Promote the healthy growth of the robot industry

The 2022 World Robotics Conference, which ended not long ago, focused on the innovative applications of robots in manufacturing, construction, medical care, agriculture, mining, logistics and many other fields, and became an important window to see the development trend of my country's robot industry. In recent years, China's robot industry continues to maintain a good momentum of rapid growth, and its technology, products and scale have achieved important breakthroughs.

The robot is known as the "pearl at the top of the manufacturing crown", and its R & D, manufacturing and application have become an important symbol to measure the level of scientific and technological innovation and high-end manufacturing in a country. According to the "China Robot Industry Development Report (2022)", it is expected that in 2022, my country's robot market will reach 17.4 billion US dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 22% in five years. In terms of cutting-edge innovation technology of robots, medical minimally invasive robots, new-generation collaborative robots, high-end bionic robots and other technologies maintain the international cutting-edge level. In the future, it is expected to achieve international advanced levels in more fields such as home service robots, medical rehabilitation robots, industrial vision, and cloud service robots. Level. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and many other ministries and commissions have also jointly issued a series of related plans such as the "14th Five-Year" Intelligent Manufacturing Development Plan "and the" 14th Five-Year "Robot Industry Development Plan", giving key support to the robot industry as a strategic emerging industry. Talent training, technological progress, and manufacturing transformation and upgrading have all brought important leading and promoting effects.

While the development of industry and technology is facing good opportunities, the development of China's robot industry is also facing many challenges. At the level of robot core technology, some core technologies have not yet been effectively broken through, some key technologies have shortcomings, and the phenomenon of "neck sticking" still exists; at the level of robot product positioning, the functional positioning of some products is not clear enough, the application scenarios of robots are insufficient, similar products are piled up, the robot function is single, and the pain point problem solved is not clear enough; at the level of robot enterprise scale, the current leading enterprise scale is limited, compared with industrial robots, the overall revenue scale of service robot leading enterprises is low. In this regard, it is necessary to take a multi-angle approach.

First of all, we should strengthen basic research, form a robot core technology innovation ecology, and promote the virtuous circle and development of technology and industry. It is necessary to continuously overcome the relevant core technologies in order to achieve autonomous control, and further overcome the core key technologies such as intelligent perception, human-computer interaction, compliant control, operating system, robot programming and simulation, system integration and application process. Universities, scientific research institutes and other units and robot enterprises "production, research and application" should be closely integrated, collaborative research. According to the characteristics of multi-disciplinary intersection and multi-field integration of robots, a variety of new models of "industry-university-research-application" transformation can be formed to accelerate the application and transformation of cutting-edge innovation results.

Secondly, we should further play the leading role of robot enterprises and accelerate the application and promotion of products. We should give full play to the exemplary and leading role of leading enterprises and speed up the construction of service robot scenes such as medical and health care, community services, e-commerce unmanned distribution, unmanned sales, commercial cleaning and inspection, so as to provide more market space for the innovation and development of related industries. Focusing on the urgent needs of epidemic prevention and control, medical rehabilitation, special services and other fields, establish a green channel mechanism for robot market access, simplify the bidding process, and shorten the approval cycle on the premise of meeting safety and quality. Strengthen supervision and regulations, give priority to encouraging the marketing, promotion and application of intelligent robot products that meet certain threshold conditions, and ensure the long-term and stable development of the robot industry.

Again, it is necessary to strengthen the training of talents in the field of robotics and explore a new model of robot education that integrates production and education. In view of the professional fields urgently needed by robots, we should strengthen the training of high-level professionals with interdisciplinary and compound backgrounds, make innovative explorations in robot-related colleges and professional settings in colleges and universities, establish research platforms such as robot innovation centers, and build a new model of robot academic talent education. Strengthen school-enterprise exchanges and cooperation in the field of robotics, break the demand barriers between the campus and the market, set up internship bases in robot leaders and advantageous companies, and improve the training scale and quality level of robot application-oriented talents.

Finally, it is necessary to further strengthen the coordinated and stable development of the robot industry chain and supply chain, and realize the independent control of the industrial chain. Relying on the intervention of China's robot industry advantage areas, mature park carriers and active capital, we will promote the construction and development of robot public service platform, so as to provide perfect robot local supply, product certification and quality inspection services. We should give full play to the role of robot industry platform and alliance association, promote the efficient docking of scientific and technological innovation subjects such as universities and scientific research institutes with robot application enterprises, and promote the collaborative innovation of robot industry chain with the guidance of problems and needs.

(Tao Yong is a doctoral supervisor of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the Committee of the Robotics Branch of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineering)