Whether we are ready or not, the era of robots has arrived on schedule, and robots are all around us: we walk into a bank or hotel, and it is actually a robot that is being served; We will choose an early education robot suitable for children on Taobao, and we will also buy a home sweeping robot that takes care of the floor.
In China 20 years ago, if anyone owned a computer, he was either a computer worker or a computer fanatic. Today, computers have become an indispensable household and work necessity for many people.
Robots will change our lives in the future, just like computers, perhaps even more so and more. Because robots are the integration and synthesis of many technologies of this era, they are bound to affect humans in a broader and deeper way.
1. New engineering education
Whether it is the papers of experts and scholars, or media reports or government announcements, Industry 4.0, big data, Internet +, Internet of Things, intelligence, cloud computing, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and other words frequently appear, has become the focus of attention from all walks of life. Robots have also become an indispensable part of our production and life with a new round of scientific and technological revolution.
In April 2013, Germany launched the "German Industry 4.0 Strategy" and officially released the "Industry 4.0" at the Hannover Messe, dividing industrial development into four continuous stages, from Industry 1.0 to 4.0, its main technical features are mechanization, automation, informatization and networking.
Industry 4.0 emphasizes changing the current industrial production and service model through the integration of information networks and physical production systems. Germany hopes that in the next 10~15 years, the overall industry will gradually change from 3.0 to 4.0.
The core technology of Industry 4.0 is cyber-physical system (CPS), the concept of which was proposed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2006, CPS is a network that realizes multiple software to multiple hardware control, using the Internet of Things, wireless connection and sensing functions of sensors to achieve control and management of factories and enterprises. CPS connects resources, information, objects and people, transforming a production plant into an intelligent environment.
On May 8, 2018, the State Council issued "Made in China 2025", deploying to comprehensively promote the implementation of the strategy of manufacturing power, and one of its strategic measures - high-end equipment innovation project with ten key breakthroughs, including high-end CNC machine tools and robots.
In the next ten years, Continental will focus on the application needs of industrial robots and special robots such as automobiles, machinery, electronics, dangerous goods manufacturing, national defense industry, chemical industry, light industry, as well as service robots such as medical and health, family services, education and entertainment, actively develop new products, promote the standardization and modular development of robots, and expand market applications. Break through the technical bottlenecks of key components such as robot body, reducer, servo motor, controller, sensor and drive, and system integration design and manufacturing.
In the field of industrial robots, focus on intelligent production, intelligent logistics, overcome the key technologies of industrial robots, improve operability and maintainability, focus on the development of arc welding robots, vacuum (clean) robots, fully autonomous programming intelligent industrial robots, human-robot collaborative robots, double-arm robots, heavy-duty AGV 6 iconic industrial robot products, to guide the mainland industrial robots to the high-end development.
In the field of service robots, it focuses on the development of four landmark products of fire rescue robots, surgical robots, intelligent public service robots and intelligent nursing robots, and promotes the serialization of professional service robots and the commercialization of personal/family service robots.
In this round of technological change, scientific and technological innovation represented by mobile Internet and big data services, medical health and Internet of Things, new energy and intelligent transportation automation, robots and intelligent manufacturing is changing the world's technological development direction, industrial competition pattern and social organization structure, this staggered integration of scientific and technological waves has caused changes in manufacturing models, lifestyles, military combat forms, etc.
The key link of intelligent manufacturing is robots, which will replace human labor and eventually achieve "unmanned factories".
In terms of basic education, the United States begins to learn programming, writing programs and robot control from elementary school, while exercising children's hands-on skills; In middle school, he joined the robotics club and spent three or four hours a day in the laboratory preparing for competitions.
As early as 1980, Japan positioned the robot industry as a cutting-edge technology industry, and for professional and technical personnel, enterprises, industrial robot industry associations or training institutions carried out technical training. In the 80s of the 20th century, there were few robotics-related majors in Japanese universities and research institutes, and most of them carried out related teaching and research activities in mechanical engineering and other disciplines, and the more representative ones were Nagoya University's Department of Electronic Machinery and Waseda University's Department of Mechanical Engineering.
With the development of technology, related research has gradually begun to be established in departments such as information technology, such as the establishment of the Department of Mechanical Information Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Tokyo, and the establishment of the Department of Systems Design Engineering in the Faculty of Science and Engineering of Keio University.
In 1996, Japan's first robotics department was established in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Ritsumeikan University, representing the official emergence of robotics as a separate discipline in higher education. In addition, each university in Japan has a high-level robot research society, and robot design and manufacturing competitions are held regularly every year.
Robot education in primary and secondary schools in mainland China can be traced back to 2000, and Beijing Jingshan School has incorporated robots into information technology courses in the form of scientific research projects, taking the lead in carrying out primary and secondary school robot education.
