In a gas storage facility of a chemical enterprise in the northwest region, an explosion-proof inspection robot is equipped with infrared sensing, leak monitoring, foreign object sensing and other functions. It inspects along a preset route every 4 hours and quickly issues a warning once a small gas leak is detected.

In the past, this job required workers to wear gas masks and carry detection equipment back and forth several times a day. Once toxic and harmful gases were leaked, workers' physical health and safety faced challenges, "Liao Yong, Vice President of Qiteng Robot Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as" Qiteng Robot "), told reporters.

Liao Yong's company has been deeply involved in the field of special robots for 16 years, providing intelligent solutions for industries such as petroleum, chemical, and power.

The concern of manufacturing enterprises for industrial inspection robots is no longer about hardware parameters, but whether they can work stably for a long time, quickly integrate inspection data into the enterprise operation and maintenance system, and respond quickly to and deal with related equipment failure hazards, "said Liao Yong. This means that a watershed in the competition of the explosion-proof inspection robot industry is beginning to emerge - from the ability to manufacture robots with excellent parameters, to quickly shifting towards how to make them truly work for a long time.

Liao Yong said that in the field of industrial robots, there is no ceiling for explosion-proof inspection robots, and they can always explore a new track - every time they enter a sub market of industrial safety production inspection, it is equivalent to opening up a brand new application market. What Qiteng Robotics needs to do is to promote technological innovation and product iteration, allowing explosion-proof inspection robots to enter more segmented markets.

Competition for long-term stable work ability

Guotou Securities predicts that the global market for special robots is expected to grow from approximately $12 billion in 2025 to approximately $35 billion in 2030. Behind this is the positive migration of the application scope of special robots such as explosion-proof inspection to multiple scenarios.

According to Liao Yong, in recent years, the customers of Qiteng explosion-proof inspection robots have covered large industrial enterprises such as PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, National Pipeline Network, BASF, etc., and their application scope has gradually expanded to industrial production safety inspection fields such as petroleum and petrochemical, metallurgy, and steel.

The climate and environment in different regions can also have an impact on the development of explosion-proof inspection robots. Considering the frequent ice and snow weather in northern regions, explosion-proof tracked robots can play an anti slip role, effectively reducing the probability of slipping during inspection and avoiding triggering damage to industrial production equipment, "said Liao Yong.

In recent years, Liao Yong has clearly felt that the core competitiveness of explosion-proof inspection robots has undergone significant changes: compared to the past emphasis on competing hardware parameters, the entire market is now highly concerned about whether robots can work stably on site for a long time.

In response, Qiteng Robotics has initiated a business architecture reform. In June of this year, Qiteng Robotics carried out integrated reforms in technology research and development, patent authorization, product delivery, and other aspects, sinking its R&D team to frontline business scenarios.

Liao Yong said that the purpose of this business architecture reform is to enable explosion-proof inspection robots to quickly adapt to a wider range of industrial safety inspection scenarios. However, tackling different scenarios remains a major challenge, as some client companies are concerned about the leakage of critical industrial production data and need to continue to work together to establish trust relationships, in order to better match these data with the optimization of explosion-proof inspection robot algorithms.

In late September, Qiteng Robotics launched the explosion-proof quadrupedal robot-X5 and explosion-proof wheeled robot-L3.

Hu Xiaodong, Chief Technology Officer of Qiteng Robotics, told reporters that since entering the research and development of explosion-proof inspection robots in 2020, the company has completed four rounds of product iteration. The iteration of these two explosion-proof inspection robots has made breakthroughs in obstacle crossing flexibility and application efficiency, and can adapt to a wider range of industrial safety production inspection scenarios.

Hu Xiaodong frankly stated that the improvement of explosion-proof capability and the solution of heat generation problems, lightweight design, and high endurance have always been the key to whether explosion-proof inspection robots can adapt to more application scenarios. But they are also natural contradictions in engineering design, requiring continuous product iteration and application expansion to find more effective solutions.

