Made in China 2025, from a new historical perspective and strategic overview, clearly sets out the action plan for the first decade of China's implementation of the strong manufacturing strategy. It identifies "high-end CNC machine tools and robots" as one of the key areas for vigorous promotion, proposing that the development of the robot industry should "focus on the needs of industrial robot applications in automotive, machinery, electronics, hazardous goods manufacturing, national defense, chemical, and light industries, as well as service robot applications in medical care, household services, education, and entertainment. Actively research new products, promote the standardization and modularization of robots, and expand market applications. Breakthroughs in robot bodies, reducers, servo motors, controllers, sensors, and driver technologies and system integration design and manufacturing technologies are needed to overcome technical bottlenecks." The technological innovation roadmap for key areas also clarifies that the development priorities for China's robot industry over the next ten years will be in two directions: Firstly, developing a series of industrial robot bodies and key components, promoting industrial robot industrialization and application, and meeting the urgent needs of China's manufacturing industry transformation and upgrading; and secondly, breaking through key technologies for intelligent robots, developing a batch of intelligent robots, and actively responding to the challenges of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation.

　　I. Demand-Oriented Approach, Enhanced Innovation Capacity, and Expanded Market Applications

　　According to different application environments, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) divides robots into two categories: industrial robots in manufacturing environments and service robots in non-manufacturing environments. Industrial robots are a general term for robots used in industrial production, and they are important factory automation equipment in modern manufacturing; service robots are non-productive robots that serve humans. Service robot technology is mainly applied to unstructured environments and has a complex structure. It can obtain external environment information through its own sensors and communication to make decisions and complete corresponding tasks.

　　1. China Has Become the World's Largest Industrial Robot Market, with Further Potential to be Explored

　　Industrial robots mainly refer to multi-joint manipulators or multi-degree-of-freedom robots used in the industrial field, used in industrial production processes such as handling, welding, assembly, processing, painting, and clean production. In 2014, global industrial robot sales reached a record high of 225,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 27%. The driving force behind market growth mainly comes from Asia, especially China and South Korea.

　　In recent years, the demand for the Chinese robot market has grown rapidly, and it has become an important global robot market. In 2014, China's industrial robot sales reached 56,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 52%, once again becoming the world's largest industrial robot market. Users have expanded from foreign-funded enterprises and Sino-foreign joint ventures to domestic enterprises and even small and medium-sized enterprises. Many enterprises in the developed coastal areas of China use their products for export, with high requirements for product quality, and more and more enterprises are using robots to replace industrial workers. In the Pearl River Delta region, the annual average growth rate of industrial robot use has reached 30%, especially in assembly, dispensing, handling, and welding, which has triggered a boom in robot use.

　　Although China has been the world's largest industrial robot market since 2013, the density of industrial robots in manufacturing is still very low. In 2013, the density of industrial robots in China was only 30 units per 10,000 industrial workers, less than half of the global average, and the gap is even greater compared with South Korea (437 units per 10,000 industrial workers), Japan (323 units per 10,000 industrial workers), and Germany (282 units per 10,000 industrial workers), which have a higher degree of industrial automation. The domestic industrial robot market still has enormous potential.

　　As a major manufacturing country, China has been lagging behind in the application of industrial robots. Except for the automotive industry, the application of robots in general manufacturing industries with large quantities and wide varieties is basically spontaneous, dispersed, or sporadic. With the development of factory automation in China, industrial robots will also be rapidly promoted in other industrial sectors, such as electronics, metal products, rubber and plastics, food, building materials, civilian explosives, aviation, and pharmaceutical equipment.

　　The application level of industrial robots is an important indicator of a country's level of industrial automation. The development of industrial robots in China should focus on accelerating the development of intelligent manufacturing in China, coordinating the supply and demand of robots. On the one hand, it should improve the innovation capabilities of China's robot manufacturing enterprises, promote the standardization, modularization, and systematization of robots, reduce the cost of use, and improve the level of integrated applications, thereby expanding the scope of market applications; on the other hand, it should actively carry out pilot applications of independent brand robots and implement a number of typical application demonstration projects with outstanding results, strong driving force, and high relevance, driving the use of industrial robots to transform and upgrade traditional manufacturing industries.

