Amazon and Tesla have entered the market one after another
Recently,musk announced that the first prototype of the humanoid robot Tesla bot will be launched on AI day at the end of September this year,and it will be named after Optimus(Optimus Prime),the Autobot leader in the Hollywood movie transformers.It is reported that Optimus will continue Tesla's intelligent driving gene and carry the same FSD(fully automatic driving)chip and AI system of the car.It aims to collect a large amount of off-road driving data by expanding the offline real scene,improve the level of artificial intelligence training,and provide services for the final breakthrough of L4 and L5 high-level automatic driving technology.
Prior to this,in April,Amazon announced the establishment of the industrial innovation fund AIIF,which plans to invest US$1 billion to develop the warehousing robot technology.Among them,the first batch of investment enterprises include the logistics innovation enterprise agility robotics.It is reported that the digital humanoid robot being developed by the company can assist in the tasks of unloading and moving containers,managing shelves,and delivering the last kilometer in the future.In addition,Atlas released by Boston Dynamics is also a typical representative in the field of humanoid robots.
Although,limited by the immature technology and high cost,the current market still has great doubts about the functions and industrialization of humanoid robots,it is undeniable that,against the background of increasing shortage of labor and rising costs,robots have become the general trend under the global wave of intelligence to replace manual labor and improve simple labor efficiency.
Can Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus,which will be released at the end of September,surpass the current market expectations and be named as"one pillar dominating the sky"?We will wait and see.
The industrialization of industrial robots is becoming mature,and the service robots are still in the industrial introduction period
Since the birth of the first industrial robot in the 1950s,after more than half a century of development,at present,industrial robots have realized relatively mature industrial applications in manufacturing,welding,assembly,transportation and other links.The automation and intelligent equipment represented by robots are gradually freeing people from manual labor.
With the gradual development and maturity of industrial robots and the rise of various sensors,Internet of things,big data,artificial intelligence algorithms and other technologies,service robots have begun to appear and constantly expand new application scenarios,adding new impetus to the development of the global service industry.
According to different application scenarios,robots are mainly divided into three categories:industrial robots,service robots and special robots.
Among them,thanks to the relatively fixed application scenarios,it is only necessary to complete simple and repetitive work in a closed environment.Currently,industrial robots have realized industrial application.In 2021,the global sales volume will be nearly 470000,and the market scale will exceed US$21 billion;Among them,China's sales volume is about 250000 units,accounting for 53%.In the future,with the gradual improvement of domestic factory automation level,this proportion will show a rising trend.
However,service robots are subject to various application scenarios,with relatively open and complex working environment and many uncontrollable factors.Compared with industrial robots,the development of service robots is relatively slow.Currently,only domestic service robots such as sweeping robots and educational robots have realized large-scale industrial applications,while special service robots such as commercial cleaning robots,distribution robots and medical robots are still in the early stage of industrialization,The humanoid robot is in the stage of technology development.
According to statistics,the market scale of industrial robots and service robots in China will be US$8 billion to US$9 billion and US$3.5 billion to US$4 billion respectively in 2021,accounting for nearly 30%of the global market.In the future,with the continuous innovation of technology and the gradual release of downstream demand,it is expected that the CAGR will reach more than 15%and 30%respectively in the next five years.
The integration of core components and software systems in the upstream of the industrial chain is the key technical barrier
At the technical level,the structure of industrial robots and service robots is quite different.Among them,industrial robots mainly take controllers,servo motors,reducers and other hardware as core components,while the key technical difficulties of special service robots,in addition to upstream core components,lie in the software side.It mainly adopts the"multi-sensor fusion+deep learning"architecture,integrating the four capabilities of algorithm,application layer,background and data.Among them,the algorithm capability is the core focus,specifically involving multi-sensor fusion technology,slam technology Path planning technology,motion control technology,human-computer interaction technology,etc.
In terms of cost,unlike 60%of the cost of industrial robots comes from the power system(reducer,servo system and controller),the core cost of special service robots comes from sensors(mainly laser radar,camera and ultrasonic radar)and algorithm platform,accounting for 40%~50%,while the power system only accounts for about 30%.In the future,the key to cost reduction of special service robots lies in the price reduction and localization of core sensors such as lidar.
In the field of service robots,it is expected that medical robots,commercial cleaning robots and outdoor distribution robots will break through the bottleneck of core technologies and truly realize large-scale industrialization promotion in the next 5-10 years according to the applicable scenarios and technical difficulties,while the maturity of the humanoid robot industry may take a longer time.
The industrial robot sector is favored by institutional research.Since April,the index has significantly outperformed the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300
On the whole,robot related enterprises in the secondary market mostly belong to the field of industrial robots.Taking April 26,2022 as the base period,since the low point of the year,the robot index(802095.EI)and industrial robot index(803220.EI)have increased by 28.22%and 45.82%respectively,outperforming the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 index by 20.75 and 38.34 percentage points.
At the individual stock level,since the end of April,the share prices of most listed companies related to robots have risen,of which 31 and 9 stocks have increased by more than 50%and 100%,respectively,mostly involving power systems and system integration links with high value of industrial robots.
In addition,as the release time of Tesla's"humanoid robot"approaches,the robot sector has replaced the new energy vehicles in recent months and become the"C"of institutional research and capital concern in the capital market.According to choice data,in July,8 listed companies in the robot sector were surveyed by institutions.Among them,industrial robot leader esten(002747.SZ)received 496 institutions for research,and received research institutions to rank first in the sector and the whole market,leading the A-share market.
According to the survey records,the orders of Easton increased month by month in the second quarter,and returned to the normal level in June.In particular,the demand for new energy industries,such as photovoltaic and lithium batteries,is strong,and it is expected to maintain rapid growth in the second half of the year.The target of industrial robot shipment set by Easton in 2022 is 16000-18000.The specific sub industries include new energy such as photovoltaic lithium battery,metal processing,automobile and auto parts,heavy industry,3C and PCB industries,and other industries such as packaging,building materials and household appliances,and food.
In the field of service robots,its industrial development is mainly driven by VC/PE Institutions.According to statistics,the accumulated investment in the field of domestic special service robots from 2013 to the first half of 2022 exceeded 70 billion yuan,of which the relevant investment and financing have shown explosive growth since 2020,and the focus is on round a/b.
However,against the background of the current capital winter,the investment in the field of robotics is gradually returning to rationality.The head organization is more inclined to invest in robot enterprises that really have the underlying technical strength and industrial solution ability,and its focus is also more on the application scenarios and landing ability of products/solutions.
In the secondary market,there are few domestic service robot related listed enterprises,and the fields involved are mainly relatively mature industries such as sweeping robots,controllers,cameras,etc.the performance of relevant individual stock markets shows obvious polarization.Comparing the stock price trends of kevos and stone technology,which are both in the field of sweeping robots,it is not difficult to see that in the field of sweeping robots with relatively mature industrialization,price and cost are not the core competitive factors,but the key still lies in the product innovation and development ability,product category layout and online and offline channel laying ability.
Looking forward to the future,on the basis of continuous innovation of industrial robot technology and continuous expansion of industrial scale,the large-scale industrialization promotion of special service robots also depends on the maturity of multi-sensor fusion technology and artificial intelligence algorithm technology,as well as the substantial reduction of the cost of core components such as lidar,the accumulation of deep scene data and the perfect supply chain system,At that time,industrial robots and service robots are expected to jointly promote the replacement of simple labor,promote the trend of full scene digitization and cloud edge collaborative integration in various downstream applications,and help build a smart city/community and a large ecosystem of the Internet of things.