Application of sensors in robots
On April 27, the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center released the world’s first pure electric drive full-size humanoid robot “Tiangong”, which can run steadily at a speed of 6 kilometers per hour, is 163 cm tall, and weighs 43 kg. It is equipped with high-precision six-dimensional force sensors, as well as 550 trillion operations per second, high-precision inertial measurement units (IMUs) and 3D vision sensors.
Many institutions believe that 2024 may become the first year of mass production of humanoid robots, and domestic and foreign humanoid robot manufacturers are expected to deliver and even mass produce in 2024-2025. This “runnable” domestic humanoid robot is expected to stimulate speculation about related concepts again. Zhongtai Securities (600918) research report mentioned that sensors give robots multiple perception capabilities such as vision, force, and touch, which are helpful for the perception of the body and the external environment. Domestic UBTECH, Zhiyuan, Yushu and other robot products are also equipped with multiple sensors. Key sensors include touch, torque, IMU, vision, etc., which are dominated by foreign capital and accelerated domestic catch-up.
1) Tactile sensor: converts other physical waveforms into current or voltage waveforms, and transmits them in the form of electromagnetic waves after processing, so as to sense changes in force, temperature, etc. The barriers are mainly in materials and algorithms. Tactile sensors are currently in the early stages of development, mainly overseas companies such as Canatu, Sensel, and Flexpoint. The leading domestic companies are mainly Hanwei Technology (300007) subsidiaries Nengsda, Audiway and Pasini.
2) Torque sensor: converts force signals into electrical signals to measure the degree of external pressure. The barriers are calibration & detection and data decoupling. Six dimensions are dominated by foreign brands, and the domestic rate is low. Domestic brands such as Kunwei have taken the lead in the collaborative robot segment.
3) IMU: measures the acceleration, angular acceleration and magnetic field strength of the robot body, and outputs speed, position and posture. The hardware barrier is the gyroscope, and the software barrier is algorithm control. IMU is mainly monopolized by overseas companies, such as TDK, Honeywell, ADI, etc., and domestic companies such as Daoyuan, Huayi, and Xindong are gradually catching up.
4) Visual sensors: divided into 2D and 3D, mainly for perception imaging. Keyence is the industry leader with a global market share of over 50%. In China, Optech is relatively leading.