Domestic production rate of core robot components is less than 20%
Development of robot-specific components such as sensors, controllers, and actuators is necessary

The domestic production rate of parts in the robotics field, which was triggered by interest in artificial intelligence technology, has been less than 50% in recent three-year statistics, and in particular, the rate for key core parts has been less than 20%.

Robots are largely divided into manufacturing, professional service, and personal service. According to the 2014 announcement, manufacturing robots accounted for 9.5B (64%), professional service robots accounted for 3.6B (24%), and personal service robots accounted for 1.7B (12%). The domestic parts market size for these robots was 396.2 billion won in total sales, accounting for 13.9% of all parts, but 50.1% of parts imports were dependent on imports. In other words, half of the core parts, such as image sensors, were imported.

This is consistent with the reason why there are not many companies in Korea that manufacture core robot parts, which are divided into sensor, controller, and actuator parts. This situation is clearly revealed when looking at the technology level and domestic production rate for each part.


▲ THORMANG 3 by Robotis Co., Ltd. Robotis is a robot company that leads the domestic and international markets with educational robots and professional actuators as its two axes. The actuator 'Dynamixel' developed by Robotis is ranked first in the global actuator market and has also been selected as a world-class product.

First, there are sensors for robots, such as vision sensors, range sensors, force/torque sensors, and inertial sensors. Vision sensors are core sensors that recognize objects, people, and locations, and the Electronic Components Research Institute has developed an embedded vision module. Range sensors are sensors that recognize obstacles and the environment, and there are sensors that use ultrasound or lasers. Force/torque sensors detect arm/hand operating power, and inertial sensors detect movement acceleration and posture.

The domestic technology level of robot sensors is at 72% of that of Japan, and the technology gap is reported to be over 20 years. In the robot sensor industry, which is showing a steady growth rate of 3-5% every year, the domestic market is completely dependent on imports, except for some sensors such as inertia and distance sensors.

What about the robot controller sector? The motion controller, which commonly controls real-time multi-axis robots, is at 78% of the US technology, and the technology gap is estimated at two years. The global robot motion controller market grew 22.1% year-on-year in 2010 to $45.3 billion, while the domestic market grew 36.7% year-on-year to $4 billion.

Actuators for robots, which mainly feature motors, include robot joint drives (motors), high-deceleration, high-torque drives (reducers), and joints with built-in actuator reducer sensors (joint modules), and are in the highest demand in the robot parts sector. Domestic technology is 76% of Japan's, and is worth 8.5 billion dollars in 2010. The domestic market is worth 80 billion won, maintaining a high annual average growth rate of about 23.5%.

Kim Young-wook, a senior researcher at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (KETI), said, “If you look at the domestic robot industry ecosystem, you can see that there are not many parts companies in terms of the value chain, and they are mainly concentrated in the product sector.” He added, “Since the robot industry, which is centered on technology and products, is not growing quickly, the growth of the parts and service industries is necessary.”


▲ Sensortech Co., Ltd. developed an ultrasonic sensor for cleaning robots using ultrasonic sensor components and sensor modules.

According to the survey, the domestic production rate of parts by robot type is 32.6%, with manufacturing robots accounting for 27.4%, personal service robots accounting for 45.9%, and professional service robots accounting for 28.7%. Looking into more detail, the domestic production rate of drive units (13.0%) and software (8.8%) is low even for manufacturing robots, and the low domestic production rate of sensor units (14.0%) is noticeable in professional service robots. In addition, it was found that the domestic production of drive parts (21.4%) in personal service robots was insufficient.

Regarding the competitiveness of robot products, Senior Kim said, “The price level of a robot is determined by the level of intelligence (SW) operation, but the competitiveness of a product is determined by the price,” and “Robot parts are an important industrial field that accounts for most of the cost of a finished product.”

Robot parts account for most of the cost of the finished product.

Accordingly, there are growing voices saying that manufacturing robots should strengthen their price competitiveness by internalizing core components, that specialized service robots should induce the participation of technology beneficiaries from companies utilizing robots in other industries, and that specialized service robots should be utilized in each field, such as livestock robots, surgical robots, and logistics robots, and that personal service robots should also discover cleaning and educational robots and attract parts companies from other industries.

In particular, many point out that robot parts need to be specialized or serialized because it is not easy to apply general parts to robots due to the nature of the robot system. For example, Universal Robot's UR series has developed a series of high-volume, high-power density actuators, lightweight brakes with reduced manufacturing costs, and low-cost relative/absolute position sensors. In addition, in Korea, Sensortech Co., Ltd. has developed an ultrasonic sensor for cleaning robots using ultrasonic sensor components and sensor modules.

The government is also making continuous investments to foster the robot industry. We are investing in next-generation fields such as intelligent manufacturing robots, mass-market manufacturing robots through demand linkage and component cost reduction, and are also focusing on securing competitiveness in medical, safety, and social robots and artificial intelligence-based functionalization technologies to create new markets for the future.

Lee Heon-doo, director of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s Machinery and Robot Division, said, “It has been found that 93.4% of domestic robot companies are small and medium-sized enterprises, and 89.4% have robot sales of less than 10 billion won,” and “In order to secure commercialization technology for original parts centered on the next-generation manufacturing service sector, we will focus our investment on developing core intelligent technologies and developing core parts such as reducers, controllers, and motors.”