The Rise of the Robots
Greetings LinkedIn readers! Welcome to the lead story from The Kiplinger Letter, a weekly business and economics forecasting newsletter. Subscribe below for our full reporting on finance, economics, the markets and more.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
One technology trend poised to continue:?The rise of robots.
Not just industrial models behind safety cages, though those keep proliferating.?But all kinds of robots in varying walks of life.?
Here’s what’s coming in the next few years.?Among the factors spurring robot adoption: Labor shortages and supply chain issues that push more businesses to turn to automation, especially for work that is dull, dirty or dangerous.?
Get a free issue of?The Kiplinger Letter , no info required from you.
Advancing technology is making robots better with enhanced 3D vision, artificial intelligence, etc.?The pandemic also boosted robot awareness as a solution for contactless services, from cleaning?to food delivery, or a novel way to avoid business travel.?Industrial robot sales are setting records.?But nonindustrial models are soaring, too.?
The field is filled with promising start-ups looking to find new services to tackle. $6.5 billion of venture capital is backing robotic vendors globally, according to ABI Research, a market research firm, with more than half of the funding flowing to the U.S.?
领英推荐
As robots move far beyond factory floors, you’ll encounter them more often.?
In health care settings. Aethon’s TUG is a mobile cart with lockable drawers for drugs, meals, medical supplies, linens, etc. OhmniLabs has a UV disinfection bot that can clean large rooms in 15 minutes. Intuitive sells a popular surgical robot.?
In warehouses. Seegrid sells an automated forklift that lifts 3,500 pounds.?Locus Robotics’ warehouse robot carries small e-commerce shipments. TagSurveyor?by Fetch Robotics is a roving radio frequency tag scanner for automated inventory.?The Pickle Robot and Stretch by Boston Dynamics have robotic arms to unload trucks.?
In airports, malls, universities and more. Avidbots’ Neo 2 floor scrubber cleans 42,000 square feet per hour.
In the parking lot, Knightscope’s security robots perform mobile surveillance with cameras, microphones, facial recognition and more.?
At the office and many other places, to do roaming videochats or monitoring.?Telepresence robots include the Ohmni Robot, Double 3 and Ava. Costs run from $600?to over $5,000. They can also be found at schools, museums and nursing homes.?
On roads or sidewalks to deliver food and other items. Delivery companies include Nuro, with a large street-legal machine, and Starship, which runs on sidewalks.?
At home. Labrador Systems sells a roaming cart that delivers trays of items. Amazon’s Astro is a small mobile robot for security. Amazon also just bought iRobot , maker of robot vacuums, for $1.7 billion. Worx and others sell self-driving lawn mowers.?
Plenty of robot start-ups won’t last. Expect a frenzy of acquisitions.?Many technical challenges remain, too. Among the areas being prioritized for improvement: Obstacle-avoiding perception, reliable bandwidth and data security.