Primary and secondary school robot education is facing the dilemma of too narrow audience, significant differences in regional distribution, and lack of attention in the specific implementation process.
Robot education in mainland colleges and universities also started late, and the number of colleges and universities and courses that offer robot teaching are smaller than those in developed countries such as robot education such as the United States and Japan, and most of them are engineering colleges. Since 2012, Qinghai University has first offered an elective course "Fundamentals of Robotics" for mechanical design, manufacturing and automation, and then expanded to mechanical and electronic engineering.
With the wide application of robots, undergraduate majors have become the expectation of many domestic universities. In 2016, the School of Automation of Southeast University established a four-year undergraduate major in robot engineering, and subsequently, the School of Mechanical Engineering of Anhui Polytechnic University also set up a robot engineering major. In 2017, the number has increased to 60, covering "Double First-class" universities and vocational colleges. In 2018, robotics engineering became a popular major.
In order to adapt to the new round of technological change and the national manufacturing development strategy, higher education has also put forward the concept of "new engineering" in a timely manner, especially emphasizing the exploration of engineering talent training mode under the new engineering format.
The core of the new discipline is the informatization, digitalization and intelligence of engineering majors. In the process of promoting the integration of industrialization and industrialization in the country, all engineering majors cannot avoid "transformation" and become "new" majors.
2. Robot industry
In the robot industry chain, the upstream core value is the highest, and the downstream market space is the largest.
Japan occupies an absolute dominant position in the upstream. The controller is basically independently produced by the ontology enterprise, and Japan's enterprises Fanuc and Yaskawa Electric account for nearly 40% of the global market share by virtue of the advantages of the ontology link; In the field of reducers, Japan's Nabotesk and Hamonako accounted for nearly 80% of the global share in the early days, and in recent years, China's domestic high-quality enterprises have risen, the share of Japanese enterprises has dropped to about 50%, and Chinese enterprises account for about 20%; In the field of servo motors, Japanese companies account for nearly 40% of the global market.
Japan occupies an overwhelming position. Industrial robot technology originated in the United States and was industrialized on a large scale in Japan. So far, Japan's robot body accounts for nearly 40% of the global share, and China and Germany each account for about 15%. The U.S. has a small share, but maintains a leading position in frontier fields such as bionic robots.
China's downstream market should not be underestimated. System integration has high requirements for the design, service and installation capabilities of enterprises, and is mainly operated by local small integrators. China's demand for industrial robots and system integration accounts for about 30% of the global share. Japan also has a global share of about 30%.
The industrial chain of large countries changes demand-led migration, supply and policy need to form a joint force, the robot industry chain has experienced three stages of development.
In its infancy (1954-1973), robots were first born in the United States, with supply as the dominant factor. In 1954, George DeVoll applied for a patent for an "editable articulated transfer device", designed and manufactured the world's first programmable robot, and cooperated with Joseph Engelberg to establish the world's first robot company. In 1959, the first industrial robot was developed. Industrial robots made their debut in 1961 at General Motors, where they were used to transport hot, die-cast metal parts and weld them to car body parts. So far, the United States is still a global leader in cutting-edge robotics technologies such as artificial intelligence and bionic robots.
In 1946, the first electronic computer came out in the United States, and industrial production began to develop in the direction of high speed, large capacity and low price, laying the foundation for robot applications. However, the United States emphasizes scientific research over application, software over hardware, and the demand for robot applications is developing slowly. The U.S. government focuses on the defense military and does not pay much attention to robot products.
The Stanford Arm marked the beginning of a revolution in articulated robotics, which transformed the assembly line in manufacturing and fueled several commercial robotics companies, including KUKA and ABB Robotics.
During the industrialization period (1973-2010), the US robot industry chain moved to Japan, and the supply laid the foundation and the demand led the result. With the relocation of the US manufacturing industry, industries such as automobiles and electronics are booming in Japan and Germany, while aging and other factors have further spawned the demand for robots in Japan.
With the rapid development of technology, the industrial robots in this period are also highlighted by the characteristics of rapid development of commercial application, and the "four families" of industrial robots - KUKA, ABB, YASKAWA, FANUC have begun the layout of global patents, currently occupying about 60% of the global industrial robot market.
The most important technology of robots lies in materials and core components, and Japan's industrial base is relatively good, and it attaches great importance to the development of related fields, and achieves rapid development through the introduction of American technology and independent research and development.
At the end of the 60s of the 20th century, Japan's economy boomed, and the industrial chain of automobiles and electronics began to develop rapidly; At the same time, the problem of aging has begun to appear, and the demand for automation transformation in Japan has increased.
In 1970, Japan's industrial robot production was 1350 units, and by 1987 it had increased to 45100 units. In order to encourage robot research and innovation, the Japanese government has introduced relevant policies to accelerate technological progress in the form of "tilted tax reduction".
