A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is advancing by leaps and bounds, and the robot industry, as one of the key general-purpose technologies, will maintain a rapid growth momentum, and under the promotion of complementary technologies, the functions will be richer and more powerful, and it will evolve in the direction of cloudification, intelligence, and collaboration. China is already the world's largest industrial robot market, in the factor endowment, population structure, income level and digital technology development and other factors, the future of China's robot market will continue to grow, the ability to steadily enhance the ability to rise, the international status of the industry continues to improve.
In recent years, with the emergence of disruptive technological innovation, new market demand and the impact of external shocks, the robot industry has shown a new development trend in technology, market and industrial competition pattern.
First, the development trend of the global robot industry.
The first is the trend of technological development.
Cross-industry technology integration continues to deepen. Digital technology is a typical general-purpose technology, which has been widely used in various industries of the national economy and has promoted profound changes in the industries where it is applied, and the robotics industry is no exception. With the increasing maturity of a new generation of digital technologies such as mobile Internet, Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, the in-depth application of digital technology in the robot industry has become possible. With the characteristics of high speed, low latency and large connection, 5G technology connects industrial robots to the industrial Internet, making it an inseparable part of the industrial intelligent manufacturing system. Through the industrial Internet, the working condition data of the robot is transmitted in real time, which can detect the operating status of the industrial robot, analyze the work efficiency, and judge and warn potential faults. Artificial intelligence technology can significantly enhance the functions of robots, so that robots have the ability to perceive and make decisions. In addition, robots are also more and more closely integrated with emerging technologies such as lidar, satellite remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS), virtual reality, cognitive science, biotechnology, and new material technology.
Accelerate cloudification and intelligent transformation. Enabled by a new generation of digital technology, robots are developing in the direction of cloud and intelligence. Cloudification means that the robot ontology terminal only needs to use edge computing power to process small-scale data that needs to be processed in real time, large-scale data processing is carried out in the cloud, and system resources such as storage and computing can be called on demand, which can reduce the load of storage and computing resources on robot hardware, make the robot lightweight, low energy consumption, and reduce the cost of using the robot, and better promote the popularization of robots. In addition, robots connected to the cloud can also interact with each other more easily, realizing unified scheduling control and collaborative work between robots. Intelligence means that the robot obtains a certain ability to solve problems autonomously in complex scenarios, relying on the knowledge graph database and the algorithm trained and learned in the application scenario data, the robot has the ability of global perception, intelligent decision-making, and accurate execution. Intelligent robots can perceive and understand environmental changes, and autonomously make quick and accurate decisions and responses to environmental changes. With the help of the development and integration of artificial intelligence technology, service robots have made significant progress in natural language understanding, scene recognition, reasoning and cognition. In the future, robots will become more intelligent and flexible, evolving from single perception to global perception, from perceptual intelligence to cognitive intelligence, and from stand-alone intelligence to cluster intelligence.
The second is the market application trend.
The level of human-machine collaboration continues to improve. Early industrial robots worked independently according to pre-set procedures, especially some heavy robots in industrial scenarios, in order to protect the safety of workers, were confined to work in a closed environment, and the working environment was isolated from people. Although the technical level of robots is constantly improving, and even greatly expanded with the blessing of artificial intelligence, it still cannot completely replace human work. In the field of artificial intelligence, there is a famous "Moravec paradox": machines can do tasks that are difficult or even impossible for humans, but many tasks that are simple for humans are difficult for robots to do. Therefore, if robots and humans can work together, the advantages of both will be brought into play, and production efficiency will be significantly improved. In the process of contacting people, not only can they not cause harm to the personal safety of human beings, but they must also be able to understand human instructions. With the development of sensors such as haptics, force sense, machine vision, voice recognition, and artificial intelligence technology and their integration with robots, robots can perceive people's positions and movements, and understand people's instructions, so as to achieve human-machine collaboration and human-machine integration; In the industrial field, robots and humans can perform production tasks together in the same space; In the field of life, robots can provide various services to humans in close proximity.
The application scenarios are constantly expanding. The early robots were mainly used in the industrial field, replacing the heavy physical labor of workers or engaging in high-precision and harsh environments, mainly used in automobile manufacturing, shipbuilding, chemical industry, 3C electronics and other industries, engaged in handling, loading and unloading, welding, spraying and other work. In recent years, the application field of industrial robots has begun to expand to high-precision and high-sensitivity scenarios such as assembly, grinding, and polishing. In addition to the application in the industrial field, service robots and special robots are also developing rapidly. In the field of service robots, with the application of various sensors such as vision and pressure, the optimization of control algorithms and the development of artificial intelligence technology, the intelligence level of robots has been greatly improved, and they have entered daily life such as cleaning services, education and entertainment, family companionship, welcome shopping guides, and food delivery. In the field of special robots, with the continuous improvement of functions, external forms and braking methods, the application scenarios continue to expand, and robots are widely used in logistics and distribution, emergency rescue, medical surgery, deep-sea exploration, space exploration, national defense and other scenarios. In particular, the demand for epidemic prevention and the need for "no contact" in daily life have promoted the rapid increase in the application scenarios of special robots and the rapid expansion of market scale demand. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), from 2017 to 2021, the market size of industrial robots increased from US$16.3 billion to US$17.5 billion, with an average annual growth rate of only 18%；The market size of service robots has increased from $6.6 billion to $17.2 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 271%, the market size of special robots increased from $3.8 billion to $8.2 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 212%。It can be seen that the growth rate of service robots far exceeds the growth rate of industrial robots. With the further maturity of core technology and the further reduction of cost, service robots are expected to become the fastest growing and largest share of the robot industry, and will also become the focus of competition in the global robot industry. In addition, robot technology is also penetrating into production equipment and production tools, and "robotized" intelligent equipment and tools are becoming increasingly popular. New business models are emerging. The traditional business model of the robot industry is that robot manufacturing companies sell products to users to obtain income. However, in this mode, some enterprises with weak capital and technical strength, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, lack of purchase funds, and do not have the ability to carry out maintenance, maintenance and application development after the installation of robots. In recent years, the "Robot-as-a-Service" (RaaS) business model has emerged. In this mode, robot manufacturing enterprises provide users with services such as robot leasing, agency operation, and integrated solutions. Users can flexibly rent robots according to their needs, and obtain value-added services provided by robot manufacturing enterprises, which significantly reduces the capital and technical threshold for the use of robots, so as to realize the rapid deployment of robots and the intelligent upgrade of manufacturing production lines. As a result, robot manufacturing companies have reduced the difficulty of market promotion and accelerated business development and revenue growth. With the further integration of digital technology and robotics and the expansion of robot application scenarios, more new business models will emerge.
The third is the trend of industrial competition.
All countries have strengthened their strategic layout. After the international financial crisis, the world's major countries attach great importance to the development of advanced manufacturing industry, and put forward a series of strategies to revitalize the manufacturing industry, promote the return of manufacturing industry, and develop advanced manufacturing industry. As a key supporting technology for the manufacturing industry and an important driving force for the intelligence of the manufacturing industry, robots have become the focus of industrial policies in various countries. In 2018, the U.S. National Science and Technology Council released the "U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Leadership Strategy", which proposed 15 new manufacturing technologies that need to be developed and mastered in five major fields, including advanced industrial robots. In February 2022, the U.S. National Science and Technology Council released a new version of the Critical and Emerging Technologies List, which also includes autonomous systems and robots. The European Commission's New European Industrial Strategy, published in 2020, identified robotics as a key enabling technology that is strategic for the future of European industry. In 2021, France** invested 800 million euros in the development of the robot industry, half of which was used to promote the deep integration of a new generation of digital technology and robots. Robots are Japan's "Society 5In 2021, the Japan Institute of Science and Technology Policy released the "2021 Science and Technology Innovation", which proposes that by 2050, through the co-evolution of artificial intelligence and robots, robots that learn independently, act and coexist with people will be realized.
