I mainly focus on the technical point of view (I am not good at the macro-micro impact of social economy), and talk about the current advantages and disadvantages of industrial robots (this article is slightly longer).
1. versatility
The industrial robot is programmable and supports multi-degree of freedom motion, so the application is more flexible. Although it is not as good as humans (such as the cold production line, as long as 10 minutes in the morning to introduce new technology to start a new product), but compared to many industrial automation common plane (designed for a type of industrial application or a customer-customized Industrial and electrical integration solutions), industrial robots are still more flexible. When industrial application changes are not too big, robots can be reprogrammed to meet new demands without having to invest heavily in hardware.
But correspondingly, its relative deficiency will be efficiency. After all, the special plane is customized for an application, so although the efficiency is optimized at the expense of versatility, it can be done very well on the index that the customer is very concerned about.
2. Electrical Performance
Industrial robots generally achieve motion accuracy of less than 0.1 mm (refer to repeated motion to point accuracy), grab objects weighing up to one ton, and stretch up to three or four meters. Although such performance may not easily complete some "crazy" processing requirements on Apple's mobile phone, for most industrial applications, it is enough to successfully complete the task. As the performance of robots has gradually improved, some previously impossible tasks have become feasible (such as laser welding or cutting, which required special high-precision equipment to guide the laser's direction, but as the accuracy of the robot increases, it also changes. Deco can rely on the exact motion of the robot itself instead.)
However, compared with traditional high-end equipment, such as high-precision CNC machine tools, laser calibration equipment, or special environment (high temperature or ultra-low temperature) equipment, industrial robots are still unable.
3. human-machine cooperation
Traditional industrial robots work in cages because it is dangerous (imagine a guy holding dozens or hundreds of kilograms squatting at four meters per second, no one wants to get close). The main reason is that general robots, based on cost and technical considerations, do not integrate additional sensors to sense external special situations (such as sudden touches), it will only be "stupid" in accordance with human programmed procedures. The movement of the day, unless there is an external signal telling it to stop. So the common solution is to equip the robot with a cage. When the cage door is opened, the robot will automatically pause when it receives the signal. Safety considerations naturally bring a lot of extra costs to robot integration. The cage may not be expensive, but after all, it is necessary to carefully consider the production line layout, increase the production line area, change the cooperation mode of human-machine, etc., thus affecting production. effectiveness.
So recently receiving more attention industrial robots are able to safely and people working together "proud", as Rethink Robotics of Baxter, Universal Robots series of PR, as well as many of the traditional industrial robots giants (ABB, KUKA, Yaskawa, etc.) half Concept semi-finished robot. From the perspective of industrial demand, after the automation requirements for precision, speed and weight have been solved by traditional industrial robots, it is indeed time to start meeting human-machine safety cooperation.
4. Ease of use
The essence of the traditional robot is to continuously take a path point, while receiving or setting peripheral I / O signals (old and other settings such as fixtures, conveyor lines, etc.). The process of guiding the robot to do so is robot programming. Almost every leading company has its own programming language and environment, which requires robot operators to participate in learning training. When the scope of application of the robot was widened, this cost began to appear.
These manufacturers have reason to maintain their own programming environment. First, industrial robots began to scale up 40 years ago. At that time, there was no object-oriented and so on. Nowadays, the mainstream advanced programming concepts that are widely recognized are widely known. Stage self-tech will inevitably be different from competitors. It is also understandable to maintain a programming method. Thirdly, because their big customers are often traditional industrial customers, such as big car manufacturers, these customers are stabilizing, naturally they don’t want your robot to be a few years old. Just rushing to change the programming method, they have to throw away decades of experience, and spend a lot of money to train and learn.
Of course, in the industry, people have already thought about whether the programming can be intuitive and simple, but in the traditional manufacturers, in addition to the conceptual display again and again (such as the use of exoskeletons, 3D images, virtual reality, iPhone, etc.), there has been no commercial practical Progress, so that everyone will hear the words "simple programming" and want to vomit.
Fortunately, there are still latecomers who dare to challenge, and also make achievements from scratch, and become recognized selling points. Yes, it is Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots! It also vividly demonstrates why innovators often fail to succeed in leading companies (although they have sufficient resources), but they are always carried forward by challengers. Because the leader goes a step further in disruptive technology, he is often far from his own iron rice bowl, and the internal and external resistance is great!
No matter what, the ease of use of robots has begun to pay attention. How can people not play any (or too much) training, they can play robots as fast as playing iPhone, and it has become a direction for big manufacturers to invest heavily. .
5. Cost
The cost of robots ranges from tens of thousands of small models to large millions of RMB. This cost is naturally lower than that of high-end professional manufacturing equipment, but it may also be higher than the automation solutions that domestic small integrators put together. However, from the perspective of the popularity of robots in the Western industry and the domestic manufacturing industry in recent years, it shows that the economic advantage of robot automation has generally reached a critical point, surpassing other alternatives (manual, or special plane), it seems that this cost Still worth it.
In fact, to take the old path of traditional robots, there is not much room for hardware cost reduction. The industrial robot is basically an open-loop motion mechanism, relying on the high-precision fit of the motor and the gearbox. Most of the key components of the leading manufacturers are bought from several Japanese manufacturers. (This is also the robot made by domestic companies. It is not cheaper to buy the same parts, because Japanese manufacturers will not do it for you. How much discount does this amount give). Unless Chinese component manufacturers can calm down and try to catch up with Japanese technology, and thus break the monopoly for many years with price advantage, they can really promote the development of domestic robot manufacturers.
The other is to find another way to pursue other technologies and markets. For example, Rethink Robotics even considered using plastic gearboxes to reduce costs, and visually compensated for the loss of motion accuracy, just as the human eye assisted the hand's subtle operations. But after all, you can't go to the sky one step at a time, so the Baxter robot can't compare with the traditional robot for the time being in precision and speed, but it is enough in the application of the material that it can handle. Perhaps with the efforts of Rethink, it will be compensated by the intelligentization of software in the case of poor hardware to compete with traditional industrial robots (that is, to subvert these traditional manufacturers).
6. Intelligence
The reason for putting the smart type on the last point is that it is not the most urgent for the time being because of the current mainstream demand for robots (ie, strong, fast, and accurate). This also reflects the advantages of traditional industrial robots (hard work, quality and quantity, is a good "working") and insufficient (but very "stupid", old people teach).
But it doesn't mean that smart is not important. On the contrary, companies have begun to make technology investments. For example, how to let the robot better understand the human command intention, relatively independent to understand and plan the task, without a point to tell people how to go; how to make the robot change in the external environment (light dimming Affects image recognition, damage to items on the conveyor belt requires special handling) Automatic adaptation; how to judge the assembly quality of parts by tactile visual acuity, etc.
In this respect, Americans do a better job (of course, they are also shunning, because the technology and market of traditional industrial robot hardware have been basically ruled by Japanese European companies), ROS Industrial, Rethink Robotics, etc. are doing a leading attempt.
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