Core components fully benefit, and domestic substitution is magnificent

3.1. Motor: the core driving mechanism

P111-6052   The motor is the power generating mechanism in humanoid robots, which can be likened to human muscles. Robot drive can be divided into electric drive, hydraulic drive, pneumatic drive, among which, electric drive because of high efficiency, high precision, low cost advantages, can be widely used.

The most used humanoid robots are hollow cup motors and torque motors. Motor according to the control mode classification, can be divided into servo motor, stepper motor. Motor according to the drive mode classification, can be divided into DC motor and AC motor. Dc motor, according to the type of coil classification, can be divided into iron core motor and hollow cup motor; According to the classification of commutation mode, it can be divided into brush motor and brushless motor. The Tesla Optimus robot includes 28 frameless torque motors and 12 hollow cup motors, accounting for up to 28% of the total value of the motor.

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3.1.1, hollow cup motor: highly adaptable to dexterous hands

The hollow cup motor is a kind of micro servo motor, which is highly adapted to the dexterous hand joint. It can use permanent magnet iron to generate a magnetic field, so as to achieve DC power supply. The difference with the traditional motor is that the hollow cup motor uses a coreless rotor. The structure of the rotor without iron core makes the hollow cup motor have the following advantages: (1) the weight is greatly reduced, thus reducing the moment of inertia of the motor; (2) Eliminate the power loss caused by eddy currents formed by the iron core; (3) Reduce the mechanical energy loss of the rotor itself.

P111-6052   The current global market size of hollow cup motor is about 5 billion yuan. According to GII data, the global hollow cup motor market size in 2022 is 748 million US dollars, and is expected to reach 1.186 billion US dollars in 2028, with a CAGR of 7.98% in 2022-2028. Among them, according to GII data, the proportion of brushed hollow cup motors in 2021 is 67%, and the proportion of brushless hollow cup motors is 33%.

Foreign enterprises occupy most of the share, and domestic substitution space is broad. According to QY Research data, in terms of market size, the global hollow cup motor CR5 will be 67% in 2022. The top five companies include Faulhaber, Portescap, Allied Motion Technologies, Maxon Motor and Nidec Copal Corporation.

The barriers of hollow cup motors are mainly reflected in patents, winding machines, and forward design capabilities. The difficulty in the production of hollow cups is that the coil has no iron core support, and the winding process is more complex: (1) Maxon Motor, FAULHABER Group and other leading enterprises have applied for a series of patents due to the first-mover advantage, and built a certain patent barrier; (2) The hollow cup motor has high requirements for the performance and efficiency of the winding machine. In addition, the head enterprise has a strong positive design ability, and can design reliable and stable products with performance meeting customer requirements according to customer needs.