A brief discussion on the main market and driving sources of service robots

Services are entering our daily lives at a high growth rate. Based on the broad market prospects, the National Science Foundation of the United States issued the "American Robotics Technology Roadmap", in which service robots are a key chapter.

The main application areas of service robots

Service robots are a type of robot system that assists people in their daily work, life, leisure, and helps the disabled and the elderly. In the system, the robot's task is to complete high-quality and high-consistency production tasks. Service robots are different from robots that usually work in human spaces or work directly with humans. Service robots usually perform two types of work: professional services and personal services.

Professional service robot

Professional service robots mainly refer to service robots that can generate economic benefits, such as those used in logistics automation, infrastructure inspection, hospital medicine delivery, commercial lawn cleaning, entertainment, etc. The market size is rapidly expanding at an annual growth rate of 30%. According to data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and the German Equipment Manufacturing Industry Association (V), there are more than 172,000 professional service robots used in various industries.

Logistics Automation

With the development trend of "just-in-time production" to reduce inventory, low-cost, highly flexible logistics systems are increasingly becoming an important part of supply chain management, such as the famous Kiva warehouse robot system and the automated delivery of FedEx and UPS. However, they can only be used in customized fixed warehouses. If robots are to play a greater role, they must be given higher mobility: they must be able to cope with common scenes of human life such as stairs, elevators, doors, uneven ground and cluttered environments. With the progress of research, highly mobile robots are gradually becoming a reality, which will make the entire logistics system faster, more flexible, cheaper, more controllable and more stable.

Many have already set their sights on the logistics market, including Savyoke, which produces hotel transport robots, Aethon and Vecna, which make transport robots for hospitals, Bossa Nova, which produces supermarket storage robots, Amazon Prime r and Google Project Wing, which focus on express delivery, Starship chnologies, which provides last-mile logistics and express delivery, and Fetch, which produces storage robots. The exponential growth of the logistics robot market makes this field the biggest investment hotspot in the next 15 years.

Infrastructure inspection

Robot technology has great application prospects in the inspection and protection of infrastructure such as bridges, roads and pipelines: such as unmanned ships and drones for inspecting bridges and ports, unmanned vehicles for monitoring underground pipelines and lines, drones for patrolling pipelines and power grids, etc. It can also provide monitoring services for the oil and gas industry.

With the help of a variety of advanced and other robotic technologies, these systems are capable of handling a variety of complex underground tasks. These robots can automatically diagnose faults around the clock, work in collaboration with humans and reduce human intervention, lower costs and improve efficiency. Their application will grow by about 20% in the next five years.

Drones are becoming an effective robotic platform for inspection. In the next five years, drones will become smaller, cheaper, and more reliable, with companies such as 3D Robocs selling them for only about $2,000-3,000.

Currently, the main challenges facing drone systems include: (1) operational safety and privacy issues; (2) failure protection functions after a malfunction; (3) adaptability to environmental changes; (4) processing of large amounts of data obtained during flight; (5) new aircraft design; and (6) multi-machine collaborative operations and collision avoidance.

Remote stand-in robot

Remote avatar robots are the most typical service robots used to improve the human communication experience. They are another communication revolution after meetings, making communication and collaboration more efficient. Remote avatar robots can not only allow employees to be immersed in the workplace, such as the systems developed for corporate offices by companies such as Beam, VGo and Double, but also allow students who cannot go to school to take classes at home.

In the medical field, telemedicine robots equipped with cameras, microphones and speakers enable doctors to communicate with patients "face to face". At present, they are basically used for diseases such as stroke that require timely diagnosis. In the future, telemedicine robots will also be used in areas such as postoperative care and chronic disease conditioning. In addition, researchers have tried to use them for home care of the elderly. Such robots can significantly reduce medical care costs and provide good medical technology services to more people.

entertainment

Robotics is increasingly being used in the entertainment and gaming industries, such as the use of Bot & Dolly in the film industry, interactive toys from Anki Cozmo, and the action robots released by Lego. The Pokemon Go, which became popular around the world in 2016, is the first successful application of augmented reality (AR) in the commercial field. As an important technology for robot interaction, the entry of AR into the gaming industry will further accelerate its development.

Personal service robot

Personal service robots mainly refer to robots that provide daily life services or robots that provide assistance to people with disabilities. For example, household robots such as sweeping robots and lawn mowing robots, and entertainment and leisure robots such as toy robots, entertainment drones, and educational platforms.

In the next 5-10 years, the market for personal service robots will further expand thanks to the development of robotics technology and the reduction of manufacturing costs.

Transportation

As robotics technology matures, unmanned transportation systems originally used in professional environments will likely be used in other transportation environments such as cities. In the next few decades, people's travel methods will be completely changed, such as new personal transportation tools such as Segway and balance cars developed by Toyota, and fully autonomous robots will also be available soon. In 2016, Google's car mileage exceeded 2 million miles, and high-speed automatic cruise technology was released. Uber also began to try to accept rental orders with cars, and the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the United States also issued guidance documents to promote the development of autonomous vehicles.

In addition, researchers are trying to solve traffic problems from the perspective of intelligent road networks by adding sensors, cameras, automatic toll collection, etc. A public-private national program called "Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII)" is trying to combine smart cars with smart road networks to create a virtual information network.

Main markets and driving forces of service robots

The aging population affects the development of service robots in two ways. One is the shrinking labor market, and the other is the opportunity to provide solutions to meet health care needs. The United States is on the threshold of a trend that will develop over the next 20 years: the number of retired workers as a percentage of the current workforce will nearly double, from 2 in 10 workers currently to 4 in 10 by 2030. In Japan, the situation is even worse, and the rapidly growing aging population is the main incentive for Japan to develop robotics as a national policy.

While increased productivity and reduced costs are common features of service robots, each service robot system is expected to provide a unique and competitive solution to a specific problem or need in the market. For example, in a factory that uses robotic technology to assemble cars, a key and main driving force is the desire for continuous and quality-assured production capabilities.

Healthcare and Quality of Life

Robotics is used to provide teleoperation solutions, such as the sensory-reliant da Vinci surgical system, and has great potential to control costs, enhance caregiving capabilities of healthy personnel, and extend life expectancy for the elderly.

Energy and Environment

These two closely related issues are critical to the country's future and the maturity of robotics applications, especially in terms of autonomous energy and automation.

Production and Logistics

Robotics has great potential to automate production and the movement of goods, especially when used in small-scale (or micro-scale) production operations, and in the process help accelerate the return of manufacturing. This belief has been evident since the founding of Heartland Robotics, a company whose main mission is to move manufacturing back to the United States.

Automotive and Transportation

While we are still decades away from fully autonomous cars, robotics is already here in the form of advanced driver assistance and collision avoidance systems. Public transportation is another area that is expected to see a higher level of automation. As robotics continues to advance and mature, unmanned transportation systems and solutions used in small-scale scenarios such as airports will gradually be adapted to city centers and other general applications.

Homeland Security and Infrastructure Protection

Robotics offers great potential for border protection, search and rescue, ports and security, and related areas. In addition, robotics is expected to be widely used to automate the inspection, maintenance, and repair of bridges, highways, water and drainage systems, power pipelines and facilities, and other key components of infrastructure.