SIASUN DUCO

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DUCO (an acronym for DO UNIQUE COBOT) is the collaborative robot (cobot) brand of SIASUN Robot & Automation Co., Ltd., one of China's largest robotics companies. Officially established as a subsidiary in Shanghai in 2014, DUCO develops and manufactures a range of six-axis and seven-axis cobots, dual-arm systems, explosion-proof robots, mobile cobots, and embodied intelligent platforms. The DUCO product line spans payloads from 3 kg to 30 kg, with applications across automotive, semiconductor, 3C electronics, energy, food and beverage, medical, and education sectors. DUCO is credited with several Chinese industry firsts, including the country's first domestic seven-axis, dual-arm, 25 kg large-payload, 2-meter arm-span, and mobile collaborative robots, and it holds more than 300 patents.^[1][2] DUCO cobots have been exported to Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, and dozens of other countries, serving over 1,500 customers worldwide, including Mercedes-Benz, FAW Volkswagen, CRRC, COMAC, Marelli, Micron, Western Digital, and STMicroelectronics.^[1][2]

Background: SIASUN Robot & Automation

Company history

SIASUN Robot & Automation Co., Ltd. was founded on April 30, 2000, by Qu Daokui in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China. The company emerged as a spin-off from the Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), a research institution under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) that was established in 1958 and had pioneered early robotics prototypes in China since the 1980s. Qu Daokui, a researcher at SIA, was inspired by a 1992 visit to Volkswagen's plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, where he observed an assembly line staffed by hundreds of industrial robots. At the time, few Chinese laboratories even had robots for research purposes. Eight years later, Qu assembled a team of researchers and founded SIASUN with the goal of becoming a pioneer in Chinese robotics rather than a follower.^[3][4]

Qu Daokui has framed the company's purpose in social rather than purely commercial terms. "What we want to do is not just produce robots, but solve some social problems, such as the aging population challenge, by developing intelligent robots," he told China Daily, adding that "high technology is not something that can be purchased from the market. The only way to gain it is through innovation."^[4]

The Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, remains the majority stakeholder in SIASUN, holding approximately 39.75% of shares. SIASUN went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ChiNext board on October 30, 2009, under ticker 300024, with an issue price of 39.80 CNY per share. The IPO raised approximately 1.5 billion yuan (about $220 million USD) to fund research and development.^[3][5]

Market position

SIASUN is one of the largest robotics manufacturers in China and holds a significant position in the domestic market. In 2024, the company reported revenue of CNY 4.14 billion (approximately $570 million USD).^[6] For the first half of 2025, SIASUN reported revenue of CNY 1.66 billion, roughly flat against the CNY 1.66 billion recorded a year earlier, and a net loss of CNY 95.36 million, widening from a CNY 61.79 million net loss in the same period of 2024 as the group increased spending on embodied intelligence and humanoid robotics.^[23] SIASUN holds roughly 6.2% of the Chinese domestic industrial robot market. The company has shipped products to 32 countries and regions, serving over 3,000 enterprises globally, including BMW, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, and SanDisk. In 2017, SIASUN became the first China-based member of the Robotic Industries Association, a United States trade group focused on the industrial robot industry.^[3][7]

SIASUN's group headquarters are located in Shenyang, with industrial parks in Shanghai, Qingdao, Tianjin, Wuxi, and other Chinese cities. The company serves as the National Engineering Research Center for Robotics in China. From 2013 to 2016, SIASUN registered approximately 140 inventions per year.^[3]

Product portfolio

Beyond the DUCO collaborative robot line, SIASUN produces a broad range of automation products:

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SIASUN serves industries including automotive (welding cells, powertrain handling), electronics (SCARA pick-and-place), new energy (battery module assembly, EV supply chain logistics), and semiconductor manufacturing.^[7][8]

DUCO founding and development

DUCO was officially established in Shanghai in 2014 as SIASUN's dedicated collaborative robot brand. The name reflects the company's mission to create distinctive, customer-focused cobots: "DO UNIQUE COBOT." DUCO inherits its core technology from SIASUN Robotics (stock code: Robot 300024), and all critical components are independently developed in-house. The company has secured over 300 patents covering cobot design, control systems, and safety mechanisms.^[2]

What is DUCO's relationship to SIASUN?

