Guo Yuansheng: Sensors will become the new focus of international strategic competition

2020-06-30 CPPCC Network Guo Yuansheng

The current pace of development of the digital economy is surprising. The U.S. digital economy totaled $10.83 trillion billion in 2017, accounting for more than 58.3 percent of GDP. It reached $12.34 trillion billion in 2018, accounting for more than 62% of GDP. China followed closely, with the digital economy of more than $34000 billion, or 30.3 per cent of GDP, in 2017 and more than $47300 billion, or 34.8 per cent of GDP, in 2018. China and the United States already account for more than 50% of the global digital economy. This fully shows that the future economy has shifted from the traditional resource-driven to the digital economy with data as the core. Data has replaced oil as the most valuable resource in the world today. The oil that has caused international competition has become data. Data will become the mainstream and core of promoting industrial change, which can be called oil in the digital age.

1. the core technologies of the digital economy

As we all know, information technology is composed of three technologies: perception, transmission and processing, namely: computer technology, communication technology, sensor technology. The hardware of information system is composed of three technologies plus information storage, feedback and execution, and the information transmitted in the whole system is "data". If a person is regarded as a complete information system, then the information that the five senses and skin interact with the outside world is "data information", and the perception organ is the data acquisition device, which is the core of data acquisition. In reality, the corresponding physical devices are sensor products, and sensors are also called "electronic facial features"; 5G and other communication technologies are equivalent to the human nervous system for data transmission; computers are equivalent to the human brain, responsible for and responsible for data processing. function.

The United States believes that in the 1980 s, personal computers turned computing into fingers. In the 1990 s, Internet technology globalized information demand through the Internet. The current change is to connect the material world through the Internet of Things and give objects an electronic nervous system to make them intelligent. Call it the "Sensor Revolution" (sensor revolution), "the reason why it is called the sensor revolution is that through the use of new materials, countless sensitive components will emerge to monitor the various environments around us. Making sensor technology a point of accumulation of various application capabilities". Thus, the competition in the field of sensors will come. We must plan ahead, strategize and prepare ahead of time.

Problems and Prominent Contradictions in the Development of 2. Industry

According to industry statistics, there are currently eight sensitive categories of sensors in the world, including sound, force, light, magnetism, gas, temperature and humidity, RFID, and biology. There are about 31000 types of components, of which there are about 22000 in China (mostly used in scientific research experiments). In terms of industrial distribution, there are more than 6500 manufacturers and companies engaged in the development of sensitive components and sensors in the world, of which there are about 1200 in China (non professional manufacturers). Sales were $102.4 billion in 2012, $137.6 billion in 2015, and about $177 billion in 2018. Among them: home appliances, automobiles, industrial automation systems and equipment, energy, medical equipment, agriculture, aircraft and ships, robots, environmental protection, municipal and other ten areas accounted for 75% of the entire market.

1. Clarify the trend of technological innovation

It can be clearly seen that the industrialization of sensor technology in the United States presents three major trends: MEMS process technology, intelligence and networking, and micro-energy acquisition technology. The eight sensitive components adopt common MEMS process technology, not only to improve the level of industrialization. At the same time, multiple sensitive components can be combined into one, combined with software processing and algorithms, to form a multi-dimensional indicator test and multi-parameter fusion of microsystem modules to expand the scope of application of the product. In order to make up for the one-sided pursuit of high precision to the difficulty of large-scale production, in order to reduce the cost of finished product testing, improve economies of scale. Combined with micro-energy acquisition technology to power the sensor, you can achieve a fully intelligent data acquisition node, remote data acquisition capabilities, low-cost, networked applications, for big data, 5G, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and even new infrastructure basic data acquisition, to provide reliable and basic protection. Therefore, the integration and collaborative innovation of the three major technologies have become the mainstream trend of the development of the eight sensitive technologies in the future.

