Unfolding Cloud Robotics Application and Market Opportunity!

What is Cloud Robotics?

Cloud Robotics is the application of cloud technology into physical robots enabling robots to share resources & data among them and to collaborate with other machines, smart objects, and humans. The cloud technology includes cloud computing capabilities, cloud data storage, and other internet technologies deployed over cloud platform. The cloud capability opens up whole new range of opportunities for robotics services while using powerful computational, storage, and communication resources of modern data centres. It can even receive delegated tasks remotely from human and perform accordingly. The cloud serves as intelligent brain for the robot consisting data centre, knowledge base, task planners, deep learning, information processing, environment models, and communication support.

Why Cloud Robotics is Different?

Unlike traditional robots, cloud enabled robots has access to computing resources delivered over cloud connected network. The computing resources include large amounts of up-to-date data gathered from the internet, data exploitation capabilities using localization algorithm, and image exploitation capabilities using object recognition algorithm. Apart from outsourcing computations to the cloud, it can enjoy some benefits over reducing overall automation costs and saving battery life of the robot. The traditional robots that is physically constraints suffer from limited resources and capabilities to handle large range of functions.

Functional Architecture of Cloud Robotics

Cloud Robotics functions in three dimensional way i.e. machine to machine (M2M), machine to cloud (M2C), and machine to human (M2H) that can also be called enabling subsystems. On M2M level, a group of robots communicate with other robots via wireless links and forms a collaborative computing unit. It collects information from other robots, environments, and send it to cloud centre. On the other hand, these robots will have access to information stored in the cloud centre and sends computation requests to the cloud. On M2C level, robots communicate with cloud control centre and share computation & storage resources. The cloud works as the remote brain of the robotics system and elastic computing model facilitates networked robots to offload computation-intensive tasks for remote execution. On M2H level, robots interact with human in the form of receiving instruction, performing tasks, and sending status report. While processing task, it communicates with cloud centre for computational purpose, stored information, and updating status to cloud storage.

Cloud Robotics Market Opportunity

The proliferation of cloud robotics market created ample opportunities for multiple market players including robot manufacturers, semiconductor companies, software developers, cloud infrastructure & service providers, cloud computing providers, robotics platform providers, manufacturing companies of all types, robot distributors, robot service & consultancy firm, value added service providers, and technology investors. Among all types of robotics market, cloud robotics is the most emerging and lucrative sectors generating high possibility of investment ROI. Small and cheaper robots are going to conquer the personal service market attracting huge investment but it is more of little volatile in nature. The potential is huge but no clear cut winning path, however some robotics product & services like cleaning robots will surely gain huge momentum in next decade. The most lucrative investment sector will be industrial sectors where cloud robotics solution in any types will generate huge ROI in next decade.

Cloud Robotics Application

Cloud robotics will highly be beneficial for robotic applications including ability to offload computation-intensive tasks to the cloud, access to huge amount of data stored in cloud, and access to shared knowledge & new skillsets. Cloud Robotics capabilities aims to improve the physical performance of robots and that will be important to create various types of service application in major sectors including Industrial, Professional Service, Personal Service, and Military & Government.

Industrial sectors will lead the market with 41% revenue for cloud robotics market inviting deployment in multiple industries such s manufacturing, automotive, and transportation & logistics. Professional service application will follow industrial sectors with 28% market of the cloud robotics including industries like hospital, clinics, & medical, agriculture, travel & tourism, retail & consumer service, and home & construction. Personal robotics service can be applied to different industries including entertainment, education, personal healthcare, and home appliances. Finally, Military and Government application sectors will share 8% of the cloud robotics market inviting industries like Defense, Border & Security, Transportation & Aerospace, and Space industry.

My research on “Cloud Robotics: Technologies, Leading Companies, Solutions, Market Outlook, and Forecasts 2017 – 2022” evaluates the ecosystem, players, technologies and solutions for Cloud Robotics. The report covers all major robot types such as stationary, wheeled, and legged robots. The report provides global and regional forecasts for Cloud Robotics apps, services, and components from 2017 to 2022. Forecasts include the market outlook for Cloud Services support of Cloud Robotics including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Robotics as a Service (RaaS). Forecasting for Cloud Robotics by deployment model is also included covering Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and Community Cloud.

A sampling of forecast details in the report includes the following:

• Cloud Robotics by Type including: Crawler Robots, Flying Robots, Hybrid Robots, Legged Robots, Micro Robots, Modular Robots, Nano Robots, Robotic Balls, Snake Robots, Soft or Elastic Robots, Stationary Robots, Swarm Robots, Swimming Robots, and Wheeled Robots.
• Major Cloud Robotics Components including: Belts & Pulleys, Breadboard, Chassis, Displays & lighting, Electronic Kits, Gears, Grippers, LCD/Graphic Displays, Linear Actuators, Microcontrollers, Motion Components, Motors, PAN & TILT Systems, Power Supplies, Processors & ICs, Propellers, Radio & Communication, Relays & Interface Kits, Robot Computers, Robotic Arms, Robotic Cables, Robotic Legs, Screw, Nuts & Washers, Sensors & Navigation, Servos & Bracket, Tracks & Sprockets, Tubing & Shafting, Vision & Camera, and Wheels.
• Cloud Robotics Software market including Cloud Data Storage & Analytics, Integrated Virtual Robots, and Robotics Application Software.
• Cloud Robotics Services market including Connectivity Services, Professional Consulting, and System Integration
• Cloud Robotics Connectivity including: Bluetooth, Cellular (by 3G, 4G, and 5G), Infrared and WiFi
• Cloud Robotics by Industry Vertical including:
• Industrial Cloud Robotics by Automotive, Manufacturing, and Transportation & Logistics
• Professional Service Cloud Robotics by Agriculture, Healthcare & Medical, Home & Construction, Retail & Consumer Service, and Travel & Tourism including Aerospace
• Personal Service Cloud Robotics by Education, Entertainment, Home Appliances, and Personal Healthcare
• Military and Government Cloud Robotics by Aerospace, Transportation, and Defense