Domestic manufacturers make efforts, and the process of domestic substitution of controllers is accelerated

The controller accounts for 12% of the cost of the robot and is the brain of the industrial robot

The controller is one of the three core components of industrial robots. In the cost of the robot, the three major components of the controller, servo motor and reducer account for about 70% of the total cost, and the controller accounts for 12%. The "brain" of the robot, the controller is responsible for issuing action instructions to the robot, controlling the movement position, posture and trajectory of the robot during work, and the controller determines the performance of the industrial robot.

Although my country's industry started late, it has developed extremely fast. So far, my country is the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories announced by the United Nations. In recent years, the country has attached great importance to industrial intelligence and digital transformation. Industrial robots are used in all walks of life The application of the robot has been greatly expanded, and my country has become the world's largest industrial robot market.

The market demand is rapidly expanding, and many manufacturers have entered the market one after another, all wanting to carve out their own territory on this huge cake. European and American manufacturers, Japanese and Korean manufacturers, etc. rely on their deep accumulation in the field of robot core technology to firmly control most of the share of China's industrial robot market, especially in the upstream core components. The controller is led by the Japanese manufacturer FANUC (market share 18%), servo motors are concentrated in the hands of Japanese manufacturer Yaskawa and German manufacturer Siemens, and reducers are monopolized by Japanese manufacturers (Nabtesco, Harmonaco and Sumitomo occupy more than 95% of the market share).

Due to their late start, low technical level and weak competitiveness, many domestic manufacturers can only place their hopes on the mid-stream and downstream fields such as industrial robot body and system integration under the background that the core field is almost monopolized by foreign countries. The embarrassing days of living with other people's faces.

Domestic controller manufacturers are working together, and the process of domestic replacement of controllers is accelerating

In order to break the technology monopoly of foreign manufacturers, domestic manufacturers continue to increase research on controller technology. Some leading companies have gradually realized independent research and development of controllers. etc. have also squeezed into the TOP10 supplier list of China's industrial robots, which has eased the situation that core components are controlled by others.

The domestic robot controller "Ruizhi" independently developed by Zhejiang Zhichang Group in 2018 broke the monopoly of foreign technology, and was included in the national key research and development plan of "Intelligent Robot" of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and was installed in more than 3,600 industrial robots produced by Kawasaki Robot Company in Japan. on the robot.

Siasun Robot's "High-performance Intelligent Industrial Robot Controller Product Development and Industrialization", Efort's "New Controller Board for Robots", Zhichang Group's "Technical Transformation of 10,000 Robots and Controller Production Lines per Year" and other projects They have been selected into the "List of Demonstration Enterprises and Demonstration Projects of the "One-stop" Application Plan of Key Products and Processes of the Industrial Foundation Project in 2018" announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

At the 2021 ITES Shenzhen Industrial Exhibition, STATE released its new controller product SC series motion controller. The controller supports 32-axis linkage interpolation, 128-axis control, pulse axis, and adopts quad-core with the highest main frequency up to 1GHz high-performance CPU, the cycle control cycle can be as short as 120us.

In addition, Guangzhou CNC has fully mastered the intellectual property rights of the robot controller, and independently developed the GSK-RC robot controller; Controller ADC1000; Googol Technology developed a four-axis robot controller in 2001. In recent years, it has successfully developed an eight-axis robot control system and achieved mass production.

The continuous improvement of the independent research and development level of domestic manufacturers in the field of controllers will also greatly accelerate the process of domestic substitution of robot controllers.

The output of industrial robots is increasing year by year, and there is a huge space for domestic substitution of controllers

The market for industrial robot controllers is huge. Generally speaking, according to the standard that one industrial robot is equipped with one controller, the demand for industrial robot controllers in 2020 will be around 237,000. As can be seen from the figure below, the output of industrial robots in my country has maintained The growth momentum continues. In the first half of 2021, 173,600 sets of industrial robots have been produced, a year-on-year increase of 61%, and the annual output scale is expected to reach 300,000 sets. Judging from the current situation that the domestic production rate of industrial robot controllers in China is less than 20%, there is still a lot of room for domestic substitution of industrial robot controllers in the future.