When talking about the world's industrial robots, we can't avoid the four major families represented by FANUC, KUKA, ABB, and Yaskawa Electric. In the Asian market, they are also very important and occupy more than 70% of the market share of China's robot industry. So, what are the characteristics of the products of the four major families of robots, and what are their advantages and disadvantages?
The four major families have their own strengths in various technical fields. ABB's core field is control systems, KUKA is in system integration applications and body manufacturing, FANUC is in CNC systems, and Yaskawa is in the field of servo motors and motion controllers.
Swiss ABB
ABB's headquarters is located in Zurich, Switzerland. Its business covers five major areas: power products, discrete automation, motion control, process automation, and low-voltage products. It is most famous for power and automation technology. ABB emphasizes the integrity of the robot itself. For its six-axis robot, the speed of a single axis is not the fastest, but the accuracy of the six axes working together is very high.
Core Fields Core Fields
The servos and motion controllers mainly produced by Yaskawa Electric are key parts for manufacturing robots. It has successively developed various automated operation robots such as welding, assembly, spraying, and handling. Its core industrial robot products include: spot welding and arc welding robots, paint and processing robots, LCD glass plate transmission robots, and semiconductor chip transmission robots. It is one of the earliest manufacturers to apply industrial robots to the semiconductor production field.
Technology: good stability, but slightly poor accuracy
With nearly a hundred years of inheritance of electrical motor technology, Yaskawa's AC servo and inverter market share ranks first in the world. As early as 1977, Yaskawa developed Japan's first all-electric industrial robot.
Yaskawa started with motors, so it can maximize the inertia of motors. Therefore, the biggest feature of Yaskawa's robots is large load and high stability. There will be no alarm during full load and full speed operation, and it can even run overloaded. Therefore, Yaskawa has a relatively large market in the application field of heavy-load robots, such as the automotive industry.
Compared with FANUC robots, the accuracy of Yaskawa robots is not that high. On the basis of the same price, if customers require high accuracy, they will often choose FANUC robots. However, Yaskawa robots have obvious price advantages. It can be said that they are the lowest priced and most cost-effective among the four major brands. Yaskawa's welding robots, including welding packages, are quoted at only 130,000/140,000 yuan. Compared with Panasonic's welding robots, Yaskawa is taking the path of mass production.
Domestic market analysis
In recent years, Yaskawa has made frequent moves in the domestic market: establishing new robot centers, increasing factory investment, and establishing joint ventures with Midea, etc., in order to accelerate the realization of localized services. China is a demand-side market, and Midea is also a home appliance giant. The demand for robots is huge, which can help Yaskawa achieve sales growth.
Yaskawa has been researching service robots, especially in the field of medical robots, but the progress in the Japanese market has not been smooth. The domestic service robot market may bring new growth points. At present, major robot body companies tend to seek cooperation with larger application-oriented companies. As market competition becomes increasingly fierce, such strategic cooperation will become more frequent in the future.
ABB's core technology is motion control system, which is also the biggest difficulty for the robot itself. ABB, which has mastered motion control technology, can easily achieve robot performance such as tracking accuracy, motion speed, cycle time, programmable design, and greatly improve production quality, efficiency and reliability.
Technology: The algorithm is the best, but slightly expensive
ABB started with frequency converters. In China, most power stations and frequency converters are made by ABB. For the robot itself, the biggest difficulty lies in the motion control system, and ABB's core advantage is motion control. It can be said that ABB's robot algorithm is the best among the four major brands. Not only does it have a comprehensive motion control solution, but the product use technical documentation is also quite professional and specific.
It is reported that ABB's control cabinet comes with Robot Studio software, which can perform 3D operation simulation and online functions. The connection with external devices supports a variety of common industrial bus interfaces, and can also communicate with various brands of welding power supplies, cutting power supplies, PLCs, etc. through labeled input and output interfaces. In addition, ABB's control cabinet can also freely set the current, voltage, speed, swing and other parameters of arc starting, heating, welding and arc closing, and can be set to realize various complex swing trajectories.
ABB also pays attention to the overall characteristics of the robot. While paying attention to quality, it also pays attention to the design of the robot. However, it is well known that ABB robots equipped with high-standard control systems are very expensive. In addition, many companies have reported that among the four major brands, ABB has the longest delivery period.
Domestic market analysis
ABB implements a high-profile strategy in China and focuses on cooperation with major Chinese customers. Huawei, Changhong and Tosda are the leaders of the application end and integrators in the 3C home appliance industry, respectively. They play the role of weather vanes in the industry. It can be seen that ABB attaches great importance to the 3C industry. Its future products will integrate more advanced technologies such as intelligence, interconnection, and big data. The main body enterprises are beginning to move towards the application end, and the relationship with system integrators will become closer; at the same time, the main body enterprises themselves are also beginning to focus on the development of integrated applications.
KUKA, Germany
KUKA, Germany was established in Augsburg, Germany in 1898. It initially focused on indoor and urban lighting, and soon began to enter other fields. KUKA's main customers come from the automotive manufacturing field. It also focuses on providing advanced automation solutions to industrial production processes, and is also involved in neurosurgery and radiography in hospitals.
Core fields
KUKA robots can be used for material handling, processing, spot welding and arc welding, involving industries such as automation, metal processing, food and plastics.
