AMR Industrial Mobile Robots: The Future "Smart Manufacturing Main Force" Behind New Energy Lithium Battery Manufacturing

Driven by market trends and policy support with intelligence and electrification as the core, China's new energy vehicle market is developing at an astonishing speed and entering a new stage of explosive growth. 1%, 5%, 13.4%, 28.5 % - these four data are for the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China in 2015, 2020, 2021 and 2022. From 2005 to 2015, it took ten years for the penetration rate to break through 1%, nearly five years from 1% to 5%, only one year from 5% to 10%, and only a few months from 10% to nearly 30%.

Here we have to mention BYD, the pride of Chinese auto brands. On November 16, BYD welcomed the roll-off of 3 million new energy vehicles. This is not only an important milestone in BYD's development history, but also a strong proof of China's move from a "big auto country" to a "strong auto country", helping to achieve the "dual carbon" goal and accumulating momentum for promoting global green travel. China will become a global leader through technological breakthroughs and product innovations in the field of new energy vehicles.

- BYD -

(Photo source: BYD official website)

The upstream and downstream industrial chains of new energy vehicles mainly include batteries, electronic controls, motors, electric drive components and new energy charging equipment. As the core components of new energy vehicles, batteries have undergone the most obvious industrial changes with the rapid development of the industry. Major automakers have further increased their investment in the research and development and production of energy storage technologies such as lithium batteries.

Lithium battery industry

In 2018, the global lithium battery market entered a period of rapid development. China, which accounts for about 70% of the world's power battery production capacity, is at the center of a new round of energy revolution. As the demand for lithium batteries increases, the production capacity of lithium batteries upstream and downstream is growing explosively. According to relevant statistics, China's lithium battery shipments in 2021 will be 327GWh, a year-on-year increase of 130%. It is expected that China's lithium battery market shipments will exceed 1450GWh in 2025, with a compound growth rate of more than 45% in the next four years.

The lithium battery production process is relatively complex, and a lot of special equipment is involved in each production link. The application of industrial robots , mobile robots , machine vision and other automated equipment has further improved the automation and intelligence of lithium battery production, ensuring that the lithium batteries produced are safe, reliable, consistent and have a high yield.

Today we will talk about the important role that AGV/AMR is gradually playing in lithium battery production.

First of all, we need to understand the logistics aspects of the specific process involved in lithium battery production. The lithium battery production process mainly includes the front-end process, the middle-end process and the back-end process.

Front-end process

The front-end process mainly refers to the production of graded sheets, which mainly includes four steps: stirring, coating, rolling and slitting. In lithium battery production, the front-end process is very important, accounting for more than 40% of the entire battery production process. The unpacking, handling, reel changing and line-side transfer of incoming materials can all be replaced by AGV/AMR to replace traditional manual labor.

First, in lithium battery raw material warehouses, lithium battery raw materials are mainly stored in the form of ton bags. Even if semi-automatic equipment is used in large-load application scenarios, the labor intensity of people is still very high, and there is a certain risk of mechanical injury in some scenarios. At this time, the application of AGV/AMR can effectively solve the above problems, reduce the labor intensity of personnel, and improve the handling efficiency.

Secondly, the automatic loading and unloading of coating, rolling and slitting machines in the front process can be completed by AMR with high docking accuracy, but the model needs to be customized according to the specific scenarios of customers; at the same time, the handling frequency of raw materials and pole rolls is high, which has high requirements for the scheduling, beat and accuracy of AMR; AMR needs to cope with different degrees of challenges such as large environmental change rate, complex human-machine mixed operation and high cleanliness environment. This also puts high demands on the technology and product reliability of AMR manufacturers.

Mid-stage process

The middle process mainly includes the winding/stacking of the battery cells and the injection of the battery cells . In the process of core making, the traditional mode is to manually load and unload materials and connect them with the winding and stacking machine. Not only is the efficiency not guaranteed, there are also safety risks, and more importantly, the flexibility is insufficient.

The above problems can be solved by using AGV/AMR automatic handling and docking. It can not only meet the requirements of precise docking, but also adapt to high-cleanliness environments and cross-regional and cross-floor operations. With the high precision, high environmental perception, high flexibility and high efficiency of AMR, it can help unmanned loading and unloading, handling automation, packaging automation and intelligent warehousing and logistics.

Back-end process

The back-end process mainly includes packaging, chemical composition, testing and sorting, module assembly, PACK assembly and finished product warehousing. In this stage, there are many processes involved. AGV/AMR can transfer and connect different processes, so that each process can flow more orderly and efficiently. This is especially reflected in the back-end Pack line and finished product warehousing. Standard load AMR, heavy load AMR and forklift AMR play an important role in this link, greatly reducing the pressure of manual labor.

In the past two years, the iteration of lithium battery technology has been accelerating, and the processes are complicated and numerous. CTP technology 3.0, blade batteries, short knife batteries, 4680 large cylindrical batteries, and different module design structures have all prompted the lithium battery industry's automated production lines to develop towards differentiation and flexibility.

Due to different types of demand, orders often appear in the form of multiple batches and small batches . At this time, the highly flexible mobile robot AMR + software system platform can adapt to this change and respond to the ever-changing market demand. With more flexible and changeable production line layout and more efficient and faster beats, lithium battery manufacturing will develop in the direction of automation, intelligence and flexibility.

In lithium battery raw material warehouses, lithium battery raw materials have many chemical components and high density. In addition, due to their particularity, mobile robots AMR are needed to handle zinc, copper, and nickel anti-magnetic foreign matter. At the same time, AMR is also required to have higher safety, reliability, and stability.

Ningde Times lithium battery pole piece production workshop

(Picture from the Internet)

In production workshops, where workpiece flow is large and physical space is limited, AMRs face the challenges of high-flow, multi-task, and multi-scenario collaborative operations. This not only places high demands on the hardware stability and single-unit intelligence of AMRs, but also requires a powerful software scheduling system to handle cluster collaboration issues. This further requires AMR manufacturers to provide stable and reliable hardware products, as well as a group intelligent scheduling system with powerful AI algorithms.

AMR uses laser SLAM as a navigation method. It does not require site modification, can dynamically and quickly build maps, complete the latest path planning, can operate across regions and floors, complete accurate equipment docking, material docking and transportation, adapt to complex dynamic environments, cope with high cleanliness and high temperature environment tests, and can work 24/7. You deserve such capable and powerful employees! In the future, AMR will become an indispensable "new force of intelligent manufacturing" in lithium battery manufacturing factories.

With the expansion of the lithium battery industry and the advancement of lithium battery technology, lithium battery companies have put forward higher requirements for the efficiency, precision, stability, automation, and intelligence of production line equipment. Advanced automation equipment such as mobile robots AMR, industrial robots, and machine vision are more deeply involved in lithium battery manufacturing.

In the future, with the industry's demand for high flexibility and high iteration, AMR will also develop in a smarter, more precise, more flexible and more modular direction. KUKA AMR will also always keep its original intention and help lithium battery manufacturers reduce labor intensity, improve production efficiency, enhance warehousing and manufacturing intelligence, and enable the intelligent manufacturing upgrade of the new energy lithium battery industry through technology and product innovation.

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