Enterprises have increased their investment. The good prospects of the robot industry have attracted a large amount of investment and the entry of new market players. First, traditional robot enterprises continue to extend to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, broaden product lines, apply new technologies and innovate business models; Second, a number of emerging robot companies have cut into the market segments that traditional robot companies have not yet paid attention to. These new forces rely on their technological advantages to achieve innovation in products, business models and application scenarios. Third, some technology companies have crossed over into the field of robots, such as Tesla and Xiaomi respectively released Optimus and CyberOne humanoid robots, Amazon acquired iRobot, a sweeping robot company, and SenseTime Technology launched the "Yuan Radish SenseRobot" AI chess robot. Because these technology companies have strong digital technology capabilities, especially artificial intelligence technology, their robot products also make full use of the accumulation in the field of artificial intelligence, with a higher level of intelligence. For example, Tesla Optimus adopts the FSD, a fully self-driving system used in Tesla's electric vehicles, and uses the Dojo supercomputer for automatic training of neural networks, realizing the deep integration of autonomous driving technology, artificial intelligence technology, and robotics technology. Xiaomi CyberOne also includes functional modules such as deep vision, environmental semantic recognition, and voice sentiment recognition.
Second, the development prospects of China's robot industry.
The market size continues to grow. In recent years, China's robot market has maintained a rapid growth momentum. Between 2017 and 2021, industrial robot sales increased from $4.6 billion to $7.5 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 130%；Sales of service robots increased from $1.2 billion to $4.9 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 422%。China's industrial robots and service robots accounted for 28 percent of the world's sales in 20172% and 182% increased to 42 in 20219% and 285%。In the future, with the expansion of the downstream demand market, the development of industrial robots will continue to improve, and the market size is expected to reach $9.9 billion in 2023.
Factors such as changes in factor endowments, industrial transformation and upgrading, aging and improvement of living standards will promote the scale of China's robot application market to continue to maintain a rapid growth momentum. First, the rapid increase in China's wage level has promoted "machine substitution". In order to maintain the comprehensive cost advantage in labor-intensive industries and processing and manufacturing, "machine substitution" has become the choice of many Chinese manufacturing enterprises, and it is also the direction of vigorous promotion. According to some data, enterprises can recover their costs in about a year by investing in a 6-axis welding robot. Although the density of industrial robots in China reached 246 million workers in 2020, about twice the world average, industrial robots have a large market space. The second is the need for high-quality development of China's industry. China has vigorously promoted agriculture, manufacturing, service industry and other industries to seize the development opportunities brought by the digital economy, use digital technology to empower industrial development, enhance innovation capabilities, improve production efficiency, improve product quality, and enhance user services, so as to enhance the international competitiveness of the industry. Robots are an important production equipment for digital transformation, and with the deepening of China's industrial digital and intelligent upgrading, its market demand will continue to grow. The third is to meet the needs of the aging population. According to the data of the seventh population census, the proportion of people aged 60 and above in China has reached 187%, of which 13 are over 65 years old5%。It is necessary to accelerate the development and use of robots to provide companionship, care, and other work for the elderly. Fourth, the demand for continuous improvement of living standards. The increase in income level has led to an increase in the value of people's leisure time and a demand for high-level medical services, resulting in an increase in the demand for service robots such as home services, education and entertainment, and surgical robots. According to the International Federation of Robotics**, the sales of industrial robots and service robots in China will reach US$11.5 billion and US$10.2 billion respectively in 2024, significantly faster than the global growth rate. The ability to innovate has been steadily improved. China's robot industry has formed a relatively complete whole industry chain system, and the R&D and manufacturing capabilities of core components and complete machines have been continuously enhanced. After 2011, the annual growth rate of patent applications in traditional robot powers such as the United States, Germany, Japan, and South Korea was only about 2%-3%, while the number of robot patent applications in China has entered a rapid growth track. From 2011 to 2020, China's robot industry has applied for a total of 20 patents10,000, accounting for 55 of the total number of patent applications worldwide9%。China's local enterprises have made significant technological progress in the fields of key technologies and components such as precision reducers, high-performance servo drive systems, intelligent controllers, and intelligent integrated joints, and have made breakthroughs in core common technologies such as information perception and navigation, multi-task planning and intelligent control, and have made original achievements in cutting-edge technologies such as bionic perception and cognition, and electronics. A number of specialized, special and new "little giant" enterprises in the robot industry have emerged in China's robot industry. Representative companies include Green Harmonic in the field of harmonic reducer, Nantong Zhenkang and Shuanghuan Transmission in the field of RV reducer, Inovance Technology and Hechuan Technology in the field of servo motors, and SIASUN Robot, Xinshida and Huazhong CNC in the field of motor controllers. