Three directions of industrial automation Entrepreneurship

At present, 4 industry trend, the emergence of a global automation startups are numerous, but they tend to achieve technological innovation is a niche product and system integrators are subject to the disguised "kidnapping" and other similar problems; at the same time, want to bet on the track "automation" for investors, how to accurately determine the automatic start-up project and confused.

To this end, titanium media in Silicon Valley reporter interviewed an investor in Oculus, the Formation 8 tier fund partner Shen Han, ask him for readers in-depth interpretation of business trends, problems and solutions in the field of industrial automation.

"Object grabbing" becomes the bottleneck of industrial automation

At present, the world is about to usher in the 4 era of industry, as one of the main signs of industrial automation has become the most popular entrepreneurial orientation. According to Shen Han introduction, the global scope, the field of industrial automation, there are three major categories of innovation.

First of all, for the new manufacturing and logistics applications to provide an overall solution to the scene, adding artificial intelligence, data analysis and other new technologies to upgrade. This field is mainly gathered in ABB, Kuka, FANUC, Kiva (Amazon acquired) and many other large automation field. Shen Han said,

But for start-up companies in Europe and America, this area to start a large demand for funds, and long sales cycle, the core technical barriers are often limited, it is easy to fall into the price of competition and price. For a large number of small and medium business customers, the full automation program, although attractive, but the need for large capital, so the purchasing power is also very limited."

Second, visual recognition technology. Another essential factor for industrial automation is to "put the eye on the robot"". In the past, the industrial automation scene robot only needed to deal with the object of the preset size. But with the development of manufacturing and logistics industry, the location, orientation, type, shape and size of the object are also becoming more and more diverse. At present, this direction is also facing some challenges and opportunities, mainly reflected in whether it can provide customers with the recognition accuracy and precision of the standard, and the satisfaction of cost-effective.

One

Again, object grasping technology. Grab objects, the traditional method is by vacuum suction or mechanical claw to grab objects, such as vacuum suction car windshield glass, but there are still a large number of objects not by traditional methods such as grab, cloth, fruit, flexible electronic devices etc..

"Fabric encountered vacuum suction cup will be breathable, deformation, and the flexible PCB is very easy to damage the vacuum suction cup, can not grab the traditional method. At the same time, the existing object capture technology in order to achieve high precision for visual recognition is relatively high, and has not yet seen a cost-effective visual recognition program." Shen Han admitted to titanium media.

How to look at industrial automation business projects?

For betting "automation" track of investors, in addition to the three main areas of innovation form, another upset that their problem is how to look at the field of industrial automation business projects? In this regard, the field of industrial automation successfully cast Silicon Valley Nova Grabit Shen Han also gives his own advice.

First, the product must be standardized, universal. Automation in the field of entrepreneurial projects have a lot from the founder of scientific research in the laboratory, but from the laboratory technology to the commercialization of products, there is a huge gap between. "Some application scenarios of automation technology at first glance is very wide, but the specific implementation for A customers change here, for the customer to change B there. If not selected for each subdivision scene launch customized products, so there may be a customized version of only a year to sell 5-10 sets the situation, research and development should continue to burn, sales growth will inevitably slow. So do automation business project, product standardization, universality is very critical." Shen Hanru said.

Second, product compatibility is good, to be able to do with the plug and play. In order to reduce the entry threshold, to achieve large-scale, a good automation products to the greatest extent compatible with the customer has been the use of production or logistics processes, to achieve the minimum disruption and destruction". Just think, if a business has spent a huge sum of money to start the automation process, it is difficult to make an effective improvement of the new technology for a link and the demolition of the re.

Third, the control of their own destiny, rather than just subject to the control of the system integrator. "At present a lot of automation products due to not very good standardization and compatibility, often need to rely on system integrators for sale, so disguised as sell parts of the. As VC, I can't put this project, "Shen Han said," a realization of standardization, good compatibility, can plug automation products used should have the ability to get rid of the system integrator can limit, also can go direct channels, and to maintain cooperation but not on the state and in various industry giants."

Silicon Valley case: Grabit, grab everything can not grab the item

To achieve industrial automation, the object grab is a ring around the past, for the robot, if you can only see but can not catch, then it is smart but still a waste.

In the traditional solutions, often through vacuum suction and mechanical hand to grasp the object, but there is still a lot of things can not crawl, such as easily deformed or perishable fruits, cloth, electronic devices, which also makes the grasping object has become a major bottleneck for industrial automation.

Recently, the reporter learned that this bottleneck