In recent years, the drone market has gone from being hot to calm. The “black fly” has been explicitly banned and the recent introduction of drone management measures has made the drone market increasingly standard. However, judging from the influx of drones entering the market by Jingdong Logistics, Cainiao Alliance, Shunfeng and other logistics companies, drones will inevitably encounter “traffic jams” in the sky. Compared with the noisy scene in the sky, the underwater is very mysterious and calm. However, there are currently players who have noticed the hidden opportunities hidden in the underwater world. They are currently engaged in an underwater robot competition.
Initially, underwater robots were used in military and scientific research fields. In recent years, underwater robots have begun to emerge in consumer-level markets such as fishery environmental testing, diving and entertainment, but compared to drones that are relatively mature in technology and products and have been accepted by the consumer market, underwater robots are The product form has yet to be developed and the price of the product is also relatively expensive. From the perspective of market structure, there are not many players in the domestic market of underwater robots, and there are not even ten relatively good ones. Even giants do not dominate, and the market is still in its infancy.
According to the announcement released by the market research company IDC, the global market for robots and drones will reach 103.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, an increase of 22.1% over 2017. It can be said that the robot market will be extremely popular this year, and the underwater robots will be used as robots. There will be more opportunities for new industry application scenarios. But where exactly are the Nuggets of underwater robots and how do they get a share of the $103 billion market?
One or three big problems set up high-tech thresholds
Underwater robots are divided into manned underwater robots and unmanned underwater robots. In the consumer market, they are mainly small, unmanned underwater robots. The reason why it is called an underwater robot is to deal with water naturally. Unlike robots used for activities on land, underwater robots face different water environments, so developers of underwater robots will face technical challenges.
The first thing is the tightness of the equipment. After all, there are many electronic components such as circuits and motors inside the underwater robot. In order to solve the problem of waterproofing of equipment, there are roughly two approaches in the industry. One is to strengthen the tightness of the equipment housing; the other is to provide sealed chambers internally to protect internal components.
The second is the equipment's ability to balance underwater. There is a basic law in physics - the Archimedean principle: objects immersed in liquids or gases are subjected to upward buoyancy, and buoyancy forces are equal to the gravity of liquids that are discharged by the object. The buoyancy is an important problem that the underwater robot needs to solve. However, this not only requires the developer to carry out accurate calculations, but also requires a relatively fine gravity layout of the equipment. Even every line in the equipment must be carefully considered, and You have to go through dozens of tests.
Of course, in addition to technical difficulties, underwater robots are, after all, replacing humans for testing, and therefore have higher requirements for communications equipment, cameras, thrusters and other equipment. After all, the most basic job of an underwater robot is to replace people diving into the water and photograph underwater situations through the camera. In the process, the coordination of lights is also needed. Then the data will be transmitted back to the associated equipment on land through wireless devices.
Second, players continue to enter the game, but the giants are not present
Since the launch of the first unmanned underwater vehicle in 1953, underwater robots have been active in the military field or in research laboratories. The United States is the first country in the world to develop underwater robots and has the most advanced technology.
A team from Stanford University developed an underwater humanoid robot called OceanOne. It has a computing unit, battery, and thruster on the back. It can swim like a real person, is 5 feet tall, and uses artificial intelligence and haptic feedback systems. , can convey to the terminal device the robot holding something.
The arrival of domestic underwater robots into the consumer market is still in 2015. The arrival of a new round of global ocean development boom has caused the demand for underwater robots to rise rapidly. As a result, some R&D and underwater robot companies have emerged in the country and many forms have emerged one after another. Different products.
At the beginning of this month, a consumer-grade submarine named Gladius was designed with a torpedo as its prototype. It features underwater shooting, monitoring and exploration. Gladius was developed by the underwater robot start-up company founded in 2016 and its core team is a group of diving enthusiasts from the Huawei/LG/China Shipbuilding Industry Research Institute.
Deep Blue is also a player in the field of underwater robots. In May last year, they launched the “White Shark MIX”, a personal consumer smart underwater sport product. This is an underwater escort product that can be used in swimming pools, water worlds, bathing beaches, or diving and entertainment scenes to help the people in the water balance and easily swim.
At CES2018, Judy displayed a new underwater Doppler device “PowerDolphin”. The camera of this product can be turned upside down. The searchlight can illuminate the position pointed by the camera. Support 4K resolution 30fps video recording, the user can control within 1000m, but also through the mobile terminal or a special remote control rod operation. In terms of use, this product can search for underwater fish, but also create underwater maps, and shoot high-resolution images and videos on water and underwater, which can provide information for mapping under the sea.
The new underwater robot Poseidon I developed by Jiying Technology looks like a large handheld game machine. It is the size of a basketball. It is internally connected to the controller in the hands of the operator through a camera and can display live video on the Integrated screen. It has a maximum dive depth of 120 meters. It carries a full HD camera and has a battery life of up to 5 hours. It can be remotely controlled via wireless remote control and can upload pictures in real time. It can be operated flexibly through the self-developed APP or connected to a VR device using a remote control handle.
At present, Poseidon I has also been used in mariculture. According to an mariculture user in Shenzhen, 260 mu of water can be used to check all cages within two hours using underwater robots. On the other hand, efficiency is improved. On the other hand, it also avoids the cost loss caused by large-scale diseases.