In the mature period (2010 to the present), the Japanese robot industry chain has moved to China, the demand side is dominant, and the supply side and the policy side have not yet formed a joint force. With the expansion of the market and the insufficient elasticity of the supply of foreign-funded products, robots have begun to localize, but the development of China's industrial chain is still relatively limited.
Japan's robot industry has been developing for more than 40 years, and the technological gap between latecomer countries and Japan is large. In terms of materials and industrial basic parts, China's talent supply and basic research are insufficient, and the development of the industrial chain still needs a certain amount of time.
China is a big manufacturing country, and the demand for industrial robots is increasing. Since 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has further affected the supply and service capabilities of foreign-funded enterprises, and the domestic robot industry has been further developed.
The state has specially established natural science foundation projects, 863 projects, etc., and formed some achievements and prototypes, but because the "government, industry, learning, research and application" system has not yet been completed, special policies to guide and protect the development of domestic enterprises have not yet been introduced, and the speed of technological progress in the industry is limited.
The largest robot production base in China is located in the central and southern industrial base of Liaoning, which is located in the central region of the mainland and constitutes China's four major robot production bases together with the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base, Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou Industrial Base and the Pearl River Delta Industrial Base.
In the two rounds of industrial transfer from the United States to Japan and Japan to China, demand growth is an important factor triggering industrial transfer. The difference is that after Japan undertook the industrial transfer, a complete industrial chain was born, and the industrial competitiveness continues to this day. China has formed a relatively large-scale downstream supply under the cultivation of a large market, but the supply capacity of core components and high-end products is far from the situation experienced by Japan in the early years.
3. Robot application
Japan, which is seriously aging, has a leading robot industry in the world, and its robot products are extremely rich, especially in the medical care industry.
In 2015, Japan issued the "Japan Robot Strategy: Vision, Strategy, Action Plan", which put forward the "three major implementation measures" and "five-year plan" of the robot revolution, and strive to promote Japan's robot technology and industry to the international community.
For example, Panasonic has developed autonomous transportation robots (hospital medicines and sample transportation) and "nursing robots" that can assist the elderly to get out of bed and walk, Toyota is committed to mass production of intelligent service robots for the care of the elderly, the weak, sick and disabled, Samsung has developed health management service robots (providing intelligent services such as health monitoring, medication tracking, music therapy, sleep management, etc.), Omron and Korean communication operator SK jointly launched 5G epidemic prevention robots (disinfection operations, body temperature monitoring, health management services). Japan's ZMP and Doog modified epidemic prevention and disinfection robots.
Japan has also appeared a treatment robot for Alzheimer's disease prevention and symptom relief, the seal-type robot PARO, which is used as a "neural logic therapy robot" in nursing care institutions, and 5,000 PARO were put into use worldwide in 2018.
The mainland is the country with the largest population and the largest elderly population in the world, and the huge population base poses a severe test for medical resources.
The mainland only began the research and exploration of telemedicine in the late 80s of the 20th century, and gradually had practical system construction and market application in the mid-90s.
The mainland intelligent medical robot industry started late, in 2018 the mainland intelligent medical robot market size reached 3.4 billion yuan, it is expected that by 2025, the mainland intelligent medical robot market scale will exceed 10 billion yuan, technology research and development and testing continue to accelerate, market scale continues to increase, new application scenarios continue to appear, industrial chain layout continues to extend, and the potential is huge.
In recent years, domestic robot medical care theme products directly named "medical care intelligent robot" and "intelligent medical care robot" have begun to appear, mainly integrating medical care functions such as elderly companionship, psychological care, life support, health examination, appointment registration, and private doctor.
At the 2019 World Robot Conference, Harbin Institute of Technology Robot Group (HRG) independently designed the first domestic Parkinson's disease artificial intelligence-assisted diagnostic instrument, which uses medical robots as distributed auxiliary diagnosis terminals, has voiceprint recognition technology, and is widely used in hospitals, physical examinations and elderly care institutions.
Telemedicine integrates and utilizes medical resources through Internet technology, breaks the geographical restrictions on the distribution of medical resources, and is conducive to solving problems such as unbalanced medical resources, insufficient medical service supply, shortage of medical talents, high medical costs, and tense doctor-patient relations. Under the concept of "integration of medical and elderly care" and the actual national conditions based on home-based care, the use of scientific and technological means to establish a sound telemedicine system has become a key part of the "combination of medical and nursing care" model.
In 2018, the National Telemedicine Collaborative Platform jointly built by China-Japan Friendship Hospital and China Mobile was officially launched. In 2016, the market size of telemedicine (including remote patient monitoring, video conferencing, online consultation, personal medical care devices, wireless access to electronic cases and prescriptions, etc.) reached 6.15 billion yuan, and by 2018, the market size increased to 13.21 billion yuan, and the telemedicine market may reach 300 billion yuan in 2023.
