Contents
How robotics will develop in our country, why it is not necessary to urgently create a domestic brand of robots and what long-term prospects are opening up for this market in our country
About the expert:
Ekaterina Degai – Marketing Director of Abagy Robotic Systems
What is robotics
To begin with, it is worth designating what exactly refers to robotics. One of the world’s most influential robotics associations IFR – International Federation of Robotics – annually measures how many robots are bought in different countries, including in our country. IFR distinguishes two types of robotics: industrial and service.
Service robotics
It has several areas: delivery, cleaning, medicine, restaurant robots, social robots. But in this material, we will focus on industrial robotics, since it is it that makes up a significant part of the market.
Industrial robotics
It includes all those robots that can cook, paint, cut at manufacturing plants. These are the so-called six-axis manipulators, which are arranged like a human hand.
In industrial robotics, one can also single out a separate area of collaborative robotics. These are robots that are designed to work together with a person: with the help of sensors, they react to his approach – they stop in case of danger. For example, they can be used in assembly operations: some of the tasks are performed by a person, some by a robot. These are safe robots. However, they are slower. In addition, they are smaller in size, because they are comparable to a person, respectively, their reachability (working area) is lower than that of industrial robots.
Top countries buying industrial robots
There are now about 3 million industrial robots installed in the world. Statistics are collected rather slowly, so the most recent data refer to 2020. In 2020, 384 thousand new robots were sold, 168 thousand of them, that is, more than half, were sold to China.
In addition to China, three more countries are in the top of the most active buyers of robots: Japan, the USA and South Korea (about 30 thousand robots for each). Next on the list is Germany – they buy 22 thousand robots a year.
But a more accurate indicator of a country’s level of robotization is the number of robots per 10 workers. Now South Korea has the highest rate – 932 robots per 10 people. In the US or China – 240-250 robots per 10 thousand people, that is, the degree of robotization is four times lower. For comparison, in our country there are only 6 robots per 10 thousand people.
5 international robot brands
Now the supply of foreign robots to Russia is officially suspended. And more and more often you can hear about the idea of launching the production of Russian robots. And there are already such people, but their share is extremely low. In 2019, 1410 robots were sold in our country, of which only 87 were Russian.
As in the rest of the world, our country is dominated by five international brands of robots. Three of them are Japanese: FANUC, Kawasaki and YASKAWA. One Swedish company is ABB. And also the company KUKA, which was originally German, but now belongs to the Chinese Midea Group.
These five brands have been creating robotics for 60-70 years. The level of their robots is already so high that in fact they already offer the market almost the same product, the differences are rather in nuances. These companies compete not so much in terms of technology, but rather, for example, with the help of service: they create a network of integrators in each of the countries where they operate. Integrators are companies that install robots in industrial plants. Vendors themselves rarely do integration, only for key customers. In our country, each of the listed vendors has representative offices and integrators – this indicates that they are interested in our market. But we understand, based on sales volumes, that it is still far from the main one for them.
robots and import substitution
Since the leading brands are now forced to pause [in our country], the beneficiaries of this situation could be Chinese brands.
Chinese robot manufacturers are already present in our country. Their niche before sanctions is simple and cheap solutions. Previously, they did not try to compete with the leaders and did not think about complex robotization projects (with several robots, tracks, portal systems). It is possible that now they will reconsider their strategies. To do this, they have to overcome the problem of trust: manufacturers are not sure about the quality of Chinese robots.
If we talk about Chinese robots, then in general this is a growing, gaining momentum market. Why are they successful, but in our country, in my opinion, it makes no sense to create Russian robots? Because China has a huge domestic market. This is the main consumer country for robots. In 2020 alone, 168 robots were installed. And almost a quarter of them were already Chinese. They have a government policy to support robotics. There are dozens of robot brands in China today. Subsidies are given for their creation. Their task is to displace the huge number of foreign robots that are sold in their home market every year.
In our country, on average, only 1-1,5 thousand robots are sold per year. This is 100-150 times less than in China. There was a moment when KUKA was ready to consider moving the assembly of its robots to Russia. To do this, they needed a market of 5 robots a year. But this never happened. To launch a Russian brand of robots, I think we need at least a market of 10 robots a year. And he is not.
This is even if we leave out the need for huge investments in developing technologies from scratch. And also the time factor. Chinese manufacturers may enter the market as soon as tomorrow. We simply do not have enough time to close the shortage of robots that has arisen.
Why are there so few robots in our country?
In fact, to apply robotics, it is not necessary to produce robots. There are few robots in our country due to the specifics of production.
The main driver of robotics in the world is only two industries – automotive and electronics. These industries produce millions of identical products. This is the so-called serial market. Robots are usually used there. There are many enterprises in our country, but they produce small series or even single products from the point of view of robots.
There will be more robots in our country when they are used in non-serial production. And this applies not only to our country, but to the whole world. The level of robotization in most countries is actually still very low. If we talk, for example, about welding, then there is a huge number of metal structures around us, and most of them are still welded by hand. Structural beams, road structures, construction equipment, shipbuilding, trailers, trucks, conveyors and many other industries where work is done by people, not robots.
“Our company understood this problem at some point. To solve it, you need to make smart, adaptive, flexible robots, just like people. Then the robots will be used in non-serial production and their number will be higher.”
Flexible robots for non-standard tasks
For each product, the robot needs to be programmed: each of its movements is a set of trajectories – points in space. Setting up a production line with robots is an expensive task. If a line produces millions of identical pieces, it pays off. But if each product needs to be programmed, it becomes meaningless.
And here we see a technology that can radically change industrial robotics. We have created software that allows robots to no longer be programmed. It generates trajectories for robots automatically. It is enough to load a 3D model of the product (from any CAD system that is used at the plant for design), select specific welds or paint surfaces and set the desired parameters.
But it is not enough to create such a program for robots. It must also be performed at work in the real conditions of the enterprise, because the physical and real world are always different. For a robot, differences in millimeters are significant. Suppose, before finishing welding, you assembled the part not perfectly – some beam eyelet shifted by 5 mm. Or you put the part in the work area with an offset of the same 5 mm. For a robot, this is a new challenge. We solve this problem with machine vision. Before completing the task, Abagy robots scan the part, compare it with the ideal model, analyze deviations and correct movements. As if it were done by a live welder. That is, robots can be adaptive and intelligent.
Robotics Trends
The use of robots not only in mass production is a new trend that meets the demand for personalization. Once upon a time, Ford invented the conveyor, the world learned how to make products mass-produced, now it’s the opposite story. We are moving from the same type of production to production for a specific task. This becomes possible when robots get smarter. Thanks to the launch of this process, the world of people also begins to transform.
Another big trend is the return of production to the place of consumption, to the end user. Previously, many industries were moved to China, where there was a cheap labor force. After covid, and also due to changes in supply chains, it became clear that this was not the best scheme. If robots work, not people, then it is much more profitable to have production near the point of sale.
You can go even further – use the sharing of production capacities. For example, if an enterprise has a simple robotic cell, they can perform welding not only for their own tasks, but also for other companies.