Updated date - Nov 28, 2019

[157 Pages Report] MarketsandMarkets forecasts the smart robots market size to grow from USD 4.9 billion in 2018 to USD 14.3 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.7% during the forecast period. The major factors that are expected to be driving the market are growing adoption of autonomous robots for professional services, emerging technological advancements in the field of robotics, increasing investments toward industrial automation, and growing government aid for R&D of AI-enabled robots. The objective of the report is to define, describe, and forecast the market size based on component, operating environment, mobility, application, and region.

By component, the software segment is expected to grow at the highest growth rate during the forecast period

Among the components segment, the software segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. As technological advancements will lead to the growing complexity in terms of features such as inter-device connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), and autonomous operations, the software segment is likely to get more importance than that of the hardware segment in the overall smart robots market as software will assist the complex functionalities to process efficiently and accurately.

Professional applications to dominate the smart robots market during the forecast period

The professional applications of smart robots include defense and security, demining, fire and bomb fighting, field, medical, underwater, logistics, telepresence, inspection and maintenance, etc. The professional applications are expected to dominate the smart robots market during the forecast period owing to the increasing demand from defense and marine applications to safeguard the country borders. Moreover, with the increasing complexity of manufacturing processes and miniaturization of semiconductor and electronics equipment, there is an increase in the use of AI-based smart industrial robots. Smart robots in the electronics equipment industry are used for designing and planning stages of the manufacturing process; thereby creating a huge potential for the growth of the smart robot market in the near future.

Smart Robots Market in APAC to grow at significant CAGR during the forecast period

Among all the regions, the smart robots market in APAC is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. APAC is likely to adopt smart robots for almost all the major industrial and service applications during the forecast period. As the elderly population in APAC countries, such as China and Japan, is on the rise, the region is expected to employ humanoids (smart home robots) for personal assistance and caregiving applications. All these factors coupled with few government initiatives related to AI enabled robots (intelligent robots) in the developing countries in APAC is expected to fuel the growth of the smart robot market in APAC.

Market Dynamic : Market Dynamics

Driver: Growing government aid for R&D of AI-enabled robots

Many countries such as the US, China, South Korea, and Japan have been investing heavily on R&D of AI-enabled robots. For instance, in October 2016, the South Korean government announced an investment of USD 450 million for the robotics sector. Major share of this investment was directed toward R&D centers to develop intelligent robot. European Union funded over USD 110.6 million (EUR 100 million) between 2010 and 2016 under the information and communication technologies (ICT) strand of the research framework program and under the Active and Assisted Living (AAL) joint program. Such financial assistance from governments of countries worldwide helped the players in the smart robot market carry out R&D activities, thereby driving the growth of the said market.

Restraint: High initial R&D expenditure

Robots, such as robotics toys, educational robots, and programmable industrial robots, developed using mass-market components can perform simple tasks and are easily available in the market at competitive cost. However, in case of smart robots, as the level of complexity of tasks increases, the cost of R&D incurred also increases. The leading robotics companies, such as iRobot (US), FANUC (Japan), KUKA (Germany), and ABB (Switzerland), are striving hard to introduce new technologically advanced robotics solutions in the market and are incurring high R&D cost. There is a need to use radically different approaches�such as combining technologies, product designs, materials, and manufacturing�to develop attractive robotic products for large markets, thereby giving a rise to major economies of scale and cost-for-value solutions. The overall smart robot market is gaining traction; however, high R&D costs are restraining the wide adoption of AI-based robots and adversely affecting the growth of this market.

Opportunity: Adoption of IoT on wide level

With the adoption of IoT on a high level, the demand for always connected devices and systems is also growing. Robot manufacturers are working toward the development of robots that are capable to stay connected with devices in the network seamlessly. To make IoT compatible robots, the robots should be autonomous and must be capable to act and respond to the surrounding instantly without human intervention. AI-enabled robots are the best fit for this requirement as they can manipulate data received from its environment and can respond to time-critical situations like humans. Increasing investments by enterprises on smart cities, connected cars, and process automation in manufacturing companies are contributing to the evolution of IoT, which, in turn, provide huge opportunity for the growth of the smart robot market.

Challenge: Safety concerns due to complex high-level interfacing

As the ongoing trend of robotics requires the merger of mechanical and software engineering, many companies are capitalizing on this to enhance their expertise in mechatronics and software. The focus on these robots has been to reduce injuries to humans in events of accidents due to collision between robots and humans, for instance, in logistics, sheep yards, and others. With the development of robotics applications that are expected to interact closely with humans, safety of humans from robots is a major concern. This implies that the hardware and software of the robots have to be very safe, and there should be no risk of malfunctioning. Efforts are being made to program the robots in such a way that they can adjust to humans, environment, and varying conditions. There is a need for advancements in activities related to coordination and cooperation among several units�for instance, who should talk to whom, what information needs to be shared, how to acquire information, and so on. Advanced smart robot designs are increasingly becoming complex and the networks are becoming dynamic, posing a challenge in predicting safe performance of robots in untested environments.