DUCO is not an independent company but the dedicated collaborative robot brand of SIASUN Robot & Automation, operated from Shanghai while the SIASUN group is headquartered in Shenyang. DUCO's cobots draw directly on SIASUN's industrial robotics heritage: the brand states that its technology is "inherited from SIASUN Robotics (Stock Code: 300024)" and that DUCO has "broken foreign technological monopolies in various fields, with all core components independently developed."^[2] Because SIASUN's largest shareholder is the state-affiliated Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, DUCO is backed by a listed, research-institute-founded parent, which distinguishes it from the many Chinese cobot ventures launched without a heavy-industry lineage.

DUCO has achieved several firsts in the Chinese collaborative robotics industry:^[2]

• First domestic seven-axis collaborative robot
• First domestic dual-arm collaborative robot
• First domestic 25 kg large-payload collaborative robot
• First domestic 2-meter arm-span collaborative robot
• First domestic mobile collaborative robot

DUCO holds certifications including CE, ISO 9001, TUV SUD functional safety, and ASME. The DUCO GCR series was the first domestic cobot platform to pass IEC 61508 functional safety certification by TUV SUD, a significant milestone that validated the platform's safety architecture for use in human-robot collaborative environments.^[2][9]

GCR series

The GCR (short for General Collaborative Robot) series is the flagship product line of the DUCO brand. It is a family of six-axis collaborative robots spanning payloads from 3 kg to 30 kg, designed for safe human-robot workflows in assembly, machine tending, inspection, painting, polishing, palletizing, welding, and other manufacturing tasks. All GCR models feature six degrees of freedom, omnidirectional mounting capability (table, wall, or ceiling installation), and standardized communication protocols including TCP/IP, Modbus/TCP, PROFINET, and EtherNet/IP.^[1][10]

Is the GCR series safe for human-robot collaboration?

The GCR series incorporates 16 TUV-certified safety features, including power-and-force limiting joints, collision detection, force and power monitoring, emergency stop categories, and protective stops. These safety measures allow the cobots to operate alongside human workers without the need for safety fencing in many applications, following the ISO/TS 15066 collaborative robot safety standard. DUCO's control system supports rapid deployment, with setup times as short as 20 minutes for basic applications thanks to intuitive drag-and-drop programming interfaces.^[2][9]

GCR model specifications

The following table summarizes the specifications of all ten GCR models currently offered:

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All models operate on 100-240 VAC (47-63 Hz) power input, with higher-payload models (GCR20 and above) also supporting 220-240 VAC configurations. The operating temperature range is -10 degrees C to 50 degrees C across the lineup. Joint ranges are +-360 degrees for all axes on every model, and all units use the GB/T 14468.1-50-4-M6 tool interface standard (equivalent to ISO 9409-1).^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

Design highlights

The GCR series naming convention encodes the payload and reach: the number following "GCR" indicates the maximum payload in kilograms, while the number after the hyphen indicates the maximum reach in millimeters. For example, the GCR25-1800 supports a 25 kg payload with an 1800 mm reach.

The GCR25-1800 is noteworthy for its favorable payload-to-weight ratio. At only 61.6 kg, it is approximately 10% lighter than competing 20 kg payload cobots while carrying 25% more payload. Across the heavy-duty segment of the lineup, DUCO achieves load-to-weight ratios as favorable as 1:2.44.^[15]

The lighter models (GCR3 through GCR7) are designed for high-speed, precision-intensive applications such as electronics assembly, circuit board inspection, and screw driving, with repeatability as fine as +-0.02 mm and TCP speeds up to 3.6 m/s. The mid-range models (GCR10 through GCR16) balance payload capacity with speed and precision for applications like machine tending and quality inspection. The heavy-duty models (GCR20 through GCR30) target palletizing, material handling, and welding applications where higher payloads are required.^[1][10]

SCR series

The SCR (Seven-axis Collaborative Robot) series extends the DUCO lineup with seven degrees of freedom, providing greater flexibility and maneuverability in tight workspaces. The additional axis allows the robot arm to reach around obstacles and adopt poses that six-axis robots cannot achieve, making the SCR series particularly suited to narrow production environments and complex assembly tasks.

