The trend of high quality and low price is obvious. Analysis of product performance and technical routes of mainstream collaborative robot manufacturers

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Collaborative robots are robots that can physically interact with humans in a shared working environment . They are designed to be flexible, safe and easy to use. They can improve production efficiency while maintaining collaborative interaction between humans and machines, changing the fixed operation mode of traditional production lines.

In recent years, with the rapid development of intelligent manufacturing and Industry 5.0, collaborative robots have been widely used in the automotive, electronics, logistics, medical and other industries. Since 2021, China has become the world's largest collaborative robot market. MIR DATABANK data shows that collaborative robots will move towards a faster growth channel from 2024 to 2026. Major robot manufacturers have launched their own collaborative robot products, and market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Collaborative robots are also constantly optimizing and improving in terms of performance, functions and costs.

(Data source: MIR DATABANK)

At present, what typical characteristics do the products and technologies of China's collaborative robot industry present? Which companies are outstanding? This article comprehensively compares a number of mainstream collaborative robot manufacturers on the market, horizontally evaluates the data of the performance and functional performance of the company's products, and finds that the products of some domestic collaborative robot manufacturers have already shown high-end characteristics and have considerable global competitive advantages.

01 R&D trends of mainstream manufacturers

MIR believes that the typical characteristics of the competition in the collaborative robot market in 2023 can be summarized in one sentence: performance is moving towards high-end and prices are becoming more affordable. Under the full-category product strategy of major traditional industrial robot manufacturers such as FANUC and KUKA, which implement "more children to fight" and "take advantage of every opportunity", there are more and more collaborative robots of different models, specifications and functions to meet the needs of different industries and application scenarios. Domestic industrial robot manufacturers such as JBT followed closely and also launched collaborative robot products, and actively integrated mainstream new technologies, continuously optimizing and improving performance and cost performance.

The core evaluation indicators of collaborative robots include not only traditional indicators such as motion trajectory accuracy, speed, repeated positioning accuracy, load capacity and operating range, but also emerging indicators such as human-computer interaction capability, ease of programming, safety, environmental perception and scene adaptability, as well as additional indicators such as emerging international power performance and energy consumption, and technology openness.

Looking at the development history of China's collaborative robot industry in recent years, the progress in accuracy is undoubtedly the most intuitive. The performance differences of many manufacturers in positioning accuracy and repeatability are not much. For example, the accuracy improvement of the main models of collaborative robots of brands such as Jieka and Luoshi is obvious to all, and the rising star represented by Jiebot can also achieve a repeatability accuracy of ±0.02mm, and can directly compete with international top manufacturers such as Universal Robots and Nuolumica. Behind this small parameter of accuracy, it precisely reflects the steady improvement of the research and development capabilities of domestic collaborative robot companies.

On the basis of the continuous enhancement of R&D strength, a very significant trend is that the high-end process of collaborative robots is accelerating. This is reflected in the fact that due to fierce market competition, the mainstream collaborative robot products on the market are trying to improve product configuration and specifications, improve reliability indicators, and optimize the mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR).

It can be found that the load capacity of collaborative robots from some brands such as Universal Robots, Aubot, and Han's Robotics has been continuously increased in recent years, the arm span has become longer, and the weight has begun to decrease. This is actually because some manufacturers have begun to adopt precise mechanical structures, such as lightweight and strong aluminum alloy materials, and precisely calculated and optimized connecting rod lengths and joint configurations, in order to achieve higher movement flexibility and precision. This lightweight design makes collaborative robots more flexible when replacing production lines, and can be plug-and-play and move-and-go.

Other manufacturers not only optimized the appearance materials and structural design, but also began to adjust the internal architecture. For example, FAO, Daming, Kuka and other companies tried to use standardized components, focusing on optimizing factors including motor efficiency, idle power consumption, energy recovery system, and trying to improve the robot's resistance to harsh environmental conditions such as dust, humidity and extreme temperature.

At present, it seems that the most obvious effect of the improvement on the performance of collaborative robots is in the field of core components, especially the optimization of the drive control system. Since 2023, some high-end collaborative robots in the market, such as Jiebot, Luoshi, and Feixi, have begun to be equipped with high-performance servo motors and reducers. For example, Jiebot collaborative robots use first-line brand components such as Tamagawa frameless motors, Green Harmonic Reducers , and self-developed single-chip multi-axis drive-control integrated motion controllers, and achieve drive-control integration through optimized design and integration. This provides collaborative robots with greater torque and faster response speed, and achieves faster and more accurate action execution. The mainstream approach they take is to integrate all components of the drive joints, including encoders, drivers, reducers, motors, brakes, etc., into an integrated product, and to achieve continuous optimization of motion control by self-developing some components.

Comparison of performance of collaborative robots at home and abroad

(Data source: JBT)

The reason why we need to independently develop core components is that we can feel the obvious difference in product performance brought by the single-chip integrated controller (SCIMC) of the JET Robot. In principle, this is because the robot movement essentially relies on the motion controller and the servo controller, which are connected by the industrial bus. Although the industrial bus can increase the interactive information between motion planning and motor control and support complex control algorithms, it will also cause delays and synchronization problems when planning multiple task points, which causes certain defects in the robot's performance in terms of accuracy, safety, etc. to move towards high-end scenarios.

In 2023, companies such as JBT and Luoshi have found the root of this problem and tried to break the bottleneck of the industrial bus at the core level of control to get rid of the dependence on Intel X86 processors and Microsoft Windows operating systems. JBT's current collaborative robot GBT-C5A has successfully implemented a custom communication architecture, solved the absolute delay problem, and stood on the same level as foreign brands. This way of breaking the monopoly of foreign brands by realizing truly autonomous and controllable technology is increasingly reflected in the field of collaborative robots.

Of course, self-developed components have brought extraordinary price advantages to domestic robots. Based on the prices of most collaborative robot brands on the market, most brands that can ship in batches have already reached the price level of 100,000 yuan. Manufacturers are actively looking for a better balance between performance, function and cost to meet the needs of different industries and application scenarios. Companies like Jebot, which have mastered core technologies, have already achieved world-class prices for some small kilogram products.

02Scenario requirements drive function optimization

With higher and higher configurations and lower and lower prices, the market share of domestic collaborative robots is steadily increasing in the face of absolute cost-effectiveness. For example, some companies such as Jieka, Elite, and Luoshi have already gone international and "reversely exported" to Japan, Europe, the United States and other places.

Of course, some established robot manufacturers still have advantages in technology and solutions in the field of high-end collaborative robots. For example, FANUC's collaborative robot products have a unique blade compensation function, which enables the robot to maintain higher precision during the finishing and cutting process. This makes the collaborative robot products of the "four major families" still have a very good market in some processes.

This technological advantage is increasingly losing ground under the increasingly rapid technological iteration and talent flow. In recent years, we have begun to see collaborative robots entering new retail, medical, and even food processing or outdoor agriculture in addition to the industrial market. This makes the progress of sensor and perception technology another important sign in addition to traditional core components. Some domestic robots that are moving towards high-end are more actively equipped with a variety of high-precision sensors, such as high-resolution force sensors, visual sensors, etc., to achieve more sophisticated environmental perception and load control, and complete more complex operations and tasks.