Zhongke Siyi explores the "less-populated area" and enters the micro servo motor market

In recent years, with the continuous expansion of the machine tool market, domestic manufacturers have continuously improved their technical strength, strengthened the stability of equipment, and the number of entrants has increased, and market competition has intensified. Faced with this "red ocean" competitive market, Shandong Zhongke Siyi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongke Siyi) has taken advantage of the platform of the Jining Base of the National Innovation Center, and has the courage to explore and innovate one step further, focusing the market entry point on the micro servo motor segment. Recently, "Servo and Motion Control" magazine went to Jining, Shandong, and invited Ms. Pang Chao, Chairman of Zhongke Siyi, to communicate and share on the characteristics of micro servo motor products, future technology development trends, and the relocation of production bases.

Explore the "less crowded area" and enter the "blue ocean" market of micro servo motors

"Although the current domestic micro-servo market is still small, with few players, and it is a 'sparsely populated area', we will focus on the next 3-5 years to gradually replace foreign high-quality micro-servo products, so as to better meet the market needs of local enterprises and promote the continuous expansion of the market share of domestic servo motors. This must be a forward-looking 'blue ocean' competition area." Pang Chao is full of confidence. According to Pang Chao, from the perspective of demand in the downstream segments, welding, palletizing, and assembly robots have always been the main application areas of micro-servo motors. In addition, CNC machine tools, laser equipment, manufacturing equipment, photovoltaic equipment, packaging and textiles, backpack load-bearing AGVs, traction AGVs, fork-type AGVs, etc. also have huge market space in the downstream application areas of micro-servo motors. At present, Zhongke Siyi adopts the leading 12-slot 10-level electromagnetic solution, with more than 60 standard products and industry-customized micro-servo motor products in three series of 15 flanges, 25 flanges, and 40 flanges. It is a high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development, production, and sales of micro-servo motors. Among them, the company's independently developed 25-flange micro servo motor can completely replace Japanese motor brands and fill the gap in the domestic market.

What is more worth mentioning is that the company has the first automated production line for micro servo motors in China, equipped with advanced micro servo motor research and development and experimental equipment. The production line realizes information construction such as automatic product detection, data recording and storage, and QR code quality traceability through digital detection of shafts, end covers, and casings, stator comprehensive parameter testing, rotor magnetic energy level testing, and whole machine noise testing, thereby improving production efficiency and product quality.

Pang Chao summarized the advantages of Zhongke Siyi products in the following four aspects: 1. Accurate calculation and performance optimization. Through accurate calculation of motor structure and thermal performance design, the design margin is precisely controlled to make the motor more powerful with the minimum material cost; 2. Miniaturization and high dynamic performance. Through accurate calculation of motor performance parameters, while controlling the motor size, the loss and heat calculation are combined to give full play to the maximum performance of the motor; 3. High power and high overload capacity. Through the design of electromagnetic scheme, rotor scheme, assembly scheme, process route, etc., the tooth slot fluctuation can be controlled within 1%, and the performance can completely replace foreign products; 4. Automated production capacity. The entire automated production line independently developed can be closely integrated with the motor process to achieve high-stability mass production and quality traceability of the product. The product has good sinusoidality, low harmonic content; strong overload capacity, high linearity; small tooth slot torque; very low torque fluctuation, almost straight line and other product characteristics.

Settled in Jining, Shandong, to strengthen the industrial cluster

It is understood that the core team of Sinosteel comes from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and well-known foreign companies in the industry. Its R&D base is located in Shanghai. It has nearly 20 years of experience in servo motor R&D and accumulation of computing data. It has carried out various forms of industry-university-research cooperation and talent training mechanisms with the Shenyang Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shandong Industrial Technology Research Institute, Jining Industrial Technology Research Institute, Jining College and other parties. It has a long-term follow-up research on product market demand and the products and technologies of leading companies in the industry, and has formed unique technologies in the optimization of electric and magnetic fields of motors. It accurately calculates the electromagnetic, structural and thermal performance design of motors, and participates in the formulation of a number of product standards such as "Motor Industrial Internet Platform-General Requirements" and "Motor Industrial Internet Platform-Equipment Access Standards".