The SCR series includes the DSCR3 and DSCR5 models. The DSCR5 features a dual-arm configuration with a combined payload of 10 kg (5 kg per arm), an 800 mm reach per arm, and +-0.02 mm repeatability. It has 7 joints per arm plus 2 optional head joints, weighs 200 kg in total, and consumes approximately 800 W. Each arm features joint ranges of +-180 degrees (with some joints limited to +-105 to +-115 degrees) at speeds of 180 degrees per second. The SCR series supports the same communication protocols as the GCR series.^[16]

The seven-axis design and low power consumption of only 250 W for single-arm SCR models position the series as an energy-efficient option for high-precision applications including assembly, product packaging, polishing, inspection, and machine tool loading/unloading.^[16]

Explosion-proof series

DUCO offers explosion-proof variants of its GCR cobots for deployment in hazardous environments containing flammable gases, vapors, or dust. These models carry the "-Ex" suffix (for example, GCR20-1400-Ex) and are certified to explosion protection standards with ratings of Ex db eb pxb IIC T4 Gb / Ex pxb tb IIC T130 degrees C Db. DUCO currently lists four explosion-proof models, the GCR10-1300-Ex, GCR16-2000-Ex, GCR20-1400-Ex, and GCR25-1800-Ex, aimed primarily at petroleum, natural gas, and chemical processing environments. The explosion-proof cobots can replace human operators in oil and gas, chemical processing, painting, and other environments where ignition sources must be eliminated.^[17]

The explosion-proof models retain the same core performance characteristics as their standard GCR counterparts, including payload capacity, reach, repeatability, and programming interfaces, while adding specialized enclosures, purge and pressurization systems, and flame-path protection to meet hazardous-area compliance requirements.^[17]

Mobile cobot systems

DUCO Mobile Cobot systems combine DUCO collaborative robot arms with proprietary mobile platforms, integrating independently developed computer vision systems, fixtures, and execution units. These mobile cobots can navigate autonomously within factory environments, performing tasks such as material handling, assembly, inspection, and precision machining across multiple workstations without fixed installation points. The mobile cobot platform represents one of DUCO's key industry firsts as the first mobile collaborative robot developed domestically in China.^[2][18]

The DUCO Mobile Cobot System offers platform payloads up to 350 kg with combined positioning accuracy of +-0.3 mm, using SLAM and QR-code navigation, and is offered in Type-B, Type-L, and Type-T variants. In semiconductor lines it performs wafer polishing and transport, SMT magazine loading and unloading, oven loading and unloading, and E-rack transshipment, while automated battery-swap stations enable 3 to 4 minute battery changes for near-continuous operation.^[18]

DUCO also offers turnkey workstation solutions for specific applications, including palletizing workstations (featuring vacuum grippers, lifting pillars, and pallet detection sensors), welding workstations with pre-configured software packages, and specialty demonstration units such as a coffee-making workstation for trade shows and service environments. The DUCO coffee robot shown at the 2025 Beijing World Robot Conference occupies roughly 2.1 square meters, prepares a beverage in about 90 seconds, offers more than 20 drink combinations, and is designed for 24/7 unattended operation at an estimated 20% of the operating cost of a staffed coffee shop.^[18][19]

Embodied intelligent robots

Building on its collaborative robot expertise, DUCO has expanded into embodied intelligent robotics, a category that includes humanoid robots and advanced mobile manipulation platforms. This product line, introduced publicly at the 2025 Beijing World Robot Conference (held August 8-12, 2025 under the theme "Making robots smarter and bodies more intelligent"), includes several platforms:^[19]

Songxing bipedal humanoid

The Songxing is a bipedal humanoid robot employing an advanced bionic structure with self-developed core components, an underlying control system, and a top-level intelligent system. It uses reinforcement learning and imitation learning to control motors in the arms, waist, and feet, achieving anthropomorphic movement of bionic joints. The humanoid arms offer leading repeatable positioning accuracy and can complete the grasping, storage, and transportation of objects of various shapes and sizes. Songxing is designed for industrial manufacturing, social services, and home companionship applications.^[19]

Songyi wheeled humanoid

The Songyi is a wheeled humanoid robot that integrates mobile robot technology, artificial intelligence algorithms, and high-performance dual-arm robot systems. It is designed for warehousing and logistics, retail, and home service scenarios. The dual-arm system enables multi-task parallel execution with efficient grasping and stacking capabilities at varying heights.^[19]