Hu Xiaodong said that compared to the iterations of these two explosion-proof inspection robots in terms of protection level, modular architecture, motion performance, environmental adaptation, etc., he is more concerned about whether enterprises can quickly provide a complete set of capabilities of "product+software+service+operation", so that explosion-proof inspection robots can work and work stably for a long time.

This is a key indicator for measuring the core competitiveness of explosion-proof inspection robots, "said Hu Xiaodong. Under normal circumstances, after the deployment of explosion-proof inspection robots in new application scenarios, manual point by point design of points, travel routes, and operating rules is required, and on-site joint debugging and testing work is often calculated on a monthly basis, which greatly affects whether the robots can quickly take up their posts; In addition, a slight negligence in the joint debugging and testing work may also affect the long-term stable working ability of the explosion-proof inspection robot.

Therefore, Shengtong Energy, a listed company controlled by Qiteng Robotics, has created the first robot application level embodied intelligence platform for industrial scenarios - "Yuanyu Zhixun".

According to Hu Xiaodong, in the traditional mode, more than 500 explosion-proof inspection robots are deployed to industrial sites for on-site work, requiring on-site joint debugging and testing for 1-3 months. After using "Metaverse Intelligence Patrol", the entire joint debugging and testing process was shortened to 2-3 days and unmanned.

Price war heating up

The demand for explosion-proof inspection robots in industrial safety production inspection scenarios continues to rise, attracting robot companies to enter the market.

Liu Wen is the Marketing Director of a company specializing in the research and development of explosion-proof inspection robots. In recent years, he has personally experienced the intensification of market price competition.

Liu Wen said that a year ago, they sold explosion-proof inspection robots to multiple power companies, with prices generally exceeding 1.5 million yuan. But since the second quarter of this year, the market price of related robot products has generally been below 1.2 million yuan. Upon investigation, the increase in visitors has provided power companies with more choices and led to price cutting procurement; In addition, there is homogeneous competition in the explosion-proof inspection robot industry, which has led to some companies competing to lower prices and seize market share.

Liao Yong told reporters that it will take 2-3 years for new entrants in the explosion-proof inspection robot industry to achieve a high level of hardware protection capability, ground adaptability, navigation capability, and systematic inspection process matching. Before breakthroughs are made in related technological levels, price factors become an important means of seizing the market cake.

We don't participate in price wars because we sell complete solutions consisting of products, software, services, and operations, "said Liao Yong." Qiteng Robotics adopts a business model of 'sales+leasing'

Sales are a one-time deal, and the leasing model generates cash flow every month. This stable cash flow can support our product research and development manufacturing, "said Liao Yong.

In 2027, overseas market revenue will account for about 1/5 of the total revenue of the enterprise, "said Liao Yong. The global business layout of Qiteng Robotics mainly includes two paths: "borrowing ships to go abroad" and "going abroad directly". The former follows the international trade platform of state-owned enterprises to "go global", while the latter continues to expand the local industrial safety production inspection market in overseas countries by connecting with overseas agents.

Liao Yong said that as of now, Qiteng Robotics' overseas business has entered about 40 countries and regions. By 2030, Qiteng Robotics plans to deploy special robot safety inspection solutions in 100 countries and regions around the world, with 60 segmented industrial safety scenarios.

Hu Xiaodong told reporters that for the development of the next generation of explosion-proof inspection robots, Qiteng Robot ranks explosion-proof level first and passability second.

When the explosion-proof level is upgraded, there will be more industrial safety production inspection scenes that explosion-proof inspection robots can go to, "said Hu Xiaodong. Qiteng Robot is currently working on the IICT6 explosion-proof level and is targeting specific scenarios such as narrow staircases and corner spaces of only 1 meter by 1 meter on overseas offshore drilling platforms. By further compressing the volume of the explosion-proof inspection robot, it aims to improve its pass rate at narrower staircase corners while meeting new explosion-proof requirements.

(Author Chen Zhi)