Exploring the huge potential of the humanoid robot market: an opportunity exceeding 400 billion yuan

Recently, the robot industry has welcomed the introduction of major policy benefits. Documents from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology mentioned that humanoid robots integrate advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, and new materials, and are expected to become the next generation of computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. The next disruptive products will profoundly change human production and lifestyle and reshape the global industrial development pattern.

As the aging of the population deepens and the labor force declines, the replacement of manpower by machines will become a long-term development trend in the future. The combination of favorable policies and huge demand space has caused the robot market to explode again.

In the current robot industry, motors are an important component. According to Debon Securities' report on Thursday, motors are the "heart" of robot movement and play a decisive role in movement accuracy.

With the acceleration of the industrialization process, the motor industry is expected to usher in broad development space. Debon Securities estimates that if global shipments of humanoid robots reach 5 million units in the next 10 years, the size of the motor market is expected to reach 428 billion yuan

Humanoid robots are evolving rapidly

According to Debon Securities, the concept of robots has been around for more than a hundred years, is currently evolving rapidly, and has entered the early stage of industrialization. From a historical perspective, the development process of humanoid robots is mainly divided into four stages:

The first stage is the early development stage represented by Waseda University’s humanoid robot

The second stage is the ice-breaking stage of highly integrated capabilities of systems represented by Honda humanoid robots;

The third stage is the stage of development of highly dynamic motion, represented by Boston Dynamics humanoid robot

The industrialization implementation stage represented by the Tesla Optimus robot is the key to the fourth stage. Currently, this stage is still in the early stages of development

From the perspective of the structure of humanoid robots, Debon Securities pointed out that the main components of humanoid robots include motors, reducers, sensors, etc., and the development of torque motors is more difficult.

The development of humanoid robots can be generally divided from the perspective of components, which are mainly divided into three parts: actuators (including servo systems, reducers, drive units, etc.), controllers (including industrial control systems, artificial intelligence-related systems, etc.) and sensors (including proprioceptive sensors, machine vision, etc.). As far as the most advanced humanoid robots are concerned, its main components include motors, reducers, sensors, upper/lower limb movement methods, hand joints, and bearings used in linear and rotating joints

Among them, the motor is an important component. According to Debon Securities, the robot joint driver is a key component of the bipedal humanoid robot. According to the power source, it can be divided into hydraulic, pneumatic, motor drive, memory metal, and biological (myocardial cells) wait:

Motor drive and hydraulic drive are two common forms.

The advantage of the motor solution is that in terms of motion control, its design has a more mature solution than hydraulic control, and the processor encoder is also relatively easier Correctly obtain real-time feedback of motion status, the control accuracy is also greatly guaranteed, and it is much cheaper than hydraulic cost.

The motor is the "heart" of robot movement

Debon Securities introduced that the motor is the "heart" of robot movement.

The motor is regarded as the execution unit of the robot. It is installed on each joint to control joint movement as needed. Robot actions such as walking, running, and bouncing are all driven by the robot joint motor, which is the "heart" of the robot's movement.

Among them, commonly used motors for robots are mainly divided into three categories: DC motors, servo motors, and stepper motors.

There are two categories with large application potential in the future, frameless torque motors and coreless cup motors in servo motors. ：

1. The frameless torque motor in the servo motor is small in size, easy to integrate, and suitable for robot joint environments: The frameless torque motor has no fixed unit and can be freely adapted to the shells of different customers. The integrated installation of components such as bearings and feedback devices has the characteristics of lighter overall mass, smaller size, faster motion response and high energy efficiency.

2. The coreless motor in the servo motor is a key component of the dexterous hand and has good energy-saving effect, power performance and control performance. The coreless motor is a micro-special motor with outstanding energy-saving characteristics, sensitive and convenient control characteristics and stable operating characteristics, and has obvious technical advantages. As a high-efficiency energy conversion device, it represents the development direction of electric motors in many fields.

Take the Tesla humanoid robot Optimus as an example. The main part of Optimus has a total of 28 actuators, 14 linear and 14 rotational, and the motor used is a frameless torque motor. 28 actuators are distributed in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, trunk, hips, knees, ankles and other parts. 28 actuators are distributed in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, trunk, hips, knees, ankles and other parts.

In the next ten years, the market space may exceed 400 billion yuan

According to the current background, the assistance of artificial intelligence and policy support have brought historic development opportunities to humanoid robots. Debon Securities concluded that since this year, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Shandong and other places have also issued policies to support the development of humanoid robots

On the other hand, humanoid robots, as representatives and excellent carriers of general-purpose robots, are benefiting from the development of general artificial intelligence. At the same time, it also becomes the interface between artificial intelligence and the physical world with "embodied intelligence" and becomes the terminal platform for the next generation of general artificial intelligence

Looking at the overall industrial chain of the robot industry, Debon Securities pointed out:

Highly demanding robotics technology includes upstream components, midstream bodies and downstream applications. Core components are crucial to humanoid robots, of which motors account for a large proportion

The supply of core components is an important support for the future large-scale development of the robot industry. The three core components of humanoid robots include reducers, servo systems and controllers, accounting for more than 70% of the total cost.

Looking to the future, Debon Securities pointed out that the demand for humanoid robots is expected to surpass that of automobiles, and the global market space may exceed one trillion in the future:

The price of the robot is expected to be significantly lower than that of a car, expected to be less than $20,000. If robot sales can reach the level of car sales in 2022, the global market for humanoid robots may exceed US$1.6 trillion

Assuming shipments of one million units of humanoid robots, the incremental motor market is close to 100 billion:

Assuming that global humanoid robot shipments reach 5 million units in the next 10 years, the unit price of frameless motors is 2,500 yuan, and the unit price of coreless motors is 1,300 yuan, then the incremental market for frameless motors brought by humanoid robots after 10 years is expected to be 3,500 yuan billion, the incremental market for coreless motors is expected to be 78 billion yuan, with a total market space of 428 billion yuan.

This article is mainly selected from Debon Securities' "Humanoid Robot In-Depth Series Report: The "Heart" of Robot Movement, Motors Are Expected to Usher in Broad Space", analyst Yu Nengfei (Qualification Number: S0120522120003)

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