August 17, 2018 Source: Economic Information

In recent years, with the successive introduction of central and local support policies, the robot industry has entered a period of vigorous development in China. The "Economic Information Daily" reporter learned from the 2018 World Robotics Congress that the scale of China's robot industry reached nearly 7 billion US dollars in 2017, and is expected to reach 8.74 billion US dollars in 2018. Since 2013, the average annual growth rate has reached 29.7%, which has become an important force for the stable growth of the global robot industry. Especially in the field of industrial robots, China exceeded 100,000 units for the first time last year, exceeding 130,000 units, an increase of 68.1% year-on-year. From January to June this year, industrial robots produced nearly 74,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 23.9%.

Miao Wei, Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the conference that China has always attached great importance to the development of the robot industry, and will promote the advancement of robot technology and industrial development as an important measure to implement the strategic deployment of manufacturing power, with innovation as the guide, demand as the driving force, and enterprise as the The main body will give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, and make positive progress in core technology research and development, industrial chain construction, application field expansion, and regional agglomeration development.

With the accelerated integration of next-generation information and communication technologies and manufacturing industries such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, the development of digitalization, networking, and intelligence has also injected new impetus into the global robotics industry. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) statistics, the global robotics industry has exceeded $25 billion in 2017, growing by more than 20% and is expected to reach $30 billion by 2018. Industry experts believe that the robot industry will maintain a high-speed growth trend for a while and the future, and the average annual growth rate is much higher than that of the industrial and equipment manufacturing industries.

At the same time, robots are becoming an important breakthrough in boosting the real economy. "The booming development of China's robot industry and the gradual maturity of the market have brought a new round of investment boom." Xu Xiaolan, vice chairman and secretary general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, told reporters that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Robot Industry Development". The plan (2016-2020) clearly proposes to use the Central Financial Technology Program Fund to support the development of qualified robots and their key components. It is a common practice of all countries to support the industry to become bigger and stronger. It can give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, and make the robot industry a breakthrough for driving other industries to transform and upgrade and cultivate new economic momentum.

Intelligentization has become an important development direction

In general, robots can be roughly divided into three categories, namely, industrial robots, special robots, and service robots. A number of interviewed experts said that robots not only expand their applications in the manufacturing field, but also accelerate their expansion into the service field. In addition to home entertainment, emotional accompanying, educational demonstrations, and public scenes, they are also widely used in medical rehabilitation, emergency rescue, scientific research, etc. Important areas.

In terms of industrial robots, China is the largest country in industrial robot applications. The world's largest robot manufacturers have set up branches in China, and even many manufacturers have moved their headquarters to China. In terms of service robots, China's market sales in 2017 only reached 1.28 billion US dollars. However, with the aging of the population and the continued strong demand for medical and educational services, China's service robots have huge market potential and development space.

"Intelligence is an important development direction of the robot industry. The core of artificial intelligence technology is to make industrial robots more intelligent. The symbol is human-computer cooperation. Robots will develop into intelligent devices with different levels of perception and cognition. Independent feedback and decision-making methods, extensive participation, assistance and service to human production, life and social governance." Xu Xiaolan said.

Qu Daokui, founder and president of Xinsong Robot Automation Co., Ltd., believes that a new generation of robots has formed a new ecosystem. "Technology development and breakthroughs have made robots enter the 2.0 era. One of the important signs is that robots are made up of machinery and equipment in the past. The metrics, namely speed, accuracy, load and reliability, are transformed into autonomous decision making, athletic, operational and interactive capabilities.

Strengthen guidance and collaborative development

Although China's robot industry is developing rapidly, it still faces many challenges. For example, the core technology has yet to be broken, the application field needs to be expanded, and the legal and regulatory system needs to be improved. "We will further deepen supply-side structural reforms, create a sound development environment, enhance innovation capabilities, strengthen talent cultivation, consolidate the industrial base, and focus on promoting the high-quality development of the robot industry," said Miao Wei.

It is understood that China is currently strengthening the top-level design of the robot industry, actively building an industry-wide open resource sharing platform, and accelerating the construction of a collaborative innovation system for the robot industry.

In order to promote the healthy development of China's robot industry, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments have successively issued a series of support measures. As early as April 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Robot Industry Development Plan (2016-2020)", which requires the formation of a relatively complete robotic industry system in China within five years. According to the deployment of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the next phase of relevant industry promotion policies will address two key issues: first, to promote the development of the robot industry towards high-end, and second, to regulate market order and prevent the disorderly development of the robot industry.

"At present, the development of China's robot industry is undergoing a tough stage from quantitative expansion to high-quality development." Luo Junjie, deputy director of the Equipment Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that in the future, the quality of robots should be promoted first, and the medium and high-end industries should move forward. Focus on solving some "card neck" problems, make full use of the Robot Innovation Center to build a national robot innovation platform, and break through a series of key common technologies such as human-computer interaction, compliance control, functional bionics, and intelligent perception.

"Secondly, we must prevent disorderly competition and standardize the development of the industry." Luo Junjie said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has announced a list of enterprises that meet the "Standard Conditions for Industrial Robot Industry", and then the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will further implement the standardized management of the industry and guide policy resources. Focus on agglomeration, and at the same time use the China Robot Industry Alliance and other industry organizations to promote industry self-discipline, improve the robot testing and certification platform, and develop the industry's much-needed standards. The third is to focus on cultivating world-class robot industry clusters and promoting the development of large and medium-sized enterprises.