The servo drive system, usually composed of servo motors and servo drives, will use the torque and force generated by various motors to directly or indirectly drive the machine body to obtain various movements of the machine. In addition to speed and torque control, the servo system can also provide precise, fast and stable position control.

Common servo motors

Because it is especially suitable for applications that require smooth operation, low noise, fast response, long service life and high output torque, servo motors are widely used in injection molding machines, CNC lathes, military equipment, packaging machinery, textile machinery, ATM machines, inkjet printers, cutting plotters, photo machines, spraying equipment, medical instruments and equipment, computer peripherals and mass storage equipment, precision instruments, industrial control systems, office automation, robots and other fields.

In the field of robotics, servo motors play an important role. Generally speaking, the servo motor of the robot is used to convert the motion instructions issued by the robot's brain into motion actions.

Status: 80% of the market share is occupied by foreign famous enterprises

At present, the domestic high-end market is mainly occupied by foreign famous enterprises, accounting for nearly 80% of the market share, and mainly from Japan, Europe and the United States. Among them, Japanese products account for about 50% of the market share, and its famous brands include Panasonic, Mitsubishi Electric, Yaskawa, Sanyo, Fuji, etc.

Approximate distribution of domestic servo market share

At present, most of the foreign brands that appear in the domestic market are Japanese, European, American and Taiwanese.

Japanese servo motor brands - Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Yaskawa

Panasonic motors

The sales volume of Panasonic servo motors in the Chinese market is very high, and the price is generally about 1000 higher than that of domestic servo motors, but the price is quite cheap in imported foreign servo motor brands, and some series are even lower than Taiwanese servo motors, and the quality is better in the short term. Mitsubishi Electric

Mitsubishi Electric is mainly divided into two series, one of which is lower in price and relatively cost-effective; The other is of solid quality, but Mitsubishi Electric is generally more expensive.

Yaskawa Electric

Yaskawa servo motor, also known as YASKAWA Yaskawa servo motor, originated in Japan, also has factories in Shenyang, Shanghai, China, is an automatic control system that makes the position, orientation, state and other output controlled quantities of objects, and can follow the arbitrary changes of the input target value.

Why do Japanese brands account for 50% of the market? The main reason is that the technology and performance level of Japanese servo motors are more in line with the needs of Chinese users, and the cost performance is higher, so there are a number of stable and continuous customer sources, so they have a monopoly advantage in the small and medium-sized OEM market.

European and American servo motor brands - Rockwell, Siemens, SEW

Rockwell

Rockwell is an American electric motor brand with advantages such as accelerated system design, higher performance, better ability to predict and prevent downtime, and faster response to changes in manufacturing processes.

Siemens

Siemens is a common German electrical appliance brand in China, and Siemens servo motors are famous.

SEW

SEW is a British motor brand, which is relatively rare in China compared to other foreign motor brands, and its share is slightly lower, but its excellent quality and stable working state are far more than domestic brands, but the price difference is very large.

The market share occupied by the big brands is relatively balanced

Future: From 25% growth, China has potential

If you make a simple inventory of the development stage of servo motors in China, there will probably be three stages: the embryonic stage, the preliminary development stage and the domestic substitution stage.

The embryonic stage refers to the period from 1995 to 2005, when the research strength of servo system is mainly concentrated in universities and scientific research institutes, with military industry and aerospace satellites as the application direction, and the products stay in the research and trial production stage. From 2005 to 2010, it belongs to the initial stage of development, at this time, talents are constantly enriched, domestic brands are constantly born, product performance market recognition is constantly improved, and it is gradually applied in the field of civilian products.

Since 2010, many manufacturers have increased the launch of the second generation of servo products, which have greatly improved performance and increased market recognition. At present, import substitution in machine tools, manipulators and other automation equipment is accelerating. Some experts believe that in the next five years, China's servo system industry will benefit from the impact of industrial upgrading, will maintain rapid growth, and there is still a lot of room for domestic substitution.

There are three stages of servo motor development in China

From the development stage, it can also be seen that the reasons for the backwardness of the domestic servo motor brand: first, the domestic servo motor industry basic research is less, the awareness of intellectual property rights of production enterprises is insufficient, the application is less, and most of the applicants are colleges and universities, and the proportion of research and development technology into production is low, which seriously affects its industrialization progress. Second, the domestic servo motor manufacturers started late, the technical reserves are insufficient, the innovation ability is weak, and the research and development investment is less, resulting in slow product technology progress, low localization level, and poor competitiveness.

Third, the domestic servo motor manufacturers take low prices as the main competitive strategy, sacrificing product profits, insufficient investment in high value-added products, and slow progress in product technology improvement and new product launches.

At the same time, the domestic servo motor policy support is less, and the downstream application is insufficient. The high precision requirements of servo motors, the technical difficulty of themselves and other reasons have also caused the domestic servo motor brand market share to be small.

In summary, there is no profit driven, and industry insiders believe that the cost performance of research is not high.

Of course, up to now, there are also a number of domestic servo motor brands that have achieved breakthroughs.

AC servo system market size

Taiwanese servo motor brands - TECO, Delta

TECO Electric

TECO manufactures products that meet the standards of countries around the world, and has a strong ability to produce low, medium, high, and 14,500 V ultra-high voltage motors with power ranging from 1/4 HP to 100,000 HP, including NEMA motors, explosion-proof motors, IE3 motors, and IE4 motors.

Delta Motor

Delta is a best-selling brand of Taiwanese servo motors, because of its stable quality and low price compared with Europe, the United States and Japan, it has become the best choice for batch use of servo motors with a very cost-effective price.

Domestic servo motor brands - Huazhong CNC, Guangzhou CNC

In recent years, the development of domestic brand servo system is very rapid, has won a certain market recognition, more representative enterprises mainly include Huazhong CNC, Guangzhou CNC, etc. There are also some large enterprises that have entered the servo system industry, such as INVT, Inovance, Andy, etc.

There is still a big gap between the domestic servo system and foreign products in terms of technology and performance, and the quality stability of the product is not enough. However, the price is low and the after-sales service is good, so it can also occupy a certain market.