All signs show that the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market, especially the accelerated popularity of electric vehicles, has brought a new round of "production revolution" to the industrial robot industry.

The International Energy Agency's Global Electric Vehicle Outlook 2023 report, released earlier this year, predicts that global electric vehicle sales will increase 35% this year from the previous year to 14 million units. The report also shows that the vast majority of electric vehicle sales are currently concentrated in three major markets: China, Europe and the United States. Among them, China is the leader, the Chinese market last year accounted for 60% of global sales of electric vehicles.

The "three Heights" in the car production shop

Today, when people walk into the SAIC General Motors Wuhan Autoleng Super plant, engineers here will use the interesting "three high" to describe the new generation of electric vehicle production line. According to reports, the electric driving room here has a world-class level of "high flexibility, high precision, high automation" machining production line.

For different models of electric drive units such as front drive and rear drive, AOTenergy Wuhan plant uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm and virtual simulation technology, through digital process development, automated process scheduling and comprehensive verification can be completed, and intelligent design of the whole process planning process can be realized, further improving the efficiency and quality of flexible production.

In recent years, on a global scale, the wave of transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industries such as intelligent manufacturing and "Industry 4.0" has followed one after another, and China's manufacturing industry is also accelerating its evolution toward digitalization and high-end. The resulting rapid development of software, sensors, artificial intelligence and human machine interface (HMI) industries has not only brought unprecedented development opportunities to the world, but also reshaped the face of industry, business and People's Daily lives.

In the second quarter of this year, 3M Company of the United States released the Forward-looking Trend 2023 annual Insight Report at its China Research and Development Center in Shanghai. According to the analysis of the report, the expansion of the global market, especially China's new energy vehicle market, has a role in promoting the overall innovation of industrial robots.

Battery pack automated production more "silky"

It is understood that in this wave of re-innovation of industrial robots, a number of processes have been upgraded or improved around the production and packaging of electric vehicle battery packs alone, and the production automation rate has been greatly improved. This not only helps to liberate the traditional labor force, but also improves the safety and durability of the battery pack.

Taking 3M as an example, in May this year, 3M's tape custom automatic bonding system and robot automatic paint repair system were launched in Shanghai, aiming to promote the automation upgrade in the industrial field.

Among them, the tape custom automatic bonding system is developed for the mass factory demand of China's electric vehicle market, which not only helps to improve the bonding strength between automotive parts, but also helps enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

3M global senior vice president and President of China Ding Hongyu said that currently 3M is fully promoting the digital upgrade of the factory, and accelerate the design and research and development of matching materials and components, enabling Chinese local consumers and customers at the same time, but also for the development of China's digital economy to contribute new ideas and new solutions.

He said that 3M has witnessed and deeply participated in the Chinese auto industry, especially the take-off of the electric vehicle industry in recent years. Relying on the technology of Shanghai 3M Institute of Automotive Materials Science (AMSA) and a strong team of engineers, 3M is working closely with auto manufacturers and parts suppliers to improve the safety and performance of electric vehicle batteries from thermal management, assembly, insulation and other dimensions, while reducing the "carbon footprint" of power batteries throughout the life cycle. To help the green and low-carbon development of China's automobile industry.

Intelligent "wings" for production and service

According to reports, the module line station of the battery workshop in the Wuhan factory also integrates the technology of "robot, 3D point cloud vision and force control perception" for the first time, and the installation accuracy can reach 0.2mm, effectively avoiding the potential safety risks caused by bumps during the assembly of the module and ensuring zero damage during the assembly of the battery.

At present, in the battery production workshop of Aotenergy Wuhan factory, the battery module tightening station uses a six-axis automatic one-time tightening assembly technology, which increases the efficiency by 50% compared with similar processes, and the key parameters of the tightening process torque and Angle can be 100% monitored and traced, and the process accuracy and quality are leading the industry.

In addition, the gluing, closing and tightening processes of the battery packs in Aotereng's Wuhan factory are all automatically completed by robots based on digital twin technology. When designing the adhesive assembly scheme, the system conducted hundreds of virtual simulation tests for process parameters such as trajectory, speed and glue output, and derived the optimal parameters combined with big data algorithms. The optimal program after multiple runs was output to the field equipment during production.

In addition, in order to ensure the product quality of the battery pack, Otterenergy Wuhan factory also adopts the vision technology of deep learning algorithm, and the measurement accuracy of the installation process is less than 0.1 mm, making the sealing performance of the battery pack excellent, reaching the IP67 dust and water proofing and IP6K9K high pressure water spray protection level.

According to the website of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, in recent years, the development of domestic new energy vehicles has made rapid progress, and the market demand for new energy vehicle parts is also expanding year by year, promoting the new energy vehicle steering screw, brake screw and other parts market continues to expand.

To this end, some enterprises focus on improving machine tools, optimizing processes, and related industrial automation processing equipment and technical services are also constantly innovating. Some machine tool enterprise groups, under the background of new energy vehicle enterprises "going to sea" to speed up, focus on serving the sales and application fields of overseas new energy vehicles, and promote Chinese-style solutions to the global market.