Exhibitors at the 2018 World Robotics Conference presented a bionic robot that mimics bats.
On the left, at the 2018 World Robotics Congress, a robot that writes calligraphy attracts a large audience. The picture on the right shows home service robots showing service skills to the audience.
At present, the integration of new technologies and manufacturing industries represented by the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence has accelerated the development of smart manufacturing. The emergence of new technologies and new 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, but also provides a strong support for improving people's lives.
So, what is the current prospect of the robot industry and what are the future development trends? At the 2018 World Robotics Conference, robotics from around the world watched the market and talked about the future.
Rapid industrial development
From the first industrial robots in the United States in 1959, robots are now widely used in all walks of life, constantly integrating and profoundly changing people's lives. In the field of equipment manufacturing, the robotic arm is replacing the hands of the workers with its powerful load-bearing capacity and precise gripping operations; in the field of logistics, smart storage robots and unmanned aerial vehicles (AGVs) continue to improve transportation efficiency; in the field of life services, Household cleaning robots and service robots are becoming private nannies and small secretaries for many families...
According to the statistics of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the global robotics industry has exceeded US$25 billion in 2017, with an increase of over 20%. It is expected to reach US$30 billion by 2018.†Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said in recent years. The Chinese robot industry has also shown a rapid growth trend. In 2017, the market size reached nearly 7 billion US dollars, of which industrial robot production exceeded 130,000 units.
“In 2017, the overall growth rate of China's robotics industry reached a new high. The average growth rate in the past five years is close to 60%.†For the market situation of Chinese robots in 2017, Qu Daokui, president of Xinsong Robot Automation Co., Ltd., said that In terms of the type of robots, the sales volume of multi-joint robots increased by 35.5% in 2017, making it the first domestically produced model with the largest sales volume for the first time. Due to the high degree of control and accuracy requirements of multi-joint robots, the rapid growth of their sales has also promoted the improvement of the quality of robots in China.
In terms of the application industry, the purchases of electrical and electronic equipment and equipment manufacturing and automobile manufacturing increased by 62.6% and 61.1% respectively. "But these industries mainly buy foreign-branded robots, and the market share of domestic brands is very low. It can be seen that domestic robots still have a big gap in high-end applications compared with foreign countries." Qu Daokui pointed out that the application of domestic robots has been It involves 110 industries in 39 major industries of the national economy, which also shows that China has strong market demand for the robot industry.
“Overview of the global industrial robot market, the compound growth rate has reached 12% from 2011 to 2016. The main application areas are handling materials and welding. The main application industries are automobile and electronics manufacturing. The main use area is China.†2018 World Robot At the conference, Jeff Bernstein, president of the American Robotics Industry Association, could not help but feel the rapid rise of the Chinese robot market.
In contrast to the US market, in the first half of 2018, orders for robots in the automotive industry fell 66% year-on-year, while sales of robots in other industries rose 55% year-on-year. “At present, the automotive industry is still the main contributor to the growth of the robot market. To maintain a good momentum in this market, we must continue to broaden its application areas and strive to make more small and medium-sized enterprises and industries available. Can afford it," said Jeff Bernstein.
Opportunities and challenges coexist
Faced with such a broad industry prospect, domestic and foreign robot companies will certainly not miss the opportunity of development. As a leading domestic robot company, Xinsong Robot Automation Co., Ltd. has turned its attention to a new generation of robots in recent years. "We believe that robots have entered the 2.0 era, the most important of which is that the measure of performance has been transformed from past equipment speed, accuracy, load and reliability to the ability of robots to make decisions, movements and interactions." Qu Daokui believes that the new performance also puts higher demands on the company's technology research and development capabilities.
From a two-armed cooperative robot with high flexibility, autonomous obstacle avoidance, and rapid configuration to a snake-arm robot with high degree of freedom; from a composite robot that uses augmented reality technology to achieve harmonious interaction between humans and machines to a manual control algorithm Intelligent technology to complete mobile robots with dancers... New Song has always seized opportunities with technological innovation. "At the moment, the development trend of robots is not limited to the industrial manufacturing field. By combining with artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data and other technologies, it has already entered the art, literature and other industries." Qu Daokui said.
For the deep integration of robots and artificial intelligence, Liu Qingfeng, the chairman of Keda Xunfei Co., Ltd., shares the same feeling. He believes that robots must not only have stable hardware and good appearance, but more importantly, they have front-end interaction capabilities and background decision-making capabilities.
"Our research has found that today's robots can learn more than 90% of their skills through massive data, such as translation and chess, but their ability to reason is not as good as that of 6-year-olds." In Liu Qingfeng's view, the third artificial At the heart of the wave of intelligence is the use of more new algorithms, represented by deep neural networks, to equip machines with the ability to understand, think, learn and make decisions in order to support robots to enter all aspects of social life better and faster.
"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 fields, laws and regulations, and so on.
Karel Elut, a senior managing partner of McKinsey Global, believes that the main challenge for Chinese robotics companies is that most of their products are concentrated in the low-end market, and sometimes it is difficult to produce more complex robots. In addition, China holds only less than 1% of industrial robot patents, and intellectual property in this area is relatively scarce.
Building a global industrial cooperation ecology
With the acceleration of the globalization process, the challenges faced by any country and any industry cannot be “independentâ€. Creating a global ecological chain that is in line with the concept of mutual benefit and win-win has become a broad consensus of the entire robot industry.
"We have always been open to cooperation and are committed to working together to build a new ecosystem of global industrial cooperation." Xin Guobin, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the world's leading robots and key components companies, such as ABB Group, KUKA Robotics Limited Most of the companies have invested in China to set up factories and set up R&D production bases; Xinsong is preparing to establish R&D centers in the EU, North America and Japan; Qingdao Baojia Automation Equipment Co., Ltd. and Japan Co., Ltd. In-depth development and customized design of industrial robots and integrated systems... A series of international exchanges and synergies such as technical research, standards development, results transformation, and personnel training are progressing in an orderly manner.
"The combination of robot and artificial intelligence must rely 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 has been difficult to meet the application of artificial intelligence in the field of robotics. "Intelligence + Robot" requires close cooperation between entrepreneurs and scientists who have mastered professional knowledge. On the other hand, in addition to the innovative cooperation of source technologies, countries should also exchange more relevant systems on ethics, humanities and law, and the framework is more sound. Social security system and legal system.
Qu Daokui said that while building a good external development environment, the robot's self-adaptation to the environment, that is, "flexible intelligence" needs to be further improved. Through the continuous integration with new technologies, the robot ecosystem has changed, and technical adjustments and breakthroughs must be made accordingly. Robots can have better performance, higher intelligence and broader development space.
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