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out: "Adhere to the core position of innovation in the overall situation of China's modernization. "As the core technology of advanced manufacturing industry and an important supporting technology to meet the growing needs of the people for a better life, robots are an important direction of China's scientific and technological innovation. As the country continues to increase the support of basic research and industrial common research, the continuous increase of enterprise R&D investment and market expansion, and the deep integration of digital technology and other emerging fields of technology and robotics, the innovation ability of China's robot industry will continue to improve, gradually narrow the gap with traditional robot powers, and even achieve a global leading position in service robots, special robots and other subdivisions. The international status is constantly increasing. While the domestic market is expanding, China's robot industry is also growing rapidly. In 2016, China's industrial robot output was 720,000 sets, reaching 21 in 202020,000 sets, with an average annual growth rate of 31%, reaching 3660,000 sets, a year-on-year increase of 44%. In 2021, the output of service robots will be 92140,000 units, an increase of 49% over the previous year, and the output of special robots is also growing steadily. China's robot industry not only covers a wide range of industrial categories including industrial robots, service robots, special robots and their main subdivisions, but also forms a complete and independent industrial chain including upstream R&D and design, midstream reducer, servo system, motor control system, chip and other core component manufacturing, downstream machine manufacturing and system integration development. On the one hand, the development of China's robot industry benefits from the layout of the world's leading robot companies in China, and at the same time, it is also driven by the rapid development of China's local enterprises, and a number of new industrial robot forces have emerged, such as Li Qun Automation and Birkenstock in the field of parallel robots, Jieka Robot and AUBO Intelligence in the field of collaborative robots, and Stander Robot, Jizhijia and Jiazhi Technology in the field of mobile robots. The rapid growth of China's local robot companies is mainly due to two factors: on the one hand, the large and heterogeneous domestic market. China's robot market sales are the world's largest and maintain a rapid growth trend, which provides market opportunities for the development of domestic robot enterprises. What's more, the demand for China's robot market shows a huge difference from the traditional market. First, the rapid growth of new industrial demand. In 2011, the distribution of industrial robot application industries were: 36% of the automobile industry, 23% of electronic appliances, 8% of metal machinery, 6% of rubber and plastics, and 3% of food and beverage; By 2020, electronic appliances accounted for 37%, the automobile industry accounted for 27%, metal machinery accounted for 14%, rubber and plastics accounted for 6%, food and beverage accounted for 4%, of which the share of the electronic and electrical industry increased by 14 percentage points compared with 2011, surpassing the automotive industry to become the most used field of industrial robots. China is the world's largest information and communication technology (ICT) manufacturing base and exporter, and the production of 3C electronics such as mobile phones and notebooks exceeds half of the world's total. China's strategic emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, power batteries, and photovoltaics are growing rapidly, and robots are widely used in product manufacturing and use. In these emerging fields, the world's robot giants do not have obvious advantages. The second is the diversity of industrial market demand. China has a complete range of industrial categories, a relatively complete industrial chain, and a multi-level level of enterprise development, which forms the richness of robot application scenarios in China's industrial field and the differentiated demand for products and solutions. At present, the application of industrial robots has been expanded to a wide range of fields such as welding, spraying, polishing and grinding, gluing, loading and unloading, deburring, handling, palletizing, assembly, sorting, packaging, and testing. The third is the rapid development of the service robot market. In the field of home services, logistics and distribution, elderly care, medical services and other fields of rapid growth in the demand for robots, these areas are relatively inadequate competition in the "blue ocean", developed countries robot enterprises have not yet formed an absolute leading edge, for the late-developing countries and late-developing enterprises to enter the opportunity to provide. On the other hand, the differences in the capabilities of domestic robot enterprises. The capabilities of multinational companies do not fully match the heterogeneous market demand in China, and they mainly focus on the high-end market, which is difficult to cover the rich application scenarios in China, especially the differentiated niche market demand. In contrast, Chinese robot companies are more familiar with the domestic market demand and have lower costs, and some start-ups can cut into the industrial chain with relatively low technical barriers such as small niche markets or system integration. At the same time, China's digital economy is developed, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things and other technologies are at the forefront of the world, by promoting the integration of digital technology and robots, you can innovate products, services and business models, and form the differentiated advantages of Chinese robot enterprises. The in-depth promotion of the integration of data and reality and intelligent transformation in various industries in China, and the wider entry of service robots into the family and various service industries, have driven the continuous growth of the domestic robot market. With the improvement of the technological innovation ability of domestic robot enterprises, it can better serve the domestic market, and the improvement of international competitiveness will also help to open up the market of countries along the "Belt and Road" and even developed countries, which will drive the status of China's robot industry in the global industrial pattern.
