According to the seventh national census data, China's average annual population growth rate has been at a historically low level for three decades, and the performance has been more obvious in the last decade. Originally enjoy a high birth rate under the demographic dividend industries, such as 3C electronics, logistics, automobile manufacturing, etc., have been facing a long-term low birth rate brought about by the "can not recruit workers" problem.
Synchronized with the birth rate downturn is the rapid growth of the mobile robot market, according to the China Mobile Robot Industry Alliance statistics show that in 2020, China's mobile robot sales reached 41,000 units, the market size of 7.68 billion yuan, up 24.4%. From a more microscopic level of individual companies, autonomous mobile robots MiR (Mobile Industrial Robots, hereinafter referred to as MiR) latest financial results show that its third-quarter revenues of $ 13 million, global sales growth of 40% year-on-year. In its previous Q1 2021 earnings report, MiR grew at a rate of 55%.
Today in the manufacturing industry, mobile robots in the actual production of the most important use is handling, according to the form of operation can be divided into sorting mobile robots, forklift mobile robots, cargo transit mobile robots, traction mobile robots, latent mobile robots, etc., mainly used in the automotive industry, 3C electronics, chip manufacturing, logistics and packaging industries.
There are also two very obvious trends within mobile robots. One is AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot, Autonomous Mobile Robot) on the AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle, Automated Guided Vehicle) replacement, AMR can better solve the external interference and non-fixed line scenario tasks, the other is the industry rumors "2021 is the first year of composite The other is the rumor in the industry that "2021 is the year of composite robots".
More economical AGV and more intelligent AMR
Directly compare the two technologies of AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) and AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot), the degree of intelligence of AGV is lower, according to the existing instructions to transport on a fixed line, unlike AMR in the line when encountering obstacles can be flexible obstacle avoidance and autonomous planning Unlike AMR, which can flexibly avoid obstacles and plan autonomously when it encounters obstacles on the line, AGV will stop and wait for the obstacles to be removed, which will encounter various problems if the production line is crowded and the channel is narrow in the factory.
At the same time, AMR breaks through the AGV's dependence on external infrastructure such as magnetic stripes, guide rails and QR codes. In factories with high demands on the operating environment, magnetic stripes, guide rails, and QR codes can cause interference.
The unit price of AMR is much higher than that of AGV, and the current situation is that the global sales of AMR are not much different from that of AGV, but there is a big difference in sales volume. According to Interact Analysis, in 2020, AGV sales will be $1,268.4 million, accounting for 53.8%, and AMR sales will be $1,090.3 million, accounting for 46.2%. However, AMR has been growing at a faster rate in the past two years, with its market share growing from 29.9% in 2018 to 46.2% in 2020.
So how is the Chinese AMR market performing? According to the projections of China Mobile Robot Industry Alliance, the Chinese market added 41,000 mobile robots (AGV/AMR) for industrial applications in FY2020, an increase of 25.7% from 2019, and the market sales of 7.68 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%. Among them, AMR shipments in the domestic market will be roughly around 2,800 units in 2020, with a year-on-year growth of 86%, and the market size will be around 560 million yuan.
Interact Analysis forecasts that the AMR market has continued to grow at double-digit rates for the last five years, and is projected to surpass AGVs in terms of demand, revenue, and sales of AMRs in mobile robotics globally by 2022.
"2021 is the year of composite robots."
In 2021, composite robots began to land semiconductor, electric power, big data centers, metal processing and other industries, the industry thus circulated 2021 is "composite robot landing application year" said.
Composite robots that set mobile robots and industrial robots two functions as a whole, as with human legs (AGV), hands (robotic arm), eyes (3D vision), brain (AI). In the industrial field, the robotic arm mainly replaces the human arm to pick and place items, while the autonomous mobile robot is to replace the human legs and feet of the walking function, the two superposition can greatly extend the function of the robot and the available scenes.
That is, to some extent, composite robots can integrate multiple actions to accomplish