SIASUN intelligent humanoid dual-arm platform

This platform features independently developed robot body and control systems with repeatable positioning accuracy of +-0.05 mm. The hollow bow-shaped arm design allows flexible customization for various industrial and service scenarios, enabling complex and precise operations including autonomous grasping and storage of diverse objects.^[19]

RICO wheeled humanoid

The RICO is equipped with autonomous positioning, dynamic obstacle avoidance, and multi-object recognition capabilities for handling, picking, and inspection tasks in warehouses and exhibition spaces.^[19]

All embodied intelligent platforms leverage multimodal perception through large language models and deep learning, with natural language processing enabling voice command comprehension and environmental adaptation through integrated intelligent perception systems.^[19]

What are DUCO cobots used for?

DUCO cobots have been deployed across a wide range of industries and applications:

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A notable deployment is at the Straits Nebula Intelligent Manufacturing Base in Fujian Province, the first domestic chip machine production base in the province. DUCO cobots perform intelligent identification and assembly of computer components such as processors, memory modules, heat sinks, hard disks, and power modules on a production line that features multiple workstations with three machines per station.^[20]

How does DUCO compare to other collaborative robot makers?

DUCO operates in the global collaborative robot market, which is dominated by players such as Universal Robots (Denmark), FANUC (Japan), ABB (Switzerland), Techman Robot (Taiwan), and AUBO Robotics (China). These leading companies collectively account for approximately 52 to 64 percent of the global cobot market. The Asia-Pacific region holds the dominant position in the global collaborative robot market, accounting for the highest share of 37.80% in 2025, with China as a key driver due to large-scale government initiatives promoting industrial automation and smart manufacturing.^[21][22]

Within China, domestic industrial robot brands (including SIASUN, Estun, Han's Robot, and Inovance) gained significant market share, rising from 31.4% in 2020 to 58.5% in 2024, displacing foreign competitors in cost-sensitive segments. DUCO differentiates itself through its lineage from SIASUN's industrial robotics heritage, the breadth of its GCR product matrix covering ten models, its explosion-proof certifications for hazardous environments, and its expansion into embodied intelligent (humanoid) robotics.^[6][21]

SIASUN's scale, with CNY 4.14 billion in 2024 revenue and over 4,500 employees, provides resources for sustained investment in collaborative and humanoid robotics that many smaller cobot startups cannot match. The company's existing relationships with over 3,000 enterprise customers create direct deployment channels for new DUCO products.^[3][6]

See also

• Collaborative robot
• SIASUN
• Humanoid robots
• Universal Robots
• Industrial robot
• Cobot safety

References

1. SIASUN GCR Series Cobot official page ↩
2. About DUCO - DUCO Robots CO., LTD. ↩
3. Siasun Robotics - Wikipedia ↩
4. Innovation brings rewards for Siasun - China Daily ↩
5. Siasun Robot & Automation history, ownership, mission - DCF Modeling ↩
6. SIASUN Robot & Automation 2025 Company Profile - PitchBook ↩
7. Siasun Robot: Industrial Robots, Cobots, AGV & AMR - Robots International ↩
8. SIASUN Industrial Robots ↩
9. DUCO GCR Series Cobot datasheet (PDF) ↩
10. DUCO GCR3-618 product page ↩
11. DUCO GCR5-910 product page ↩
12. DUCO GCR10-1300 product page ↩
13. DUCO GCR20-1400 product page ↩
14. DUCO GCR25-1800 product page ↩
15. Who Will Lead the Future Battle of Heavy-Duty Collaborative Robots? - DUCO ↩
16. DUCO SCR Series Cobot - DSCR5 product page ↩
17. DUCO Explosion-proof Series ↩
18. DUCO Mobile Cobot System ↩
19. SIASUN Announces New Technology at the Beijing World Robot Conference - Humanoid Robotics Technology ↩
20. SIASUN DUCO Straits Nebula Intelligent Manufacturing Base ↩
21. Collaborative Robot Market Size, Share & Forecast 2025-2032 - Coherent Market Insights ↩
22. Collaborative Robot Market Analysis Report 2025-2030 - GlobeNewsWire ↩
23. Siasun Robot & Automation Co Ltd Reports Earnings Results for the Half Year Ended June 30, 2025 - MarketScreener ↩