Over the past decade, China has made outstanding achievements in the fields of intelligent equipment and robotics . In the industrial sector, these technologies have been applied to welding, palletizing, and other applications, while in the service sector, they have been applied to education, communications, catering, and security. Robots with various functions have made their debut.
Among these robots, the industrial robots are the most attractive. Their agile performance in handling, loading and unloading, and shearing and bending processes is amazing. After inquiring with the person in charge on site, we learned that the reason why these robots can perform so well is that their manufacturers have mastered the key technology of the robot's core component, the reducer.
Speed reducers are key components of robots, especially widely used in industrial machinery. They enable robots to stably complete various processes during production, offering extremely high precision in motion positioning and repeatability. Precision speed reducers are essential for applications requiring high accuracy. While servo motors also offer precision capabilities, simply increasing their power is insufficient for heavy-load tasks. In such cases, using a speed reducer to increase output torque becomes a better solution.
On the other hand, servo motors have a drawback during use: they exhibit low-frequency vibration and heat generation when operating at low frequencies, which can significantly affect the stability and accuracy of industrial robots. The presence of a speed reducer effectively avoids this problem, allowing the servo motor to maintain its normal operating speed while adjusting its rotational speed to the speed required for various parts of the robot to work, while also generating greater torque.
Therefore, speed reducers are widely used in various articulated robots. Different types of speed reducers are used depending on the body part of the robot: RV speed reducers are used in heavy load areas such as the shoulder and upper arm, while harmonic speed reducers are used in areas with lower loads such as the hand, wrist, and forearm.
In robot manufacturing, speed reducers are crucial and located upstream in the industry chain. They also account for a significant portion of robot manufacturing costs; in general industrial robots, the robot body accounts for 22%, the servo system for 38%, and the speed reducer for 38%. For example, in a 6-axis robot priced at 250,000 yuan, the speed reducer alone costs nearly 100,000 yuan. Unfortunately, the development of speed reducers, especially precision speed reducers, is a major weakness in my country's robot industry, requiring continued reliance on imports. The high prices are constantly squeezing the profit margins of my country's robot manufacturing sector.
Therefore, in the past three years, my country has vigorously innovated and improved its speed reducer products, striving to use our independently developed speed reducers in new robots within the next few years. Experts predict that my country's speed reducer technology will further develop before 2020.
