Robots are now being increasingly adopted for service applications, both by consumers and professionals. The service robot market comprises many different types of robots, most of which can be used for applications in multiple industries.
At a consumer level service robots are commonly used for tedious and repetitive tasks such as domestic chores, or for leisure and entertainment purposes.
At a professional level, service robotics often represents an investment that has potential to significantly increase efficiency and reduce costs by replacing traditional methods.
Robotics in professional applications has already had a significant impact in areas such as agriculture, healthcare, logistics and public relations and is growing in economic importance. “Robotic exoskeletons help elderly and disabled people to restore body functions and enable them to remain active in society. In hospitals, innovative robots support doctors to perform safer and less invasive surgeries. Autonomous robots transport goods and parcels in manufacturing plants and logistics centres. Unmanned aerial vehicles can autonomously gather useful data for a variety of industries such as agriculture”, continues Carl Jonsson, IoT analyst, Berg Insight.
Industries that will experience changing dynamics due to the entrance of service robots include agriculture, construction, medical, logistics, hospitality, entertainment and domestic consumer goods.
Major Segments of Service Robots
Ten major segments of the service robot market are believed to hold great market potential looking at the next ten years. These include floor cleaning robots, robot lawn mowers, milking robots, telepresence robots, surgical robots, automated guided vehicles, autonomous mobile robots, unmanned aerial vehicles as well as humanoid, assistant and social companion robots.
The installed base of service robots will reach 264 million worldwide by 2026
The global service robot market is dominated by three segments that together accounted for a majority of the global installed base at the end of 2016.
Floor cleaning robots: The largest segment in terms of installed base is the floor cleaning robot segment, which alone accounted for 80 percent of total at the end of 2016 with an estimated 23.8 million units.
Robot lawn mowers: The other two large segments include the UAV segment as well as the robot lawn mower segment, which are estimated to have reached installed bases of around 4.0 million and 1.6 million units respectively at the end of 2016.
Milking robots: 0.1 million AGVs and 0.05 million milking robots are estimated to have been active at the end of 2016.
The remaining segments including humanoid robots, assistant robots and companion robots, telepresence robots, powered human exoskeletons, surgical robots and autonomous mobile robots are all estimated to have had less than 50,000 units installed each at the end of 2016.
The strong market growth is expected to last for years to come, driving the installed base of active service robots worldwide to 264.3 million by 2026, which corresponds to CAGR of 24 percent between 2016 and 2026.
The growing interest and rapid development in service robotics in recent years is much due to the many innovative and successful start-ups active on the market. Large companies are also increasingly investing in robotics, either through in-house R&D investments or via acquisitions of start-ups. “Service robots are clearly on the rise in everyday environments” says Egil Edvardsen, IoT Analyst, Berg Insight. “Already today, domestic service robots help individuals in their homes to clean the floors and windows, mow the lawn and water the garden. In a not too distant future, we can expect domestic robots of even higher sophistication and capability, such as assistive robots for supporting the elderly, for helping with additional household chores and for entertainment and education”.
Connectivity choices for Service Robots
Short range connectivity technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are the most commonly used connectivity choices in service robots today. Berg Insight estimates that 18.5 percent of all service robots at the end of 2016 featured some short range connectivity technology.
Berg Insight estimates that there were 63,000 cellular connected service robots active at the end of 2016, which only represents 0.2 percent of the global installed base. Cellular connectivity technology is today most commonly used by telepresence robots as well as by exoskeletons. It is estimated that 30.1 percent of all telepresence robots that were active at the end of 2016 featured cellular connectivity.
This figure is estimated to be 15.0 percent for exoskeletons. Additional segments that featured cellular connectivity to some extent include the humanoid, assistant and social companion robot segment and the robot lawn mower segment. Berg Insight forecasts that 88.3 percent of all service robots active in 2026 will feature some kind of short-range connectivity. The corresponding percentage for cellular connectivity is forecasted to be 13.9 percent equal to 36.8 million units.
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