Welding, often referred to as the "tailor of industry," plays a crucial role in industrial production. In recent years, with the continuous development of science and technology, the demand for high-quality products has greatly increased, which has also placed higher demands on welding technology.
Traditional manual welding techniques can no longer meet the quality and efficiency requirements of modern product manufacturing, so welding automation has gradually gained attention. Welding robots, as the most important application segment of industrial robots, have developed very rapidly and are widely used in various fields of industrial manufacturing, accounting for about 40% of all industrial robot applications. Welding robots have become a symbol of welding automation.
Welding robots become the new protagonists of "smart factories"
Today, as the global demand for automated production is rapidly increasing, countries are actively promoting the orderly development of "Industry 4.0". As two new themes under the requirements of the new era, "smart factories" and "smart production" have received increasing attention from more and more countries and enterprises.
As a crucial link in the machinery manufacturing industry, industrial welding also plays an important role in "smart factories" and "smart production." Welding robots have unparalleled advantages over manual welding. They are simple to operate, allowing ordinary workers to directly replace highly skilled welders, thus saving companies significant labor costs. While humans need rest, welding robots can work continuously, achieving a production efficiency more than three times that of manual welding, and further reducing labor management costs.
At the same time, the arrival of the era of automation and the Internet of Everything means that more and more devices are interacting frequently with each other and acquiring data, which is reshaping the way products are designed and manufactured in factories and workshops around the world, from robots that work alongside humans to parts that track the entire logistics system.
As welding robots are increasingly deployed in factory workshops for actual welding production, the welding process involves numerous welding operations and complex welding structures, which a single welding robot cannot handle. Therefore, welding robots generally perform batch production tasks in factories. When the robot arm cannot reach the welding position, such as when there are obstacles in the predetermined welding path or when encountering a dead point that prevents further welding, multiple welding robots are needed to complete the welding operation together.
Of course, robots do not work alone; they need to be combined with many peripheral auxiliary devices, such as control cabinets, welding power sources, wire feeding mechanisms, positioners, and fixtures. Therefore, flexible integration between welding robots and peripheral equipment, as well as between robots themselves, is necessary to reduce auxiliary time and greatly improve efficiency during the welding process.
The development of welding robots in my country has been fraught with difficulties.
Currently, my country's welding robots mainly focus on resistance spot welding and thin plate arc welding in automotive equipment production lines. As early as 1984, FAW took the first step in introducing German KUKA welding robots to the welding of the "Hongqi" brand car body and the "Jiefang" brand car front roof. In 1988, FAW developed an automated production line for the entire car body robotic welding.
With the establishment of joint venture automobile plants by automotive industry giants Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen, my country's welding robots have begun to fully utilize methods such as introduction, assimilation, and secondary development, which has greatly improved my country's system integration capabilities and application capabilities in the industry market.
As of 2018, after more than 20 years of development, welding robots in my country are no longer only used in automobile manufacturing, but also widely used in engineering machinery, steel structure, nuclear power and wind power, aerospace, shipbuilding and marine engineering, rail transportation, national defense and military industry, home appliances, and civilian hardware industries.
In the field of robot applications, companies can be broadly divided into three major groups: Japanese, European, and domestic. Japanese robot companies include Yaskawa, OTC, Panasonic, FANUC, Nachi-Fujikoshi, and Kawasaki; European robot companies mainly include KUKA and CLOOS from Germany, ABB from Sweden, COMAU from Italy, and IGM from Austria; while domestic robot companies are mainly represented by Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd.
my country has very few welding robots with intellectual property rights, and they have not yet achieved economies of scale and cannot be mass-produced. The biggest reason for this is that Chinese robots do not have a price advantage.
Over the past decade, the price of robots abroad has dropped significantly, from $70,000-$80,000 initially to $20,000-$30,000, making it difficult for domestically manufactured industrial robots to compete on price. Especially in the early stages of robot research and development in my country, many components such as servo motors and reducers needed to be imported, resulting in consistently high production costs and significantly impacting the development of the domestic robot industry.
Editor's Conclusion:
Currently, hundreds of thousands of welding robots are deployed in major cities across China, spanning the automotive and construction machinery industries. However, due to the relatively late start of industrial robot research and development in my country, the country has lagged behind Europe, the United States, and Japan. Nevertheless, in today's high-tech economic climate, we can achieve technological innovation and equipment industrialization through applied research and secondary development, thereby enhancing the international standing of my country's manufacturing sector.
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