With the official commercialization of 5G networks in mainland China, the rapid development of software services and cloud computing, big data and other industries, automation and intelligent telemedicine technology will enter a "golden period" of vigorous development.
In recent years, with the layout of Internet companies in the field of health care, mobile telemedicine and related App products such as Ping An Good Doctor, Evergrande Health, Ali Health, WeDoctor, and Good Doctor have continued to emerge, and telemedicine has become closer to ordinary people, and a smart terminal platform and equipment can achieve close contact with medical resources.
With the acceleration of the aging population and the chronicization of diseases in the mainland, the disabled elderly population requiring short-term rehabilitation or long-term care continues to increase. In China, family care is still the basic form of family care for the elderly who have difficulties in life.
Relying on the intelligent remote care of family care, based on the Internet and the Internet of Things, it integrates the use of modern communication and information technology and computer network technology to provide remote care for the elderly group.
epilogue
Robots have penetrated into various industries and are changing our lives and values.
Bill Gates predicted that robots would be as ubiquitous as personal computers. Today, we can already clearly feel the accuracy of his prophecy.
Looking back at the history of the development of computer technology, we will find that the former tools in the hands of human beings, such as computers and robots, are becoming agents with a certain degree of autonomy, and have begun to replace humans for decision-making or tasks.
At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution is gaining momentum, and the integration of robot technology with a new generation of information technology, biotechnology, new material technology and sensor technology is accelerating, opening the door to the birth and development of industrial intelligent robots, bionic robots and a new generation of robots.
China, Japan, the United States, South Korea, and Germany are the top five industrial robot markets in the world. In 2022, the sales volume of industrial robots in the Chinese market will be 303,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 15.96%, and the growth rate is significantly lower than the previous year, and it is expected that sales will exceed 365,000 units in 2023, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 20%.
With the continuous improvement of robot ease of use, stability and intelligence, the application field of robots has gradually expanded from handling, welding, assembly and other operational tasks to processing tasks, and human-machine collaboration has also become an important direction for the research and development of industrial robots. The collaborative robot can automatically stop running after touching the human body, which greatly enhances the safety of industrial robots and makes human-robot collaboration possible.
Japan SMC is committed to developing high-quality end effectors for robots, and the new cylinder developed has been reduced in volume by more than 40% and mass by 69%. Festo's new fully pneumatically driven robotic arm transforms rigid "grasping" into flexible "enclosure", which can complete the task of flexibly grasping parts of different sizes.
China's key industrial robot technology is still relatively backward in the world, and many key components still need to rely on imports. Reducer, servo and controller are the three core components of industrial robots, and the cost accounts for more than 70% of the total, of which the reducer system accounts for 36%, the servo system accounts for 24%, and the controller system accounts for 12%.
ABB launched the ABB Ability industrial cloud platform and cooperated with Huawei to jointly develop end-to-end digital solutions for robots, enabling remote robot monitoring, configuration, and big data applications, further improving production efficiency and saving costs.
In the global reducer market, Japan's two giants, Nabotsk and Hamonaco, occupy more than 70% of the market share. The research of continental reducers started late, lagged behind Japan, and relied heavily on imports. At present, among the domestic reducer manufacturers, Nantong Zhenkang, Greenland Harmonic and Qinchuan machine tools have entered the mass production stage and have a stable source of orders.
Foreign companies in the servo system market occupy an absolute advantage, and Japanese brands occupy most of the market share, mainly Yaskawa Electric, Panasonic, Mitsubishi Electric and Sanyo. Compared with foreign products, the independent supporting capacity of mainland servo motor has taken shape, and the product power range is mostly within 22 kilowatts, and the technical route is close to that of Japanese products. There are more than 20 large-scale servo motor brands, mainly Nanjing Eston Automation Co., Ltd., Guangzhou CNC Equipment Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Huichuan Technology Co., Ltd., etc.
The controller is the brain of the robot and is responsible for issuing and transmitting action instructions. The main manufacturers are B&R, Beckhoff, Yaskawa Electric, Mitsubishi, Siemens, etc. Due to the low technical threshold of the controller, the current technical gap between domestic and foreign enterprises is small, and most of the manufacturers in mainland China with the ability to mass produce controllers have the ability to independently develop controllers.
Domestic robot controllers are not much different from foreign products in terms of hardware, but there are still gaps in the field of software algorithms and compatibility. Domestic robot controller manufacturers mainly include Siasun Robot, Xinshida, Guangzhou CNC, Huazhong CNC, Huichuan Technology, and Gootech Technology.
In recent years, the four major international robot families have seized the Chinese industrial robot market and expanded their production bases in China, and Chinese robot companies are facing great competitive pressure. At the forefront of great power competition, at the top of the robot pyramid, when will China catch up with Japan and the United States?
(Image source network, invasion and deletion)