Scope of the Report

Report Metric Details Market size available for years 2015�2023 Base year considered 2017 Forecast period 2018�2023 Forecast units Market Size (USD Million) and Volume (Units) Segments covered Component, Mobility (Stationary and Mobile), Operating Environment (Ground and Underwater), Application, and Region Geographies covered Americas, Europe, APAC, and RoW Companies covered SoftBank (Japan), iRobot (US), KUKA (Germany), ABB (Switzerland), Hanson Robotics (China), Amazon (US), FANUC (Japan), Blue Frog Robotics (France), YASKAWA ELECTRIC (Japan), Universal Robots (Denmark), Rethink Robotics (US), ECA Group (France), DeLaval (Denmark), Intuitive Surgical (US), Bluefin Robotics (US), Aethon (US), Neato Robotics (US), Samsung (South Korea), GeckoSystems (US), and Kongsberg Maritime (Norway)

The research report categorizes the smart robots market to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-segments:

Smart Robots Market By Component

Hardware Sensor Gyroscope Microphone Accelerometer Tilt Sensor Force/Torque Sensor Position Sensor Vision/Image Sensor Others Actuator Electrical Pneumatic Hydraulic Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Power Source Control System Processors MPUs GPUs FPGAs ASICs Controllers Others

Software

Smart Robots Market By Mobility

Stationary

Mobile

Smart Robots Market By Operating Environment

Ground

Underwater

Smart Robots Market By Application

Personal and Domestic Companionship Education and Entertainment Domestic Others Elderly and Handicap Assistance Home Security and Surveillance

Professional Military & Defense Spying Search and Rescue Operations Border Security Combat Operations Law Enforcement Patrolling Riot Control Public Relations Reception Management Tour Guidance Telepresence Logistics Management Pick and Place Sorting Industrial Manufacturing Material Handling Inspection and Maintenance Field/Agriculture Healthcare Assistance Others



Smart Robots Market By Region

Americas

Europe

Asia Pacific (APAC)

Rest of the World (RoW)

Integration of Robots with AI and IoT (Qualitative)

Connectivity Technology Ethernet WiFi Bluetooth Cellular

Network Devices Ethernet Adapters Interconnects

Storage Devices

Interoperability Software

Key Market Players

SoftBank (Japan), iRobot (US), KUKA (Germany), ABB (Switzerland), Hanson Robotics (China), Amazon (US), FANUC (Japan), Blue Frog Robotics (France), YASKAWA ELECTRIC (Japan), Universal Robots (Denmark), Rethink Robotics (US), ECA Group (France), DeLaval (Denmark), Intuitive Surgical (US), Bluefin Robotics (US), Aethon (US), Neato Robotics (US), Samsung (South Korea), GeckoSystems (US), NVIDIA (US), Intel (US), IBM (US), Microsoft (US), Xilinx (US), and Alphabet (US), Promobot (Russia), AIBrain (US), DataRobot (US), LG (South Korea), Ecovacs (China), Dyson (UK), Alfred K�rcher (Germany), Deere & Company (US), Husqvarna Group (Sweden), BSH Hausger�te (Germany), LEGO (Denmark), Miele (Germany), Bissell (US), Pillo (US), and Kongsberg Maritime (Norway).

SoftBank conducts investment activities keeping the vision of setting up new businesses. In 2012, Softbank entered the robotics market through the acquisition of Aldebaran Robotics (France) in a deal of approximately USD 100 million. SoftBank Robotics, a subsidiary of the SoftBank Group, changed the �Aldebaran� brand name to �SoftBank Robotics� in view to increase global brand awareness and business scale. Hence, the Aldebaran Robotics (France) had been renamed to SoftBank Robotics Europe, making the related subsidiaries to change the name accordingly. This made Aldebaran Robotics (US) and Aldebaran Robotics (China) to be renamed as SoftBank Robotics America and SoftBank Robotics China Trading, respectively.

Recent Developments

In November 2017, SoftBank entered the cleaning robot business by boarding scrubber utilizing the automatic driving technology of Brain (US).

In July 2017, iRobot acquired Robopolis (France), a major distributor in Europe. This acquisition further helped iRobot expand its presence in Europe.

In April 2017, KUKA collaborated with SAP (Germany) to integrate KUKA robots and SAP Cloud Platform. This is expected to help companies adopting KUKA robots evaluate predictive maintenance scenarios in their factories and monitor factory floors easily.

In July 2017, ABB acquired Bernecker + Rainer Industrie-Elektronik, a German-based provider of products and software solutions for machine and factory automation. With this acquisition, ABB is expected to strengthen its software support for its robotics business.

In March 2016, Hanson Robotics launched its latest prototype of humanoid robot Sophia at SXSW conference.

Critical questions the report answers:

As new companies enter the market targeting popular applications such as vacuuming, who will account for a larger market share�the top 4 players or new entrants?

In the case of domestic and entertainment robots, which type will have a larger market share, and which will be the fast-growing type?

With applications of AI, coupled with advanced sensors, software, and cameras, capabilities of household robots have increased significantly in the last few years. Will AI-enabled voice assistants from Google (US) and Amazon (US) become a mainstream feature in personal applications?

In 2017, both North America and APAC held a relatively similar market share; however, APAC is expected to surpass the North American market in the near future. Will China be the fastest-growing country, or will this trend change as other countries in APAC start to adopt smart robots?

What are the key market dynamics influencing market growth? How will it play into the strength and weaknesses of the company, both from its internal and external viewpoint?

Customization Options:

With the given market data, MarketsandMarkets offers customizations as per the company�s specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:

Product Analysis

Product matrix that gives a detailed comparison of the product portfolio of each company

Company Information

Detailed analysis and profiling of additional market players (up to 5)

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