CRI听力:China heads for fully automated future

All signs at the World Robot Conference are pointing to a fully robotic future in manufacturing and engineering.

Now in its third year, the World Robot Conference is a platform for the robotics industry to show off its latest creations and promote robotics on every level.

Siasun, a Chinese supplier of industrial robots, is showing off its newly-developed soft collaborative robots.

The integration of light-load robots and AR control systems are especially designed for workers on the assembly line.

Company Sales Engineer Arron Zhang explains the advantages of this integration.

"You are looking at a demonstration of a mobile phone screen detection system that combines AR technology and robots. On the one hand, soft collaborative robots protect humans from getting hurt from collisions. On the other hand, AR shows the workflow and efficiency of human workers,” said Zhang. 

SMC corporation has long been known as an industry leader in pneumatics, but has now totally switched to electric power.

Chen Xiaolei, the business technology technical manager of SMC's Shanghai Branch, says the switch to electric is essential as China faces increasingly higher labor costs.

"Lights-out manufacturing is becoming more popular, which means the factory is fully automated. Human movements like gripping and releasing can be realized by robots. In terms of environmental protection, we have been giving up pneumatic components and making use of electric components instead. With electric-driven motors, cylinders, and the network, we can do something to build a clean world," said Chen.

However, some people worry that human workers could soon become obsolete.

But for Jeremy Watson, president of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, this is something that the world should be cheerful rather than fearful about.

"As we have in previous movements of technology when manual labor was replaced by machinery, people were really concerned then. But new forms of jobs emerge from that, so very much more service industry, more people-to-people type of jobs, if you like. Because people like working and dealing with other humans. I think it will long time before AI is truly replacing people. But in terms of the physical, manual, and dangerous types of jobs, I think robotics will do that very effectively. And it will release economic value which will perhaps reduce the taxation burden potentially," said Jeremy Watson.

The World Robot Conference runs until August 27th.

In 2015 China launched the "Made in China 2025" strategy. The plan is to replenish China's manufacturing with high-end and low-energy technologies, highlighting the robotics industry.