Login
SUMMARY FIGUREDEMAND FOR ROBOTS, 2009-2016($ MILLIONS)
Source: BCC Research
INTRODUCTION
STUDY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
In early April 2011, Leon Panetta, then serving as head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, met with Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, his counterpart at Pakistan’s intelligence service. A decade earlier, Pasha’s complaint would have sounded like science fiction. He warned Panetta that America was killing too many Pakistanis with flying robots. It is doubtful that Pasha used the term flying robots to refer to the armed Predator unmanned aerial vehicles that U.S. forces routinely used to hunt Al-Qaeda fighters. It is even more unlikely that Panetta revealed that the Predators were not the only type of flying robots operating in Pakistani airspace. About the time of their meeting, possibly during the meeting itself, a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel was circling in the vicinity of Abbottabad, adjacent to Pakistan’s equivalent of the U.S. Army’s West Point Military Academy. Nicknamed the Beast of Kandahar, the Sentinel’s quarry was Al-Qaeda’s illusive and soon-to-be executed leader Osama Bin Laden, the master mind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that ignited the free world’s war on terrorism.
The success of flying robots—the Pentagon favors the term unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)—is the most visible part of the larger story regarding the sudden appearance of robots away from the factory floor. The goal of this study is to examine and provide a comprehensive dollar-value forecast for the robotics industry as it moves aggressively forward into the second decade of the 21st century.
The objective of this study is twofold: First, it will focus on key developments in robotics that have occurred since 2009, when BCC Research published its most recent study of the robotics industry. Second, it will present 2011–2016 forecasts for the industry on a global, regional, and industry-segmented basis. To that end, this study presents market demand forecasts for the:
In addition to forecasts presented as easy-to-comprehend tables, this study includes chapters devoted to recent developments in basic and advanced robotic technologies, information about key industry participants, and a patent analysis.
REASONS FOR DOING THE STUDY
In the previous edition of Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets published by BCC Research in April 2009, the project analyst noted that internal and external circumstances had created a technological and business climate in which the robotics industry would see enormous change. He observed, “An industry that was once grounded in a handful of highly specialized types of industrial and space robots has expanded to include new, commercially viable types of domestic and professional service robots, as well as military and security robots.”
The degree to which robots have become a part of daily life was underscored for viewers of the BBC America nightly news broadcast that aired several days after the U.S.-Pakistani diplomatic dispute over Predator attacks. During the first half of the television broadcast, the time slot in which news directors place the day’s most important stories, viewers saw robots once again capturing headlines. One story reported how the U.S. had sent Predators to help Libyan revolutionaries. Another story announced that a debris-crawling robot was obtaining radiation measurements from inside Japan’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. The third story recounted how a submarine robot would be dropped 13,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean to recover the flight recorder from an airliner that had crashed two years earlier, killing its 228 passengers and crew. For those knowledgeable about the robotics industry, the television broadcast was another reminder of just how rapidly the robotic business was changing.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
The 2011 edition of Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets provides a current assessment of the state-of-the-art in the global robotics industry, focusing on changes since the 2009 edition of this study.
The information on recent developments in robotic technology and the market-specific product demand forecasts will be especially useful for senior executive and government policymakers involved with the following industries:
SCOPE AND FORMAT
Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets provides both a review of recent key developments in robotics and a comprehensive set of 2011 to 2016 market demand forecasts presented as easy-to-comprehend tables. The study is divided into 18 chapters containing 128 tables, the bulk of which present forecasts.
Chapters One and Two are the Introduction and Summary of the report.
Chapter Three offers a broad-stroke review of the history and current state of the robotics industry. It emphasizes key developments that mark the evolution of robots and explains why and how they have collectively come to be identified as a distinct class of machine, separate from automated machine tools with which they have much in common.
Chapter Four reviews the six basic types of robots: industrial, domestic service, professional service, security, space, and military robots.
Chapter Five describes the basic technology and components (e.g., power supplies, end effectors) that are required on all types of robots. Topics have been updated to reflect research completed or undertaken since April 2009
Chapter Six focuses on advanced technologies and components, such as vision and collision avoidance systems that enable robots to work in close proximity to humans and in unstructured and mobile environments. As with the previous chapter, topics have been updated to reflect research completed or undertaken since April 2009.
Chapter Seven steps away from the technological aspects of robotics and focuses on the broader economic, national policy, and industrial development issues that support, and in some cases, impede the adoption of robotic technology.
Chapter Eight introduces the six types of robots that dominate the industry:
Chapter Nine examines the demand for robots in the four major marketing regions:
Chapters Ten to Fifteen separately address technical issues and present 2011–2016 forecasts for each of the six types of robots introduced in Chapter 5. Each chapter contains a table listing the key industry and academic participants.
Chapter Sixteen shifts the analysis to robotic applications, meaning the 26 most commonly performed tasks assigned to iron-collar workers.
Chapter Seventeen highlights the organizations that have had the greatest influence on the robotics business, as well as those that have also positioned themselves to guide the industry as it continues to rapidly evolve. Background information is provided on what BCC considers to be the most influential members of the robotics community.
Chapter Eighteen offers a developmental perspective of the robotics industry, as documented by its patent history. This chapter has been updated to identify more than 630 new robot-related patents issued since publication of the previous edition of this study in April 2009. Abstracts are provided for key U.S. patents issued from 1976 through April 2011. The chapter concludes with a chronological list of key patents issued from the early 1970s onward.
ROBOTS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS INDUSTRY
This study excludes software applications known as Internet robots, automated machine tools, and machines that provide “intelligent assistance,” including medical devices and active prosthetics. Mechatronics, a newly emerging field discussed in the 2009 edition of this study, has expanded into a technological field distinct from robotics, and for this reason, it is omitted from this edition. Robot kits for hobbyists have also been omitted. Finally, because this study focuses exclusively on the product level, it omits robot-related engineering and systems integration services.
INFORMATION SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY
Both primary and secondary research methodologies were used in preparing this report. BCC Research has reviewed more than 1,000 companies and university-based robotics programs to obtain data for this study. It also reviewed reports and studies prepared for peer–reviewed professional literature, as well as reports by the technical staffs of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the Energy Information Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Science Foundation. Also consulted were their Chinese, European, and Japanese counterparts, as well as the United Nations and the World Bank. Other data came from robotics company and robotics association presentations at open sessions of scientific and technical conferences. Forecasts in this report examine demand for robots by region and by robot type.
ANALYST CREDENTIALS
James Wilson is the author of the 2007 edition of Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets, as well as five other robotic-related studies published by BCC Research. In addition to his work as a technology analyst, Wilson previously served as the Editor of the Princeton Business Journal and as senior Science and Technology Editor for Hearst Magazines. He is a past member of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Medical Writers Association. Wilson served on the adjunct faculty of Temple University and on the staffs of Drexel University and the Academy of Natural Sciences. His five other robotics-related BCC studies are:
BCC ONLINE SERVICES
BCC offers an online information retrieval service. BCC’s home page, located at www.bccresearch.com, enables readers to:
DISCLAIMER
The author assumes no liability for the reported information or for its use. The developed information is intended to be as reliable as possible and of a professional nature. The author assumes no liability for any loss or damage as a result of any reliance on any materials or any information developed. This is not a legal or accounting document, and much of the information is of a speculative nature.
