In the aging of the population, labor costs are rising today, the manufacturing industry has to accelerate the promotion of intelligent, digital upgrading. In this process, robots play an important role, industrial robots have become the "soul of industry".

However, industrial robots have limitations.

According to the International Association of Robotics data, today's global industry, but to solve the 3% -4% of the rules, the rigidity of the automated production of goods handling problems, there are still nearly 96% of the flexible shaped, fragile items rely on manual labor.

This requires soft robots to play a role. As manufacturing continues to move in the direction of high precision, the demand for flexible robots will continue to climb.

Data show that today the global soft robot market size has reached 8.7 trillion U.S. dollars, equivalent to 56 trillion yuan, the development of space is quite broad.

And, the soft robot market is still a blue ocean, not like industrial robots to form an unshakeable market pattern.

In the industrial robotics market, the formation of Switzerland ABB, Germany Kuka, Japan Fanuc and Yasukawa Electric this "big four" oligopoly situation, other robotics manufacturers want to break out very difficult. This is obviously in his country's manufacturing security is not favorable.

And in the soft robot market, most companies are in the same starting line, the future has the possibility of leading.

Therefore, the soft robot this 56 trillion blue ocean, become the focus of major companies, countries scramble, China is no exception.

Today, China has made a major breakthrough in the field of soft robotics.

A few days ago, CCTV Finance "Economic Half Hour" program, about Zhejiang University College of Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor Li Tiefeng and his team, the success of China's soft robots to break through the 10,000-meter deep diving.

The Mariana Trench, with a depth of 6-11 kilometers, is one of the harshest environments on Earth. To dive to this 10,000-meter trench, you need to overcome undersea currents, low temperatures, 1,000 atmospheres of pressure, and other challenges, which is a great test of the design of the soft robot, the materials used, the power, and so on.

In the design, Li Tiefeng's team drew on the body structure of the lionfish, which can swim freely in the 7000-meter deep sea. The bones of the lionfish are very fine, allowing it to withstand the ultra-high pressure of the deep sea. Li Tiefeng was inspired by the lionfish, and reduced the electronic components and circuit boards to pieces and installed them inside the soft robot.

In terms of materials, Li Tiefeng's team put a lot of thought into the core material of the fins - "artificial muscle" - and eventually overcame the problem of slowing down the movement of the fins of the soft robot in high-pressure, low-temperature, and long-time operating conditions.

And in the power, Li Tiefeng team after hundreds of tests, and finally built a special circuit structure, so that the voltage to achieve the soft robot operation needs.

Finally in 2019, Li Tiefeng's team's bionic soft robot successfully completed the 10,900-meter deep-sea test and reached the intended goal. As a result, Li Tiefeng's team set a new record for human-developed soft robot self-driven tests in the Mariana Trench.

This provides a solution for soft robots to operate in complex environments, and is of great significance to China and the global robotics industry.

China's soft robots not only excel in research, but also in business. Ltd. (SRT) has led China's soft robots to realize the "from 0 to 1" leap.

Today, SRT is one of the few companies in the world to have developed a soft gripper that can easily pick up raw egg yolks without breaking them.

Today, SRT's products are widely used in food, fresh food, 3C electronics, and many other fields, and have more than 300 customers around the world, showing great potential for development.

The soft robotics market has only recently begun and has great potential for development. In this market, China has made certain achievements, to ensure the safety of our manufacturing industry.