According to industry statistics, in 2020, the number of industrial robots shipped in China exceeded 150,000 units, and the market sales of the robots exceeded 18 billion yuan.
Generally speaking, an industrial robot consists of three main parts and six subsystems.
The three main parts are the mechanical part, the sensing part, and the control part.
The six subsystems can be divided into mechanical structure system, drive system, perception system, robot-environment interaction system, human-machine interaction system, and control system.
Mobile robots
A mobile robot is a machine that performs tasks automatically. It can be commanded by humans, run pre-programmed routines, or act according to principles established using artificial intelligence technology. Its task is to assist or replace human workers in jobs such as manufacturing, construction, or hazardous work.
According to industry statistics, in 2020, the size of China's mobile robot market, whether measured by the number of units shipped or sales revenue, was less than one-third of that of industrial robots.
Mobile robots can be categorized by their working environment (indoor and outdoor), movement method (wheeled, walking, snake-like, tracked, crawling, etc.), control architecture (functional (horizontal), behavioral (vertical), and hybrid), function and application (medical, military, assistive, cleaning, etc.), and operating space (land-based, underwater, unmanned aerial vehicle, and space-based robots).
Besides their applications in space exploration, ocean development, and nuclear energy, mobile robots also have broad prospects in factory automation, construction, mining, hazard mitigation, military, service, and agriculture. They can be broadly categorized into four main application areas: industrial robots, exploratory robots, service robots, and military robots.