　　2. China's Service Robot Industry Should Be Developed in a Demand-Oriented and Focused Manner

　　Service robots include special service robots and household service robots. The application range of service robots is very wide, mainly engaged in maintenance, repair, transportation, cleaning, security, rescue, monitoring, as well as medical treatment, elderly care, rehabilitation, and assistance to the disabled. Service robots are a new type of intelligent equipment and a strategic high-tech product, with a larger market space in the future than industrial robots.

　　Global service robots have shown rapid growth in the past five years. According to statistics from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), in 2013, global sales of professional service robots and personal/household service robots reached 21,000 units and 4 million units respectively, with market values of US$3.57 billion and US$1.7 billion respectively, representing year-on-year growth of 4% and 28% respectively. In the next few years, the global market for service robots will continue to grow rapidly. With the major breakthrough in knowledge-sharing cloud robot technology, the production cost of small household auxiliary robots will be significantly reduced, which will form a new market of at least US$41.6 billion before 2020; on the other hand, although the development of assistive robots for the disabled is slow, it is predictable that there will be rapid growth in the next 20 years.

　　Currently, the international technological research and development of service robots is mainly led by the five countries of the United States, Japan, China, Germany, and South Korea. The development of service robots in China lags behind that of industrial robots. Compared with Japan and the United States, China's research and development in the field of service robots started later, and the absolute gap with developed countries is still relatively large. However, the gap between domestic and foreign countries is relatively small compared with industrial robots. Service robots generally need to be developed in conjunction with specific market demand, and local enterprises are more likely to combine specific environments and cultures for development to occupy a good market position and thus maintain a certain competitive advantage; on the other hand, foreign service robots also belong to emerging industries, and most service robot companies have been established for a relatively short time, so China's service robot industry faces great opportunities and development space.

　　From the development trend, China's professional service robots are expected to achieve industrialization earlier than personal/household robots, especially medical robots and robots for inspection and exploration in dangerous and special environments. As China enters an aging society, the demand for medical treatment, nursing, and rehabilitation will increase. At the same time, due to people's increasing pursuit of quality of life, personal/household robots will have a wider market space in the future.

　　II. Overcome Technological Bottlenecks and Enhance Industrialization Capabilities

　　Robots integrate modern manufacturing technology, new material technology, and information control technology. They are representative products of intelligent manufacturing. Their research, development, manufacturing, and application have become important indicators of a country's technological innovation and manufacturing level, attracting great attention from major manufacturing powers worldwide.

　　The development of China's robot industry can be traced back to the 1980s. At that time, the Ministry of Science and Technology included industrial robots in the national science and technology program. The former Ministry of Machinery Industry took the lead in organizing research and development of industrial robots for spot welding, arc welding, painting, and handling. Other ministries and commissions also actively supported projects, forming the first boom in China's industrial robots. After that, mainly due to market demand reasons, independent research and development and industrialization of robots experienced a long period of stagnation. After 2010, China's robot installation capacity increased year by year, and began to develop toward the entire robot industry chain.

　　The development of the robot industry includes research and development, industrialization of robot bodies and components, system integration technology, services, etc., each link is very important. The development of China's robot industry chain is a long and arduous process. Overall, at present, most Chinese robot companies are concentrated in the integration field, and the majority are processing and assembly enterprises. In terms of original research on core and key technologies, high-reliability basic functional components, system process application solutions, and mass production of mainframes, there is still a considerable gap with developed countries. In terms of key components, key components such as precision reducers, servo motors, and drivers are heavily reliant on imports. Although the country has made considerable investment and support in this area for many years, due to the low market scale and industrialization level in the past, it is not enough to drive the development of core components, resulting in unsatisfactory results.

　　Therefore, China's insufficient robot technology has restricted the scale of industrialization, and the small scale has in turn restricted the development of technology, all of which have affected the industrialization process of robots. To improve the market competitiveness of domestic robots, on the one hand, it is necessary to expand the output of domestic robots and improve the production capacity of domestic robot enterprises; on the other hand, it is necessary to promote the domestic production of key components of domestic robots and improve the production capacity of key components to meet the needs of the expansion of domestic robot production capacity.