Technology: simple operation, but high failure rate
The acquisition of KUKA by Midea can be said to have made KUKA popular. If ABB is the Mercedes-Benz of cars, then KUKA is the BMW of cars. Although they are both high-end cars, the repair rate of BMW is higher than that of Mercedes-Benz.
It is reported that compared with robots such as ABB and FANUC, the repair rate of KUKA robots is higher. Some insiders responded that they had used KUKA robots and almost one robot broke down every day.
The advantage of Kuka in domestic sales lies in its good secondary development. Even a novice with no technical foundation can operate it within one day. In terms of human-machine interface, in order to cater to the habits of Chinese people, Kuka makes it very simple, just like playing a game console. In comparison, the control system keyboards of Japanese brand robots are many and the operation is slightly complicated.
It is worth mentioning that Kuka has done a good job in the field of heavy-load robots. Among robots above 120KG, Kuka and ABB have the largest market share, and among heavy-load robots of 400KG and 600KG, Kuka has the largest sales volume.
Domestic market analysis
KUKA is currently accelerating the layout of localized services in the Chinese market and opening up new territories in the southwest. In the future, it will continue to exert its strength in the field of automotive equipment. The acquisition of KUKA by Midea has been recorded in history, which has had a significant impact on the influence and market responsiveness of the two brands. The joint effect of Midea + KUKA in the future is also worth looking forward to.
FANUC, Japan
FANUC was founded in 1956 and launched its first electro-hydraulic stepper motor three years later. In the 1970s, thanks to the rapid development of microelectronics technology, power electronics technology, and especially computing technology, FANUC resolutely abandoned the electro-hydraulic stepper motor CNC products that made it rich and began to transform. In 1976, FANUC successfully developed a CNC system, and then jointly developed a high-level CNC system with Siemens, gradually becoming one of the companies with the strongest CNC system, design, and manufacturing capabilities in the world today.
Core areas
FANUC is a global professional CNC system manufacturer. Compared with other companies, its industrial robots are unique in that process control is more convenient, the base size of the same type of robots is smaller, and it has a unique arm design.
Technology: Very high precision, but overload is not allowed
FANUC's research on CNC systems can be traced back to 1956. Forward-looking Japanese technical experts foresaw the arrival of the 3C era and formed a scientific research team. By applying the advantages of the CNC system to robots, FANUC's industrial robots are also very accurate. It is reported that the repetitive positioning accuracy of FANUC's multifunctional six-axis small robot can reach plus or minus 0.02mm. In addition, compared with other companies, FANUC's industrial robots are unique in that the process control is more convenient, the base size of the same type of robots is smaller, and they have a unique arm design.
It is worth mentioning that FANUC has applied the blade compensation function of CNC machine tool finishing to the robot, and implanted the blade compensation function from the algorithm, which allows the robot to go in circles during the finishing cutting process. The robot body of Yaskawa does not have this function. To achieve this function, it can only be compensated through secondary development, and this is also the inconvenience of Yaskawa robots reported by many customers.
However, FANUC is not the best in the stability of the robot. During the full load operation, when the speed reaches 80%, FANUC's robot will alarm, which also shows that the overload capacity of FANUC robots is not very good. Therefore, FANUC's advantage lies in light load and high precision applications, which is why FANUC's miniaturized robots (less than 24KG) are popular.
Domestic market analysis
FANUC's strategy is slightly different from other companies. Its strategy is to find and enter markets with large demand, targeting the Chinese market with huge growth potential. In the Chinese market, 55% of FANUC's sales of industrial robots are used in general manufacturing, and the top three are home appliances, logistics and electrical and electronic industries. FANUC is currently the robot brand with the largest total sales volume in the market. It does not rely on the sales of large customers and adopts an open market strategy.
Yaskawa Electric (YASKAWA)
Founded in 1915, it is Japan's largest industrial robot company, headquartered in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture. In 1977, Yaskawa Electric used its own motion control technology to develop and produce Japan's first fully electrified industrial robot. Since then, it has successively developed various automated robots such as welding, assembly, painting, and handling, and has been leading the global industrial robot market.
Core fields
The servos and motion controllers mainly produced by Yaskawa Electric are key parts for manufacturing robots. It has successively developed various automated operation robots such as welding, assembly, spraying, and handling. Its core industrial robot products include: spot welding and arc welding robots, paint and processing robots, LCD glass plate transmission robots, and semiconductor chip transmission robots. It is one of the earliest manufacturers to apply industrial robots to the semiconductor production field.
Technology: good stability, but slightly poor accuracy
With nearly a hundred years of inheritance of electrical motor technology, Yaskawa's AC servo and inverter market share ranks first in the world. As early as 1977, Yaskawa developed Japan's first all-electric industrial robot.
Yaskawa started with motors, so it can maximize the inertia of motors. Therefore, the biggest feature of Yaskawa's robots is large load and high stability. There will be no alarm during full load and full speed operation, and it can even run overloaded. Therefore, Yaskawa has a relatively large market in the application field of heavy-load robots, such as the automotive industry.
Compared with FANUC robots, the accuracy of Yaskawa robots is not that high. On the basis of the same price, if customers require high accuracy, they will often choose FANUC robots. However, Yaskawa robots have obvious price advantages. It can be said that they are the lowest priced and most cost-effective among the four major brands. Yaskawa's welding robots, including welding packages, are quoted at only 130,000/140,000 yuan. Compared with Panasonic's welding robots, Yaskawa is taking the path of mass production.