Song Xiaogang, executive vice president of the China Machinery Industry Federation and executive director of the China Robotics Industry Alliance, stressed that the application of industrial robots is an important way for Chinese manufacturing enterprises to transform and upgrade.

The application of industrial robots is an important way for Chinese manufacturing enterprises to transform and upgrade. After years of development, China has become a recognised manufacturing powerhouse in the world. At present, compared with the United States, Europe and other developed China's industrial robot development, the development of China's industrial robot industry is still in between the industrial formation period and the industrial development period. With market demand, breakthroughs in technology and R&D have been made in the three core components of China's robotics construction sector, namely controllers, digital motors and reducers, enabling small-scale production and market applications. However, there are still gaps in the overall technology and level of the robotics industry.

In the next 20 years, with the deep integration of information technology, artificial intelligence and welding robotics, robots will have the ability to think and learn more deeply. Robots will become increasingly intelligent and will develop in a direction that is inclusive, self-learning, flexible and adaptable to complex environments, especially in the industrial sector where the level of human-robot interaction is high. Still in the service sector, the use of welding robots will become even more widespread. It is expected that by 2025, global robotics is expected to form a large market with a trillion dollar value. Therefore, China must increase and accelerate its robotics research and development in an effort to become a top-ranked manufacturing industry.

Welding is an essential processing method in modern mechanical engineering and plays an important role in industries such as automotive manufacturing, construction machinery and motorbikes. In the past, the use of manual welding was a daunting task. With the increasing accuracy and speed required to weld many welded structural parts, it is difficult for the average worker to complete the job. In addition, the arc, sparks and fumes from the welding process can cause harm to humans. The complexity of the welding manufacturing process, the labour intensity, the quality of the product and the size of the batch make it urgent to automate and mechanise the welding process and to automate robotic welding. It is not manually operated welding, but is the ideal and sought-after goal of generations of welders.

The mass production, efficiency and consistency of product quality in the automotive manufacturing industry has led to the widespread use of welding robots for automotive welding. The proportion of automated robotic welding in automotive manufacturing also exceeds that of other industries such as construction, shipbuilding and steel construction, reflecting the automated, flexible and integrated manufacturing characteristics of automotive welding production. Welding robots are a revolutionary advance in welding automation. It is a breakthrough from the traditional rigid automated welding methods and a flexible approach to automated production. Rigid automated production equipment is usually specialised and is only suitable for medium and large automated production. As a result, manual welding is still the main welding method in the long-term production of small and medium-lot products. The emergence of welding robots makes it possible to automate the production of small-lot products. Thanks to the robot's teaching reproduction function, the welding task can be completed by a single person teaching the robot only once, and the robot can then reproduce each step of the teaching exactly. If the robot is required to perform another job without replacing any hardware, the robot only needs to be taught or programmed again. As a result, different products can be produced automatically and simultaneously in a welding robot line.