No matter how you compare from various robot solutions, global robot precision speed reducers are basically monopolized by Japan. In recent years, although there are other RV reducers, rarely used by robot companies like us.
As a traditional manufacturing powerhouse, reducer products in Germany, Italy, Japan are leading the industry in terms of materials, design level, quality control, accuracy, power density, reliability and service life.
In the field of mechanical transmission, reducer is an intermediate device that connects the power source and actuator. Usually, it uses the high-speed power of the motor and internal combustion engine to engage the large gear on the output shaft through small gear on the input shaft to reduce speed And transfer more torque.
Driven by the development of aerospace, robotics, and medical equipment, the demand for high-performance precision reducers with simple and compact structures, large transmission power, low noise, and smooth transmission has increased. Among them, RV reducers and harmonic reducers are two most important precision reducers.
Precision speed reducer is a kind of power transmission mechanism. It uses the speed converter of gear to reduce the number of revolutions of the motor to required one and obtain a large torque.
Speed Reducer Market Share
At present, there are not many global manufacturers of precision reducers that can provide large-scale and reliable performance, and most of the market share is occupied by Japanese companies:
Nabtesco’s RV reducer accounts for about 60%, Harmonica’s harmonic reducer accounts for about 15%, and Sumitomo Heavy Industries (SUMITOMO, no ratio found). Especially the proportion of applications in the field of robotics is overwhelming.
Nabtesco (Nabotsk) is a combination of two Japanese companies, Teijin Seiki and Nabok (Japanese first automatic door produced in 1956). As manufacturers of motion control systems and components, both companies have mastered high-end core technologies and controlled a large market share in their specific business areas.
As the world’s largest manufacturer of precision cycloidal pinwheel reducers, Nabtesco produces high-performance reducers, hollow shaft reducers, and single-axis servo actuators and controllers
Their precision equipment has high torque, high rigidity, and high resistance to overload and shock loads. It also has high precision and very low backlash. Thus widely used in high end applications.
Japan Harmonic Drive Systems Inc. (HDSI for short) is a leader in overall motion control. Their combined harmonic reducer has the characteristics of light weight, small size, no gear backlash, high torque capacity, and is widely used Industrial robots, humanoid robots, semiconductor liquid crystal production equipment, photovoltaic equipment, optical instruments, precision machine tools and other cutting-edge fields.
In order to cover the field of low reduction ratios that cannot be achieved by harmonic reducers, HDSI products also involve Harmonic Planetary, a precision planetary gear box harmonic reducer. The unique deformation process of the internal ring gear can make the planet gears mesh tighter with it, eliminate backlash, and have reached the precision level of transmission error.
Harmonic transmission reducer is a gear transmission system that uses wave generators to control the elastic deformation of flexible gears and meshes with rigid gears to transmit motion and power from the beginning.
Sumitomo is a construction machinery manufacturer under the Sumitomo Group, one of the world’s top 500 companies with a history of more than 400 years. Sumitomo products have developed the first hydraulic excavator with its own technology in 1967. At present, Sumitomo is active everywhere in the world. Silhouette of hydraulic excavator
Sumitomo reducers are various types, such as Sumitomo Large Helical Gear Reducers, Sumitomo Planetary Gear Reducers, Sumitomo Helical Gear Reducers, Sumitomo Worm Gear Reducers, etc. The reduction ratio is large and efficiency is high. The pin-tooth engagement is sleeve-type rolling friction. There is no relative sliding on the engagement surface.
As a pinnacle of precision machinery industry, the technical threshold of reducer is very high. The RV reducer is completely composed of high-precision components and gears. The precision detection technology puts forward extremely high requirements.
Most companies use R & D to obtain data through reverse engineering. Therefore, although some enterprises have made major breakthroughs in technical level, most reducers have difficulties in maintaining accuracy, precision life and product life. The difficulties lead to poor consistency and low reproducibility.
On the other hand, the equipment for processing and manufacturing reducer parts is very expensive. For example, Meghler surface grinders, the unit price is multi million investment. Without adequate production support, equipment amortization costs are prohibitively high.
The cost of such precision reducer is higher than that of main players, but the performance is worse than that of rivals. Of course, the sales volume is not good. With no profit and not enough resources for technological improvement, exploration and research and development, there is no way of form quality control or improve technology and performance.
There are two main types of reducers currently used in robot industry, one is RV reducer, and the other is harmonic reducer. In articulated robots, because of the higher rigidity and slewing accuracy of RV reducer, RV reducer is generally placed at a heavy load motion such as the machine base, the boom, the shoulder, and harmonic reducer is placed on the forearm , Wrist or hand.
For high-precision robot reducers, Japan has is absolute leading. Currently, 75% of precision reducers in the global robot industry are monopolized by Japanese Nabtesco and HarmonicDrive (commonly known as RV reducers and harmonic reducers in the industry), including ABB, FANUC, and KUKA and other major international robot manufacturers are provided by the above two companies.
According to industry insiders, ABB, FANUC, Yaskawa, KUKA and other international mainstream robot manufacturers are all powered by above two Japanese companies for reducer solutions, and have very harsh conditions of cooperation with the two companies, that is, using products of the two companies can no longer use products of other companies, otherwise the cooperation relationship will be terminated.
