, arrange guests to sit, etc.; hotel scenes, can replace front desk service staff to provide welcome reception, information consultation and other services, and help transport guests' luggage, meals, documents, etc.; In addition, commercial cleaning robots can realize the automatic cleaning of various material floors in office buildings, shopping malls and other scenes.
Taking Haidilao, a representative of catering enterprises, as an example, the reporter noted that the intelligent pot dispensing machine has been applied in more than 70 stores in Haidilao, the vegetable transmission robot has been deployed in more than 1,000 stores, and the intelligent exhaust equipment has been deployed in more than 600 stores.
Feng Yanjiao mentioned that in the commercial landing, commercial service robot manufacturers have also expanded from a single model of providing robot sales/leasing to a diversified profit model. For example, while providing service robots, we provide commercial dishwashers in restaurant scenes and unmanned containers in hotel scenarios, and deeply serve various needs of customers.
"However, commercial service robots still need to be broken through in core technologies, such as how to prevent spillage when distributing beverage soup in restaurants, how to match multiple ladder controls for path planning when getting on and off elevators in hotels, etc., which still need to be further optimized." Feng Yanjiao said.
Compared with the many possibilities of commercial service robots, the current household service robots put into the market are relatively single, and to some extent, service robots have not really "penetrated" thousands of households.
On the household service robot, Feng Yanjiao told reporters that the household service robot mainly includes products such as sweeping robots, "China's sweeping robot market is relatively mature and has entered many families." Driven by the 'lazy economy' and the strong demand for mopping function by domestic consumers, the sweeping and dragging integrated robot is gradually becoming the mainstream of sweeping robots. ”
Du Ruosuan said that due to the high requirements of other subdivisions such as leisure and entertainment, companionship and other subdivisions on the intelligence of service robots, competitive products have not yet been formed to fully cover the field of home applications.
In the future development of household robots, Du Ruosuan believes that it is possible to learn from the advanced technologies related to intelligent service robots such as cooking robots and AI sign language anchors in the Winter Olympics, and launch service robot types suitable for consumers' daily family life in the field of leisure and entertainment and companionship, "and with the gradual breakthrough of domestic technology in artificial intelligence technology in the mainland, more types of service robots that can cover consumers' daily lives are expected to appear in the next 5-8 years." ”
In this process, the application of service robots also needs to pay attention to reducing costs and improving business models such as leasing and after-sales service.
The track has a bright future? Financing goes hand in hand with layoffs
In the face of considerable potential market, more and more enterprises have entered the service robot track, which was once lively and crowded. The data shows that in 2014, there were only 6342 enterprises in the service robot industry, which exceeded 10,000 in 2016, exceeded 20,000 in 2020, and exceeded 100,000 in 2021, reaching 105506, an increase of 78.9% year-on-year.
Capital has also begun to increase frequently. In recent years, companies in the industry have repeatedly received financing. Taking Purdue Technology, a commercial service robot company founded in 2016 as an example, in 2021 alone, Purdue Technology completed nearly 1 billion yuan of Round C and Round C+ investments, and won bets from well-known investment institutions such as Meituan, Sequoia China, and Tencent Investment.
Founded in December 2020, Tang En Technology, a full-scenario commercial cleaning robot developer, is also a "red man" in the circle. Qixinbao shows that in 2021, Tangen Technology has successively received capital blessings from BDStar Investment, Country Garden Venture Capital and Creative Future Capital, and the leader of the company's team is Cui Yuwei, who has multiple labels such as "HKUST Junior Class" and "Study Abroad Doctor".
Traditional home appliance manufacturers represented by Midea, and technology companies represented by Xiaomi, are also constantly competing for service robot tracks.
Feng Yanjiao said that the huge market increment of commercial service robots has attracted many enterprise layouts, and the overall situation is currently in the stage of R&D investment and "horse racing" to seize customers. Feng Yanjiao believes that commercial service robots can help enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, promote the development of intelligent operations, "under the support of future technological breakthroughs, large-scale commercialization will eventually become a trend." ”
However, there are always two sides to the coin. According to media reports, in the context of successive financing, in the past less than two years, Purdue Technology has first completed large-scale expansion and then carried out large-scale staff reduction.
"The leadership made a wrong decision, resulting in too quickly entering the people, and repenting, laying off about 1,000 people, many people are confident in the company's industry, basically just arrived." On a professional speech platform, a netizen certified as a "Purdue robot employee" said. Another netizen certified as an employee of the company said that in July 2020, purdue technology employees were only 300, and in November 2021, the number has become 3,000.
A unicorn company took a detour, of course, does not indicate that there are widespread problems in the industry. However, the industry is not without its troubles. According to industry insiders, low prices and homogenization are still the two major bottlenecks plaguing the domestic service robot industry.
Wang Peng said that as far as the industrial chain of domestic service robots is concerned, the performance of sensors and computing chips is insufficient, "In terms of chips, the degree of domestic chips is not sophisticated enough, and the intelligent application scenarios are insufficient, mainly relying on imported chips." The core components in the sensor also need to be imported. Based on the above reasons, the industrial chain of domestic service robots is not firmly controlled in our own hands. ”
Wang Peng believes that the application scenarios and investment of domestic service robots are large, and the imitation ability is very strong, but there is still the above-mentioned "card neck" problem in the primary, resulting in the high cost of domestic high-tech service robots and a relatively low market share. He pointed out that although there are already a large number of non-high-precision service robots on the market, the dependence of high-precision service robots that can truly replace human work on sensors and chips is very high, "In the case of high cost and industrial chain can not be fully controlled, the large-scale application investment of high-precision robots is indeed the difficulty." ”
In any case, only in terms of the C-end consumption scenario, the large-scale application of sweeping robots in people's daily lives has opened a "good start" for service robots to enter thousands of households.
More importantly, the industry is generally happy to see the service robot "General Mobilization" of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which brings unlimited imagination to the industry. Perhaps, one day, high-tech service robots can achieve a balance between cost and price, and bring a more comfortable and convenient life to the public.
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