　　In recent years, the state has attached great importance to intelligent manufacturing and robots. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and many other departments are vigorously promoting the development of the robot industry, promoting the development of independent brand robot industry from top-level design, financial and tax policies, demonstration applications, talent training and other aspects, and the supporting policies are becoming more and more comprehensive and refined. China's robot industry roadmap and the related work of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" for the robot industry are also steadily progressing. This will greatly promote Chinese robot companies in breaking through technological bottlenecks and improving industrialization capabilities.

　　At present, for China's robot industry, it is no longer a question of whether to attach importance to it or not, but a question of what kind of perspective to look at this industry, and what kind of thinking to cultivate and orderly develop this industry. For various issues such as market demand, technological innovation model, and funding support methods for the robot industry, local governments' support policies for the industry are expected to become more refined.

　　3. Accelerate the research and development and production of the next generation of robots and seize the next commanding heights of robot technology and industrial development

　　With the development of robot technology, robots are divided into general robots and intelligent robots according to different functions. Among them, general robots refer to robots with only general programming capabilities and operating functions. Most of the robots currently produced in China belong to this category; there is no uniform definition of intelligent robots. Most experts believe that intelligent robots must at least have the following major functional characteristics: First, they have the ability to adapt to uncertain working conditions; second, they have the ability to flexibly operate complex objects; third, they have the ability to closely cooperate with people; fourth, they have the ability to interact naturally with people; fifth, they have the safety characteristics of human-computer cooperation. Whether it is modern industrial robots or service robots, they will eventually develop into intelligent robots with learning capabilities. We usually call intelligent robots the next generation of robots. With the continuous progress of technologies such as 3D visual perception/cognition and force sensors, and the deep integration with new generation information technologies such as industrial Internet, cloud computing, and big data, the intelligence level of the next generation of robots will be further improved, and the perception ability of the outside world will be further enhanced. They can complete dynamic and complex tasks, achieve multi-machine collaboration, and collaborate with humans.

　　In order to further seize the international market and enhance the competitiveness of manufacturing in the world, various economic powers are eager to try and formulate development plans to seize the development opportunities of advanced robot technology. At present, the German government is promoting the "Industry 4.0" strategy, building "smart factories", creating "smart production", and one of its key topics is the interaction and cooperation between people and machines, and between machines. In 2013, the United States proposed the "American Robot Development Roadmap", which will focus on manufacturing to overcome the strong adaptability and reconfigurable assembly of robots, anthropomorphic dexterous manipulation, model-based integration and supply chain design, autonomous navigation, perception in unstructured environments, education and training, and the inherent safety of robots working with people. In early 2015, the Japanese government announced the "Japan Robot New Strategy" and clearly proposed in its five-year action plan to "develop data terminalization, networking, and cloud computing technologies in the next generation of robots". In recent years, the South Korean government has successively released a number of policies aimed at promoting the research and development and application of the third generation of intelligent robots. In 2012, South Korea announced the "Robot Future Strategy Network 2022", and its policy focus is to support Korean companies to enter the international market and seize the opportunity of intelligent robot industrialization. With the vigorous promotion of the United States, Japan, Europe and other technologically powerful countries, in the past 5 years, prototypes of the next generation of robots, demonstration applications, and even practical systems have continued to emerge.

　　From China's current perspective, the demand market for the next generation of industrial robots has not yet fully matured, but the research and development and reserve of strategically significant common technologies are particularly urgent. At present, China's development of the next generation of robot industry should first focus on consolidating the technological foundation of the robot industry, and strive to promote the industrialization process of existing robots and accelerate the promotion and application of independent brand robots in the domestic market. Explore new technological research and development models, encourage research institutes and enterprises to give full play to their respective advantages, and establish a national-level platform for the research and development and reserve of cutting-edge and common technologies for the next generation of industrial robots in multiple ways. Starting from China's national conditions and needs, break through the core technologies of the next generation of robots, develop prototype systems and products of the next generation of robots, and promote the industrialization process to seize the international commanding heights of the next generation of robots. For robot products used in different fields, implement different development strategies: On the one hand, with enterprises as the core and a common technology platform as the support, prioritize the development of the next generation of industrial robots, promote the docking of production and demand, and seize the commanding heights of development; on the other hand, be market-oriented, grasp the characteristics of domestic demand, and develop service robots such as medical, elderly care and disabled assistance, and special robots for operation in special service environments.