China has become the world's largest consumer of industrial robots for 8 consecutive years. Under the trend of transformation and upgrading in Chinese manufacturing industry, it is expected that the density of domestic industrial robots will continue to increase, and it is expected to exceed 58.9 billion yuan by 2023.
Industrial robots are widely used in the industrial field as multi joint robotic arms or multi degree of freedom machine devices. They have a certain degree of automation and can rely on their own power and control capabilities to achieve various industrial processing and manufacturing functions.
According to IFR statistics, in 2022, the sales of industrial robots in China accounted for 67%, 23%, and 6% of the sales of multi joint, SCARA, and coordinate robots, respectively.
The market for six axis or above high-end industrial robots currently used in high-end industries such as automotive manufacturing and welding is mainly occupied by Japanese and European and American enterprises. Domestic six axis industrial robots account for less than 10% of the new installed capacity of industrial robots in China, and there is broad room for domestic substitution.
Industrial robot industry chain:
From the perspective of the industrial chain, the upstream of industrial robots is a key component manufacturer, with core component costs accounting for 70% of the overall cost of industrial robots. Core component suppliers have the strongest bargaining power in the entire industrial chain.
The reducer is an intermediate mechanism that connects the power source and the actuator, and has the function of matching speed and transmitting torque.
In general, each joint of an industrial robot is equipped with a reducer to achieve precise control.
The main reducers in industrial robots are RV reducers and harmonic reducers.
RV reducers are often used in the base, boom, and other parts of industrial robots; And harmonic reducers are mostly used in the forearms, wrists, or hands of industrial robots.
In terms of harmonic reducers, mainstream international brands still dominate the market.
The harmonic reducers produced independently in China are mainly represented by green harmonics, and the overall demand for domestically produced alternatives is strong.
The servo system sends signals from the servo driver to the servo motor to drive its rotation, and the encoder in the servo motor feeds back the motion parameters of the servo motor to the servo driver. The servo driver then summarizes, analyzes, and corrects the signals.
Due to its high positioning accuracy, fast dynamic response, and good stability, servo systems are widely used in industries with high requirements for position accuracy.
Domestic manufacturers have achieved large-scale mass production in the mid range server field, meeting the needs of small and medium-sized enterprise users with cost-effectiveness advantages. In the high-end server field, the brand influence of domestic enterprises is forming, represented by companies such as Huichuan Technology and Hechuan Technology.
Robot body
In the middle of the industrial chain of industrial robots is the robot body, that is, the base and actuator, including arms, wrists, etc. According to the structural form, the body can be divided into Cartesian coordinate system, spherical coordinates, cylindrical coordinates, joint coordinates and other types.
Downstream are system integrators, mainly automation equipment manufacturers (i.e. system integrators), who conduct targeted system integration and software secondary development based on different application scenarios and purposes. The robots produced can only be invested in downstream industries such as automobiles, electronics, and metal processing after system integration, for use by end customers.
Overall, domestic industrial robots have occupied the majority of the domestic market in many segmented fields due to their advantages in cost-effectiveness and channels. However, in many core component fields, there is still a significant gap between us and the industry giants represented by the four major foreign families. In the future, with the transformation and upgrading of Chinese manufacturing, domestic substitution is expected to accelerate, and the industry space is broad.