However, the new technology of underwater robots also has a high threshold, and each positioning is different, and no giants have emerged yet. Tianjin Deep Blue, Tianjin Haizhixing and Qingdao Luobofei Marine Technology mainly focus on larger 2B business scenarios, while fin source technology and chart chart intelligence mainly target 2C consumer end.
In order to understand the status quo of the underwater robot industry, Zhizhi specifically contacted Yang Yang, the sneak tech CMO, to view the future development of the underwater robot industry from the perspective of the insiders of the industry chain. According to Yang Yang, although most of the current players’ products are mainly used for photography, photographing, or transmitting data, this is only a preliminary exploration of technology, and people in the industry are more optimistic about adding more functions to underwater robots. Just like OceanOne at Stanford University, let robots truly replace humans in underwater operations to improve the safety and efficiency of underwater work.
However, the current underwater robot industry is also facing serious problems. The most prominent is that the domestic manufacturers have too weak manufacturing capacity, which means that although China’s underwater robot industry has large demand, its core technology is subject to foreign Production is harder. However, if domestic users use foreign underwater robot products, they must not only face expensive prices, but once the robots have problems, they can only send the machines overseas, and the maintenance time is long and the cost is very high.
Third, the four major application scenarios hidden opportunities
The sea area under China's jurisdiction can reach 3 million square kilometers, equivalent to one-third of China's land area. It can be said that China uses a considerable amount of marine resources. In addition, the coastline of China is as long as 18,000 kilometers. The coastline covers 10 provinces including Taiwan, Shanghai, Tianjin and two municipalities directly under the Central Government, as well as Hong Kong and Macao, providing a vast space for the development of the underwater robot industry.
At present, the market of the underwater robot is in its initial stage. We can see that there are four major application scenarios taking the lead and hidden great opportunities.
- Aquaculture
According to the 2017 China Fishery Statistics Yearbook published by China Agricultural Publishing House, the total area of aquaculture in the country was 8,34,364 hectares in 2017, and the total output was 66,995,500 tons. From these figures we can see that China’s fishery is also very large. However, at present, aquaculture in China still faces many serious problems. For example, abundance of offshore ranches such as abalone, sea cucumbers, scallops, sea snails, and sea urchins require manpower from sowing to harvesting, and all use primitive tools.
For farmers, not only labor intensity, low production efficiency, high acquisition costs but also high security risks. This series of outstanding problems has caused huge obstacles to the industrialization of marine ranching. The rise and development of underwater robots can help fishermen to solve these problems easily.
- Underwater hull cleaning
In addition to its application in fisheries, underwater robots can also be used for hull cleaning detection. The sneak tech CMO Yang Yang tells Chi things, and one of their South Korean customers used Gladius to conduct bottom-oil and plankton detection, which allowed for accurate positioning and significant savings. Manpower, time and costs.
- City pipeline cleaning
There is also a huge market opportunity in the field of pipeline cleaning. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China's urbanization has been going on for more than 30 years. Due to the uneven distribution of China's population, the population density of some larger cities is very large. At the same time, urban pipelines are also facing problems such as congestion and disrepair, and the city’s drainage capacity has been severely reduced.
In recent years, intrinsic phenomena in cities like Xi'an and Tianjin are the best examples. If underwater robots are used for pipeline inspection, the pipelines that need to be repaired can be accurately positioned, which avoids the large-scale digging of the ground and the way of reinstallation, which saves a lot of manpower and time and ensures the normal operation of urban traffic.
- Personal entertainment consumption
At the entertainment consumer end, underwater robots also have a very wide market. With the rise of diving sports, China has 150 million people with a certificate of dive. More and more people are interested in deepwater sports, which also brings opportunities for the C-end market. For example, aquariums, amusement parks, science and technology museums and other entertainment venues need underwater robots to monitor the water environment and provide real-time information feedback to prevent the occurrence of drowning and casualties. In the area of personal consumption, small underwater robots can also be used for underwater shooting, which is easy to carry.
Although current consumer-grade underwater robots tend to be miniaturized and have relatively simple functions, in the future, with the development of technology, underwater robots will be added with more human-like functions, like serving robots, to replace humans in water. Under the work, such as underwater search and rescue work, marine environment cleanup, auxiliary aquaculture and so on.
Conclusion: The underwater robot industry will become a new blue ocean
On the whole, domestic commercial underwater robots are just starting to develop in technology and market environment. Although the market size is not large, there are huge market opportunities in the four application fields of aquaculture, water pollution detection, education industry, and municipal pipeline inspection.
At the same time, the capital market is gradually moving closer to underwater robots. At the beginning of this year, it was reported that Guiying Technology obtained a round of RMB 15 million pre-A rounds of financing, and in the past year, it had also obtained high financing for sneaking into science and technology and Biya Road. The attention of capital will definitely bring more opportunities for the growth of underwater robot players and the iteration of products. On the other hand, with the government's strengthening of marine development, it is believed that the policy will also provide more support to players in the underwater robot industry.
It is believed that after going through the development of 2016 and 2017, the underwater robot will become another blue ocean in the field of robots after the drone.