3. Suggestions for promoting the high-quality development of China's robot industry.
Although China's robot industry is constantly improving in the domestic market, innovation ability, industrial scale and international status, there is still a gap between the technical level and product quality, especially the stability and reliability of key basic components, as well as high-speed, high-precision, heavy-duty and other high-end machine products. China's robot industry should give full play to the advantages of a large domestic market and a developed digital economy, seize the opportunity of the development of the robot industry, strengthen the ability of scientific and technological innovation, and forge a long board in emerging fields while making up for the shortcomings of the industrial base, so as to promote the modernization level of the robot industry chain and the improvement of international competitiveness.
First, vigorously enhance the ability of industrial innovation. Relying on universities, research institutes, new R&D institutions, backbone enterprises, etc., to strengthen the research and development of common technologies such as robot system development, operating systems, lightweight design, and multi-robot collaboration, improve the technical level, quality and stability of key components such as reducers, servo motors, drives and controllers, and enhance the basic capabilities of the industry. Encourage key core component enterprises, robot body and machine enterprises, and integrated solution enterprises to develop new products and innovative business models for new market demand. Support the R&D and innovation of complementary robot technologies such as digital technology, new materials, and brain science, promote the construction of ethics and ethics in the field of robotics, and lay a good foundation for the development of a new generation of robot products. Second, promote the cross-border integration and development of industries. Support robot R&D institutions, manufacturing enterprises and digital technology R&D institutions and digital technology enterprises to carry out cooperation, promote the deep integration of robots with digital technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and extended reality, develop new cloud-based and intelligent robot products, and improve the perception, cognition and collaborative work capabilities of robots. Provide support in the construction of incubators, accelerators, financing services, etc., encourage and support scientific and technological innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of robotics, and promote the development of scientific and technological start-ups with cross-border integration genes, digital technology and robotics. Actively promote the construction of industrial Internet platforms and digital and intelligent transformation in real economic sectors such as agriculture, mining industry, and manufacturing, so as to provide market support for the use of intelligent robots. Third, actively expand new markets and new scenarios. Implement the "machine substitution" action in labor-intensive industries, and support enterprises to actively use robots to carry out technological transformation and upgrading of production facilities and equipment. Carry out pilot demonstrations of industrial robot applications, and support industrial robot enterprises to develop new products and new models around emerging subdivided industries and emerging scenarios. Encourage robot companies to focus on the rapidly growing needs in the fields of family, medical care, public services, etc., and integrate digital technology to develop new products such as entertainment and leisure robots, elderly care robots, surgical robots, and humanoid robots. Support industry-university-research-application cooperation, develop special robot products in the fields of deep-sea exploration, deep space exploration, polar scientific research, national defense and military industry, and promote the application of advanced technology in the industrial robot and service robot industry. Fourth, strengthen international technological and industrial cooperation. Promote the liberalization and facilitation of investment and actively attract the world's leading robot companies to set up production bases and R&D centers in China. Promote China's robot R&D institutions, manufacturing enterprises and service enterprises to strengthen international cooperation with foreign institutions in technology research and development, standard formulation, scientific and technological exchanges, etc. Support leading robot enterprises to strengthen investment in leading robot countries and set up overseas R&D centers. Encourage robot companies to increase overseas market development efforts, and promote industrial robots and service robots to enter the international market.