(reporter Ye Jing) "2021 world robot conference" ended perfectly a few days ago. Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of industry and information technology, said at the conference that China has become the backbone supporting the development of the world robot industry. The overall scale has increased rapidly, exceeding 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2020. The Ministry of industry and information technology is formulating the "14th five year plan" for the development of robot industry, focusing on improving industrial innovation ability, consolidating the foundation of industrial development, increasing the supply of high-end products and expanding the depth and breadth of applications. At the same time, China's installed capacity of industrial robots accounted for 44% of the world in 2020. The development potential of service robots and special robots is huge. The integrated application of robot technology is becoming more and more "ubiquitous", and the industrial ecosystem is constantly improving. "From the vast space to the deep sea, from the factory workshop to the field, from the country's important tools to people's life, we are stepping into a colorful new world of harmony and common prosperity with robots," Xin Guobin said.

Contrarian growth of China's robot industry

At present, China's robot market has entered a period of stable growth. The report on the development of China's robot industry (2021) (hereinafter referred to as the report) released during the "2021 world robot conference" shows that even if the scale of China's robot market declines slightly due to the epidemic, a large number of "non-contact" services also provide a broader application space for robots.

According to the report, the scale of China's robot market is expected to reach 83.9 billion yuan in 2021, with an average growth rate of 18.3% from 2016 to 2023. Among them, industrial robots were 44.57 billion yuan, service robots 30.26 billion yuan and special robots 9.07 billion yuan

China's industrial robots have begun to recover, with an increase of 18.8% compared with the annual installed capacity in 2019. It is estimated that China's industrial robot market will reach 44.57 billion yuan in 2021; By 2023, the scale of the domestic market will be further expanded, and the demand in medical treatment, education, public services and other fields will become the main driving force. In addition, it is estimated that in 2021, the scale of China's service robot market will reach 30.26 billion yuan, higher than the growth rate of the global service robot market; By 2023, with the rapid development of emerging scenes and products such as visual guidance robots and companion service robots, the market scale of service robots in China is expected to exceed 60 billion yuan.

Since the 13th five year plan, the strength of China's robot industry has been continuously enhanced and the industrial scale has increased rapidly. Qu Daokui, founder and President of Xinsong robot, said that the market data released by the International Federation of robots (IFR) on July 11 showed that the global robot sales in 2019 decreased significantly compared with the previous year. Affected by the epidemic, the growth rate of global robot sales decreased by 2% in 2020, while that of China was 19%. Wang Yaonan, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering, pointed out that China has issued a series of policies and regulations on the robot industry in recent years, and the robot industry has become an important engine to promote the development of digital economy.

The "just needed" market of robot industry is opening up

Surgery, bottle cap screwing, disinfection and patrol inspection... Nowadays, these fine tasks can be completed by robots. At the "2021 world robot conference", in the three exhibition areas of industrial robots, service robots and special robots, more than 500 products from more than 110 enterprises participated in the exhibition, and versatile robots showed their skills one after another. The three astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo also sent blessings from space: "robot technology is profoundly changing human production and lifestyle, and the manipulator of the Chinese space station has also helped us complete two extravehicular missions".

With the continuous release of the intelligent demand of all walks of life, the application of robots is becoming more and more ubiquitous, extending from industry to medical, education, catering and other industries. Robot industry is increasingly becoming an important driving force supporting economic and social development. On the one hand, robots can help the intelligent development of traditional industries. At present, China's industrial robots have been widely used in 129 industries of 47 industry categories. At present, with the in-depth development of intelligent manufacturing, industrial robot has become an important part of intelligent factory construction. On the other hand, robots have become a "good helper" in human life. For example, in novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic prevention and treatment, clean disinfection robot and contactless indoor distribution robot played an important role, widely used in restaurants, hotels, hospitals and isolation points, and so on, effectively protecting people's health and safety.

It is worth looking forward to more technical iterations in the industry in the future

The report points out that at present, the primary goal of China's industrial robot R & D is to break through the key core technology of robots, and the government, industry, University and research work together to continuously improve the domestic substitution rate of core links such as reducer, controller, servo motor and operating system. Many guests also said that grasping key technologies is still the top priority for the development of robot industry in the future.

Wang Yaonan, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering, believes that today's robots are still from 1.0 to 2.0. In the future, the service robot with the greatest demand from academia, industry and industry will develop to the 3.0 era, that is, cooperative robot. In the future, if robots are to carry out cognitive learning, human-computer interaction, semantic analysis, and become autonomous robots, more technical iterations will occur in the industry.

Gong Ke, President of the World Federation of engineering organizations and vice president of China Electronics Society, believes that "robot +" will become a new development trend in the future. For example, the combination of artificial intelligence and robot will enter the manufacturing Internet based on robot and industrial Internet, so as to realize the deep integration of artificial intelligence and real economy.