The robot is hailed as “the jewel in the crown of manufacturing industry”. It is a powerful driving force for industrial transformation and upgrading. It is an important helper to promote the development of the national economy, and it is also the key to improving the country's strength and competitiveness. In recent years, with the diminishing demographic dividends and the increasing demand for automation, robots have ushered in an explosive development on a global scale, with every achievement, every step of the journey, and every future. The trend has caused people's attention.

For domestic enterprises and users, the most concerned is undoubtedly the development of China's own robots. As an important demand and application country in the global market, although the robot industry in China started late, its development speed and potential are amazing. In recent years, with the continuous help and drive of policies, enterprises, capital and other factors, China's robot development has also achieved remarkable results, and at the same time presents a trend of development and future trends.

Domestic robot development status

At present, China's robot development has transitioned from the initial stage to the high-speed growth period, which not only occupies a global important proportion in application and demand, but also is very gratifying in terms of scale and growth rate. According to the "China Robot Industry Development Report (2018)", the scale of China's robot market has exceeded 8.5 billion US dollars by 2018, and the average annual growth rate in the past five years is close to 30%. The development is very strong.

At the same time, with the continuous expansion of the market scale, the rapid expansion of the application field, the accelerating process of the localization of core components, and the emergence of a large number of innovative enterprises and the increasingly prominent advantages of some areas of the enterprise, China's robots are gradually emerging in the industrial development. There are three distinct features.

One is that the development of three types of robots continues to accelerate. At present, the development of industrial robots in China is particularly rapid, with a market share of about one-third of the world's total, and has become the world's largest demand and application market for six consecutive years. At the same time, the demand potential of service robots is huge, in the three major fields of home, education and public. Under the guidance of the application, the scale and highlights are expanding. In addition, the expansion of the range of special robot application scenarios has also brought the market into an important period of gaining momentum. The continuous emergence of various types of products is catalyzing the final outbreak of the market. .

The second is that the phenomenon of industrial clusters has become more apparent. At present, all over the country, around the core links of the robot industry chain such as ontology manufacturing, system integration, and parts production, we are leading the construction of various robotic industrial parks and characteristic towns, such as Xianghe and Xiaoshan. They came into being under the joint government-enterprise cooperation or enterprise strength, and promoted the industrial development from decentralization to agglomeration, which brought important help to the further maturity of China's robots.

The third is that the respective advantages of regional industries have accelerated. In the process of industrial agglomeration in China, China has formed six large gathering areas, including the East, Central and West, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. These agglomeration regions differ in terms of economic development level, industrial base, market maturity and talents. Formed their own unique advantages. In this context, the current inter-regional cooperation and exchanges are accelerating, and the rapid development of the industry is being promoted through complementary advantages.

Short-term development trend

Based on the above-mentioned development status, what is the development trend and direction of China's robot industry in the short term?

The first is the application acceleration extension. Regardless of industrial robots or services, special robots, the premise of speeding up development is the further expansion and deepening of the application field. From the current application of robots in the industrial field, it has begun to accelerate from the traditional fields of automobiles, electronics and other emerging fields such as new energy, environmental protection, warehousing and logistics. It can be seen that the expansion of future applications into new areas and the deepening of subdivisions are a major trend in the short term.

Second is the emergence of leading companies. Leading enterprises are an important force driving the industry to mature. At present, some segments of emerging markets have emerged as a group of small and medium-sized enterprises with high level of business, practical industry and mature application plans, and have the foundation for a certain leading enterprise. According to the national policy's emphasis on and support for leading enterprises, it is expected that the emergence of leading enterprises in the future will be another direction for short-term development.

Finally, innovation and entrepreneurship speed up. Innovation and entrepreneurship is one of the directions that the government encourages development in the new era. For the robot industry, the government encourages related companies to accelerate the development of dual innovation. At present, some enterprises with the ability to transform technological research results have begun to cooperate with the government and enterprises at home and abroad to promote the development of industrial dual-generation through the construction of service sharing and risk-sharing service platforms. Under this trend, the future improvement of enterprise innovation and entrepreneurship will become the norm.

Long-term trends in future development

After looking at the short-term development trend, what kind of trend will China's robot development pursue in the long run? The author believes that there are three main points: cross-border integration, human-machine collaboration and three-in-one.

In other words, cross-border integration is "robot +", and the following subjects can be a series of industry terms such as medical, education, finance, industry, and agriculture. Cross-border integration is about the long-term goal of robotics application and scale commercialization. Only when large-scale applications can be realized in traditional industry fields can robots display their actual value and realize the mature development of the industry. During the two sessions this year, the government work report put forward a new concept of “smart +”. From another perspective, it is also a further emphasis on the long-term practice of robot cross-border integration.

Human-machine collaboration is well understood, that is, the synergy and integration of people and robots, which is the ideal state of human-machine relationship in the future. At present, "machine substitution" has caused many people's panic and worry, but in fact, it is still too early for robots to completely replace people with technical deficiencies and lack of consciousness. In view of this, before the emergence of human-aware robots, I believe that the development of human-computer cooperation will be the main theme in the long run.

The three-in-one in the three-in-one refers specifically to intelligence, lightness and flexibility, which are the three main directions pursued by the current development of robots. Whether it is intelligent, lightweight or flexible, on the one hand, it is the basis for ensuring the further application of the robot field, on the other hand, it is the key prerequisite for promoting the development of human-computer integration. Therefore, under the long-term maintenance of the future trend of human-computer cooperation, promoting the development of robots will also be an important trend in the future development.