In December 2021, Zhongke Siyi was selected as a national high-tech enterprise. In May 2022, it was selected as a special and new enterprise in Jining City. The award of many qualifications and honors is not only a recognition of Zhongke Siyi's work over the years, but also an important symbol of the company's technical level and product technology content. Compared with famous cities such as Jinan, Qingdao and Weihai in Shandong, Zhongke Siyi has its own unique thinking and layout by relocating its production and manufacturing base to Jining based on the advantages of Shanghai's talent research and development. In Pang Chao's view, firstly, although Jining is not well-known and has a low sense of presence, in fact, its manufacturing GDP ranks third in the province, and it is a low-key and introverted powerful city; secondly, with the support of Shandong Industrial Technology Research Institute and Jining Industrial Technology Research Institute, Jining has a national robot innovation center, and its robot industry base has solid and complete engineering machinery parts, ball bearings, and screw processing and manufacturing capabilities; thirdly, considering the comprehensive costs of manpower, land, factory buildings, etc., the distribution of my country's manufacturing industry has moved from the previous Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta to third- and fourth-tier cities including Jining, which will be conducive to giving full play to the advantages of industrial manufacturing development and making every effort to strengthen, optimize and expand industrial clusters.

Keep up with industry trends and develop a " three-step " strategy for the future

Graduated from the Institute-to-Region Transformation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with the original intention of serving the country through industry, he resolutely devoted himself to the industry and has been engaged in the transfer and industrialization of research results for many years. From the observation of market demand on the front line, Pang Chao pointed out that integration, integration and intelligence are the future technical development trends of micro servo motors, especially the integration of drive and control, the combination of motor and drive, and the combination of motor and screw and reducer.

Pang Chao further pointed out that from the perspective of the practical application of micro servo motors, on the one hand, the combination of motor and mechanics is to reduce the loss and volume of transmission, and the combination of control and drive is to reduce the size of the control box. On the other hand, with the increasing popularity of multi-axis products, from the perspective of control cabinet wiring, micro servo motors are more convenient for intensive overall control.

Thirdly, with the increase of smart mobile products, the DC conversion of micro servo motors will be a more obvious trend in the future. Finally, based on integrated and intelligent products, information systems that realize data collection and cloud coordination will gradually enter the public's field of vision.

In order to closely focus on customer needs, keep up with industry technology development trends, and rely on strong R&D capabilities and profound technical accumulation, Zhongke Siyi divides its future development strategy into three steps.

From 2023 to 2024, the main technical research and development route will be robot core components. The products include standard servo motors, collaborative servo motors, humanoid robot servo motors and servo motor supporting products, to achieve industrial production and domestic substitution of products.

From 2024 to 2026, we will develop core component products and parameter digitized models that generate data, and integrate flexible Soc microprocessors with 3D, 3D and 4K cores based on high-performance servo motors to enable them to have functions such as control, motion control, servo drive, bus, I/O modules, real-time monitoring of servo motor operating status (voltage, temperature, speed, torque, noise) and real-time feedback, etc., as well as digital models of intelligent servos and servo core components.

From 2026 to 2029, we will develop a cloud-based data model library and support OPC UA standard web-based digital factory design software: establish a trial production status mapping between the actual robot production line and the digital factory in the three-dimensional virtual factory, and intuitively display the production line equipment operating status, processing output, core component operating parameters, material status, personnel location, order execution difficulties, abnormal events, fault diagnosis and prediction information, provide enterprises with a cost-effective core component optimization platform, improve production transparency, and provide a basis for improving equipment processes and logistics. It can be connected to MES and ERP systems to form decision-making analysis for intelligent manufacturing.