China sees fast development in robot industry

China’s robot industry is growing rapidly, but a more standardized industry is required if products are to be more reliable.

At the China Robot Industry Conference in Wuhu, Anhui Province, data released by China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA), a non-profit organization, showed that 19,000 industrial robots were sold in China in the first half of 2016.

Applied to various manufacturing tasks including packaging, welding and assembly, industrial robots are more widely used and the market has grown from 8.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2013 to 12.3 billion dollars in 2015, according to International Federation of Robotics. China has been the largest consumer since 2013.

From January to November in 2016, China produced 64,000 industrial robots, over 90 percent more than all production in 2015. Nearly 3,000 robot manufacturers have sprung up in China over the last five years, but current industrial standards are inadequate.

The market needs new standards designed by the government and the market, said Xie Bingbing, deputy chief engineer of the Beijing Research Institute for the Automation for the Machinery Industry.

At the conference, the CRIA released new standards for industrial robots, providing a technical guide for manufacturers. The CRIA is now working on standards for service robots.