2. Market prospects under new infrastructure

The sensors are applicable to all industry sectors. According to 2019 statistics, the total size of the global sensor market has exceeded $187 billion and is growing at an average rate of more than 10%, with growth of more than 15% in the top ten key industries, and the market in some areas is showing explosive growth. In this outbreak prevention and control, also a large number of sensor products. In addition to the well-known contactless thermometers, there are more than 130 product types such as blood pressure, blood lipids, blood oxygen, pulse and carbon dioxide gas, all of which play an irreplaceable role in the epidemic. The dazzling wearable device is actually an intelligent sensor, a multi-functional, multi-parameter composite intelligent node, which can measure blood pressure, heartbeat, pulse and so on.

In the new infrastructure of intelligent devices and equipment can not be separated from a variety of sensors, such as 5G base stations will use nearly 100 environmental data and operation monitoring sensors; surgical robots to use more than 400 sensors; smartphones now have more than 20 kinds of sensors. When the number reaches more than 100 kinds, the mobile phone will become a mobile intelligent node, which is integrated with the home intelligent terminal, and the call becomes a functional module in the mobile phone. Nearly 20000 sensors are used in the electronic fence, which completely realizes invisible and non-contact control. The site and road are unattended and charged, and regular settlement is sufficient. The automated assembly line in the digital workshop is unattended, and the sensors used are countless.

In short, sensor technology determines the function of the system. Judging the performance of a device or system depends not only on how many microprocessors are installed, but more importantly, how many and how many types of sensors there are. Without sensor technology, there would be no data collection, and there is no way to talk about the interconnection of everything and intelligence!

3, break industry barriers to eliminate market bias.

With the continuous improvement of system informatization and intelligent requirements of equipment and facilities, the demand for sensors in various industries will continue to increase. However, there are obstacles that are difficult to overcome between manufacturers and users, and their understanding of technology and the needs of each other are not the same. It is difficult to find effective methods and ways to connect and break through.

In addition, in the treatment of domestic enterprises and products there is a greater understanding of prejudice and differences. Under the same circumstances, foreign products whose prices are much higher than those of domestic enterprises are often selected. Especially in resource monopoly industries, in order to reduce responsibilities and avoid troubles, it has formed a common phenomenon that if you can buy foreign products, you must not use domestic products. In addition to prejudice against domestic enterprises, sometimes harsh additional conditions, complicated procedures and processes discourage enterprises. Domestic enterprises are suffering from pulling relations and transaction costs, even if they are tracked for a long time, they have failed, which has gradually pushed up the barriers to entry and industry barriers.

It can be seen that the obstacles and bottlenecks between production and use have become a major obstacle to the development of industrialization. Therefore, sensor products should not only develop in the direction of normalization, standardization, intelligence and networking of parameter indicators, but also establish a collaborative innovation relationship between production and use, establish mutual trust between industry and application, exchange and communicate with each other, and remove obstacles on the road for the development of sensor industrialization.

3. industrialization development approach

We should be soberly aware that on the surface, the Sino-US game is a dispute over trade and technology, but in essence it is an industrialized competition of high-tech products. Especially today with the globalization of the digital economy, we should be more aware of the outstanding contradictions and problems in my country's industrialization. For the industrialization of sensors, we should combine China's structural adjustment and transformation and upgrading with the requirements of the 14th Five-Year Plan to fully recognize the specific impact of the epidemic, the escalation of international friction and environmental changes. It is not difficult to do a good job in strategic positioning and top-level design, corresponding resource allocation, good mechanism, form norms and standards, and realize industrialization. The front infrared thermopile sensor is a good example.

According to the above suggestions, combined with the characteristics of regional industrial culture, China's "sensing valley" can be established in areas with conditions, and cultivate a complete industrial chain in my country, with "politics, production, learning, research, use, and service" six-in-one coordination and specialization. And precise "dual ecological" system. To achieve the goal of 50 billion output value of sensor basic products, system integration and application products of more than 100 billion level, and form an international sensor industry cluster with obvious industrialization characteristics.

(The author is the deputy director of the Jiu San Central Science and Technology Commission, the vice chairman of the China Sensor and Internet of Things Industry Alliance)