1. Winding equipment industry: terminal demand drives scale growth
1) CNC winding: the scale of the industry has grown steadily, and the trend of automation has become prominent
There are various types of winding machines, and automation + intelligence is the industry trend. CNC winding machine refers to the automatic winding equipment that uses digital instructions composed of numbers, words and symbols to realize the action control of winding, arranging, winding, trimming, tape, upper and lower skeletons, and positioning the starting winding position. The winding machine is classified in various ways, according to the degree of automation, it can be divided into automatic winding machine and semi-automatic winding machine, the automatic winding machine is efficient, the product quality is uniform and can work for a long time without interruption, but it is high, it needs to run for a long time to recover the cost and generate benefits, and it is suitable for the mass production of a single mature product; The semi-automatic winding machine has low ** and stronger flexibility, but it is limited by the operator's operation proficiency, and is suitable for low-cost production, new product production, and a variety of low-volume production. At present, the latter is the most widely used, and in the future, with the rise of labor costs and the progress of equipment technology, full automation and intelligence may become an industry trend.
The scale of the winding equipment industry is growing steadily year by year, and there is a lot of room for development in the future. According to Zhiyan Consulting, China's domestic winding machine market size increased from 33 in 2015100 million yuan, an increase to 44. in 2022700 million yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 439%, and it is expected that the domestic winding machine market is expected to exceed 500,000 units in 2023. In the past ten years, with the continuous improvement of the performance of the core processor of the CNC system and the large number of servo drive devices, PLCs, drive motors, precision sensors, and hydraulic actuators used in winding equipment, the winding speed of CNC automatic winding equipment and the accuracy of electronic coil specifications have been further improved.
Second, there are new opportunities for the development of humanoid robots, and the market space is large
1) The coreless motor has excellent performance, and the core barrier is the winding process
The coreless motor has high efficiency and excellent drag performance. Coreless motors belong to DC permanent magnet servo and control motors, which can also be classified as micro motors. The coreless motor breaks through the rotor structure of the traditional motor in terms of structure, and adopts an ironless rotor, also known as a coreless rotor. According to the "Design of Control System of Coreless Coil Winding Machine", the efficiency of the coreless motor is increased by more than 30% compared with that of the general core motor due to the absence of iron lag loss in its coil winding; The moment of inertia is reduced, which makes it have excellent servo control performance, and at the same time has good drag performance, easy to control, and stable speed. Therefore, coreless motors are widely used in aerospace, medical, automation, robotics and other fields. In the field of automation and robotics, with good drag performance, fast response, stable and reliable, it adapts to various demanding requirements in this field and greatly improves production efficiency.
The coreless motor has excellent performance, and the humanoid robot opens up a new blue ocean for its application. According to the latest progress of the humanoid robot Oplus Gen 2 released by Tesla in December 2023, each hand includes 6 drivers and 11 degrees of freedom, the thumb contains two drivers, and the other four fingers contain one driver each. The active degree of freedom of the fingers is realized by the actuator, which drives the actuator for the coreless motor, and the transmission device for the rope drive + worm gear and worm, and is equipped with a variety of sensors, etc. In the future, with the advancement of the commercialization trend of humanoid robots, the output of humanoid robots is expected to reach the level of one million units, and the current humanoid robots use 6 coreless motors per hand, and the dexterous hands of humanoid robots will bring new space for the incremental market of coreless motors.
The process flow of coreless motor is complex, and the core barrier is the winding process. The processing difficulty of coreless motor is far more than that of ordinary DC slotted motor, taking Dingzhi Technology as an example, according to the prospectus, the production process of DC slotless motor of the company's coreless motor product involves nearly 30 processes, far exceeding the production process of less than 10 processes of its DC slotted motor products. Among them, the key to the production of coreless motors is the winding of the coreless coil. According to different winding methods, the current winding methods are mainly divided into three types: straight winding, saddle and oblique winding. Due to the influence of its own process, the straight winding type is often used in the manufacture of motor coils with fewer coil turns. The oblique winding shape and saddle shape are the two most common methods used by foreign advanced coreless motor manufacturers. In principle, the winding machine equipment can be wound in three ways: straight, saddle and oblique, and the winding method is realized by switching programs.
Humanoid robots have brought about an increase in the market space of coreless motors and promoted the growth of demand for winding equipment. In the case of Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus Gen 2, one dexterous hand needs 6 coreless motors as a driving device, so one humanoid robot needs 12 coreless motors.
2) Frameless torque motor: humanoid robot joint, high requirements for winding equipment
The frameless torque motor is designed with a special structure and gets rid of the constraints of the chassis. A frameless torque motor is a frameless permanent magnet motor measured by output torque, and its basic operation is just like that of a traditional permanent magnet motor. The frameless torque motor is powered by a driver, which controls the U V W three-phase electricity to form an electromagnetic field, and the rotor of the permanent magnet rotates under the action of this magnetic field. Unlike traditional permanent magnet motors, it does not have a casing, but only two parts: the rotor and the stator. The emergence of frameless torque motors makes the structural design of the machine no longer constrained by the motor housing, and uses the machine's own bearings to support the rotor, and seamlessly builds the motor into the machine design.
The performance of frameless torque motor is affected by the coil layout, and the requirements for winding equipment are high. A frameless torque motor consists of two components, a rotor and a stator, of which the stator is an external component containing a toothed steel lamination wrapped around a copper winding that generates electromagnetic force. Due to the differences in the layout and coil mode of different manufacturers of rotor and stator may affect the performance of the motor, the current technical barriers of frameless torque motors are mainly in the magnetic circuit and process design, and the layout of the motor coil also affects the performance of the motor. The motor winding machine can be classified according to the use, configuration, and winding method. As a special servo motor, frameless torque motor has high requirements for winding equipment.
Humanoid robots have brought about an increase in the market space of frameless torque motors, driving the growth of demand for winding equipment. As mentioned above, a Tesla humanoid robot requires 28 frameless torque motors as joint parts.
Investment suggestion: The winding machine industry is expected to benefit from the new increment brought by the recovery of consumer electronics + humanoid robots. It is recommended to pay attention to Tanaka Seiki, the leader in the field of winding machines. The company's technology comes from Tanaka Seiki Manufacturing in Japan, and its position in the winding machine industry is leading. Affected by the downstream consumer electronics cycle, the company's performance in 2021-2022 will be under pressure, consumer electronics will stabilize in 23, and the company's net profit attributable to the parent company will turn losses into profits in 2023Q3.
This is an abridged excerpt from the report, the original PDF of the report
Machinery and Equipment-Humanoid Robot Series 11: Winding Machine Depth: The "Fixing Star" of Motor Performance-GF**[Dai Chuan, Sun Baiyang]-20240129 [Page 25].
Report**: Value Catalog