Analysis of the core components of industrial robots - bearings

In 2023, the robotics industry ushered in a rapid development stage, in fact, China has been focusing on improving the overall development of the robotics industry for a long time, and has introduced a series of policies that favor the development of the robotics industry.

In the field of robotics, China has become the backbone to support the development of the world's robotics industry, especially in 2020 for the first time exceeded the 100 billion yuan mark as a landmark event, and, China's industrial robotics market for eight consecutive years ranked first in the world.

Tesla can reuse the bearing supply chain of its new energy vehicles to accelerate the cost reduction of robots.

Tesla's robots use four different bearings according to the force characteristics of different positions, of which deep groove ball bearings, four-point contact bearings, and angular contact bearings have low technical barriers and there are mature domestic suppliers. Crossed roller bearings are difficult to manufacture, the main global suppliers are concentrated in Japan and Germany, the domestic Renben stock has the ability to supply in small quantities, and SINOMACH Precision has technical reserves and products.

Bearing processing on the grinding machine demand, high requirements. Overseas high-precision grinding machine delivery time of up to 18 months, the domestic Yuhuan CNC, Qinchuan machine tools, and Rifa Precision Machine have the strength of domestic substitution for the domestic bearing plant to expand production.

Core components of industrial robots' precision reducer

A precision reducer is an intermediate device connecting the power source and the actuator, and its role is to reduce the high speed of the servo motor, amplify the original torque of the servo motor through the gear ratio, and provide high rigidity to maintain high-precision positioning.

The precision reducer downstream market bloomed, in addition to industrial robots can also be applied to semiconductor equipment, CNC machine tools, medical equipment, and other equipment requiring high precision gears, accelerating the intelligent transformation of various industries.

With the three core advantages of the robot supply chain shifting to China, international giants encountering bottlenecks in their development, and the breakthrough in mass production of domestic speed reducers, the domestic substitution of speed reducers has strong certainty.

Precision gearboxes are core components of robots

Bearing applications for gearboxes

The main bearing carries almost all of the external load of the RV gearbox, so it needs to have high load-carrying capacity, high rigidity, and smooth running.

Sumitomo Precision RV gearboxes use thin-walled tapered roller bearings as main bearings.

The difficulties in machining the main bearing material are ovalization of the rings after heat treatment, plane warpage of the rings after fine grinding, and very difficult control of contact angle measurement and deviation.

The first two can be improved through process optimization and the use of processing equipment with a high process capability index, while the latter requires optimization of the bearing collar matching during product design and process development, in order to achieve 100% conformity of the contact angle deviation during processing.

Cycloid wheel support bearings: bear the role of cycloid wheel circumferential motion, mostly using an M-shaped metal cage and cylindrical roller components.

Bearing in the actual application of the process the most prominent problem is to keep the frame shedding metal chips and bearing fluctuation caused by the pendulum wheel jamming, the main reason for the car, pressure film after improper treatment and keeping the frame square bib hole is processed into a rhombus caused by the axial force.

Eccentric shaft support bearings and sun wheel support bearings: Due to the complexity of the stress on the eccentric shaft, both ends need to be supported by support bearings.

The sun wheel bearing is mounted in the rigid disc of the planetary carrier of the RV gearbox, which mainly serves to accurately position the sun wheel of the gearbox. The radial clearance of the sun wheel bearing must be strictly controlled during application.

Bearing steel: China's bearing steel oxygen content can be controlled to close to the world's advanced level, but inclusions in the composition, quantity, size, and distribution can not be stable control, which will directly lead to low fatigue performance of steel, and short service time.

In addition, China's bearing steel varieties and specifications are not perfect, and the production of more than low-grade bearing steel, steel quality, stability, and appearance is poor, not up to a high level of specialized production, cost reduction effect is not obvious.

There is no shortcut to technology, the whole industry chain of players need to adhere to the difficult and correct road of independent research and development, in order to help the domestic RV reducer early breakthrough in high-end.

Although the products of overseas bearing manufacturers are significantly better than the domestic performance because an RV reducer needs to be equipped with 9-15 sets of bearings if all the overseas products are used, the cost is large, and even there will be more than enough to make ends meet, so most of the domestic RV reducer manufacturers choose domestic bearing suppliers.

In the choice of material suppliers, unlike harmonic reducer manufacturers outsourcing overseas flexure materials, RV reducer manufacturers are limited by the number of parts and components brought about by the cost of the problem and also tend to choose domestic material suppliers.

But the choice of domestic bearings, and domestic raw materials will inevitably bring product consistency, stability is poor.

At present, the domestic RV reducer in the low-end field can still be applied, but want to break through in the high-end market also need domestic bearings, materials manufacturers, and RV reducer manufacturers in the product performance, and functionality to enhance further R & D accumulation!

From "China Bearing Industry Association", if any infringement contact to delete!