At 7:30 in the morning, the hospital logistics robot “Noah” has been waiting in the outpatient specimen collection, and the worker aunt has sorted the collected specimens into its “belly” according to the categories. “Noah” then set off, successively through the biochemical immunization room, PCR (polymerase chain reaction) laboratory, manual immunization room and microbiology room. The staff of each department will know that “Noah” is coming when they hear the voice reminder, and they will swipe the card to “open the stomach” and take out the specimens they need to deal with in turn. After delivery, Noah returns to the “point of delivery” to self-sterilize, a cycle that takes about 15 to 20 minutes.

S-113N 3BHB018008R0001 Non-contact, high efficiency and anti-infection, the advantages of robots have been highlighted in the epidemic. In the first quarter of this year, many robot enterprises in Shanghai have appeared “explosive orders”. For example, the “Noah” robot has been “on duty” in more than 10 hospitals in Shanghai, such as Ruijin Hospital, Public Health Center and Tongren Hospital. New scenarios of robot applications spawned by the epidemic continue to emerge, experts said, which will not only drive a wave of robot market sales, which also contains a new blue ocean of industry related to thousands of households.

Service robot boom

Orders increased tenfold year on year

“The first time you meet, two hours to talk, ten minutes to look at the product, immediately sign the contract, full payment for delivery.” This is a message recently sent by Zhang Jianzheng, founder of Shanghai Sazhi Intelligent Technology S-113N 3BHB018008R0001 Co., LTD., in the circle of friends, the market heat of the company’s “three-in one” disinfection robot can be seen – the original sales of dozens of units in half a year, and now there are hundreds of orders a month.

Since the full resumption of work at the end of February, Shanghai Titanium Mi Robot Technology Co., Ltd. has recovered to the capacity before the Spring Festival, and the order volume has increased by 10 times year-on-year. In the past two months, hundreds of disinfection, isolation ward service and medical material management robots produced by Tiimi have been “sticking” to the frontline of the epidemic in more than 200 designated hospitals across the country. In response to surging market demand, the five-year-old company is planning to expand its robot production base.

S-113N 3BHB018008R0001 Recently, the robot team of the 21st Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (referred to as the 21 Institute) in Shanghai has also received a number of new customers from different fields such as hospitals, educational institutions, commercial office buildings and so on. Wang Weijun, engineer of 21, said that from the current order situation, it is expected to be able to complete the order volume of last year in half a year.

According to the classification of application scenarios, robots can be divided into industrial robots, service robots and special robots, and logistics robots and disinfection robots that have soared in sales due to the epidemic belong to the category of service robots. Why are they the first to catch fire?

Zheng Junqi, president of the Shanghai Robot Industry Technology Research Institute, said that unlike technology-driven industrial robots, service robots are largely market-driven – who can give fixed application scenarios and get large-scale market testing opportunities, who can get rapid development opportunities.

The clearer the application scenario

The sooner the robot “new species” comes on the scene

The disinfection robot is not originally an inherent variety of the robot family, but was spawned by the application scenario of “disinfection”. “Its two core technologies – mobile and disinfection – are quite mature, and the combination of the S-113N 3BHB018008R0001 two makes a disinfection robot, and it is the application scenario that determines how the technology modules are integrated and how they are integrated.” Zheng Junqi said.

The more new demands and the more fixed the demand scenario, the more likely it is that a “new species” of robots will be born. For robotics companies, this epidemic provides such an opportunity. Six years ago, Shanghai Zhihuilin Medical Technology Co., Ltd. started from a hospital logistics distribution robot and continued to deepen the hospital service scene. Today, the “Noah” robot they developed can automatically get on and off the elevator, open the door, avoid obstacles and other functions, and can meet the transportation needs of 90% of the hospital’s scenes. In order to fight the epidemic, the hospital has put forward a new requirement for “Noah” : it can completely self-disinfect after crossing the contaminated area. Soon, the company successfully unlocked this feature, “Noah” also upgraded again, and received a number of hospital purchase orders.

Under the “reverse force” of market demand and application scenarios, various technical modules that constitute robots will automatically integrate and quickly form products. The “three-in-one” disinfection robot of Shanghai Sazhi S-113N 3BHB018008R0001 Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. is an integrated solution launched according to the specific needs of customers by integrating the technology of the three enterprises that originally produced purification equipment, disinfection robots and disinfection water. The robots that integrate these technologies may be only a dress up from the home service robots that walk into thousands of households.

The application scenarios are most diverse

China’s service robot market has great potential

Data from the Global Robot Industry Alliance shows that in 2013, China has surpassed Japan to become the world’s largest robot market. However, in terms of the number of robots per 10,000 workers, China is still far behind the world average (55).

Many industry experts believe that among the three types of robots, service robots are the one most likely to enter thousands of households. “The breakout opportunity for Chinese robots is in the service robot market.” The reason why Zheng Junqi judged so, first, because China started not late in this field, and the gap with foreign countries is small; Second, the demand for service robots is driven by the market, and China is the country with the most abundant robot application scenarios.

“Companies that were hesitant to use robots are also coming in.” Shi Jinhao, director of the 21 institute, also obviously felt the “outbreak” of the robot market. Recently, in addition to busy “receiving orders”, 21 are also making technical reserves for the upcoming home service robot; Shentong Metro is commissioning the Shanghai Robot Industry Technology Research Institute to develop a cleaning robot, which needs to master a variety of skills such as disinfection and cleaning inside and outside the car; In the future, the logistics distribution and cleaning of hospitals are also expected to be “contracted” by robots. (Reporter Shim Qiusha)