Industry Insights | The Rise of Autonomous Mobile Robots, with Broad Growth Potential for Robot Mobility Platforms

In recent years, the aging population structure, rapid increase in labor costs, and rapid technological iteration have jointly driven the growth of the robot market. Against the backdrop of continuous global technology upgrades, robots are not only used in manufacturing to assist in dangerous, repetitive, and heavy tasks but will gradually achieve human-machine collaboration in areas such as public services, personal/home services, and other services, enhancing human work efficiency and improving service and living experiences. At the same time, driven by COVID-19, the application demand for robots has further increased, and their value has been continuously recognized. The development of related emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and cloud computing will also continue to drive the iterative upgrade of robots. Various robot applications will accelerate optimization and development under professional technology and multi-scenario implementation.

The global robot market size reached $108.6 billion in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 12% from 2018 to 2022, and is expected to continue maintaining stable growth, reaching $186.6 billion by 2027.

The core needs of different scenarios for robots, as well as their practical value in real-world situations, increasingly depend on the autonomous mobility capabilities of the robots themselves. Autonomous mobility has become the cornerstone for unlocking the potential of robot applications.

For example, the main application scenarios of handling robots include logistics parks, warehouses, distribution centers, and sorting centers. Intensification, scale, and intelligence have become basic requirements for the logistics and warehousing industry to reduce comprehensive costs and improve operational levels. Robots with autonomous mobility capabilities can transport goods to pickers for 'goods-to-person' picking, reducing the process of pickers moving and searching for goods and improving handling efficiency and accuracy.

Compared to traditional robots, robots with autonomous mobility have a higher degree of intelligence and require higher capabilities in environmental perception, positioning navigation, path planning, motion control, human-machine interaction, device interconnection, etc.

• Environmental Perception

Perception technologies such as lidar, combined depth vision, and ultrasonic multi-sensor fusion provide a more comprehensive perception space; in highly dynamic operating environments, they can better cooperate with humans to execute tasks, making the workflow more efficient and suitable for working in mixed human-machine scenarios.

• Path Planning

They can operate flexibly according to road conditions; SLAM technology and mapping technology can enable robots to move over long distances.

• Motion Control

Multiple sensors can correspond to various movement strategies for different heights, stationary, and moving obstacles, dealing with different scenarios; visual cameras based on deep learning algorithms can handle more blind spots in multiple perspectives.

• Human-Machine Interaction

They can execute more tasks including screen touch and intelligent voice interaction according to instructions, such as providing mobile guidance and introductions for guests, making the robot service experience more user-friendly.

• Device Interconnection

They can be connected to smart IoT devices such as elevators, gates, and access control systems, integrating various functional modules for precise navigation, safe, and reliable operation.

As a collection of various technologies and functions, in addition to software functions such as voice interaction and content ecosystem, most key modules and functions are concentrated in the mobile platform part. Robot mobile platforms carry multiple functions such as motion control, environmental perception, and positioning navigation, making them an essential part of mobile robots and the core for achieving autonomous positioning and navigation.

With the breakthrough and rise of artificial intelligence technology, robots, as a comprehensive manifestation of technologies such as artificial intelligence and intelligent manufacturing, have received enthusiastic pursuit. The demand for robot mobile platforms based on autonomous positioning and navigation is also increasing day by day. They carry multiple functions such as robot positioning, navigation, and obstacle avoidance, making them an essential hardware for mobile robots.

The research and development of robot mobile platforms undertake most of the work related to robot body development, and the research and development capabilities of mobile platforms have become one of the key entry barriers for the autonomous mobile robot industry.

Currently, robot industry OEM manufacturers face a series of challenges in product research and development and commercial implementation:

Hardware Integration:A complete robot body contains a wide variety of hardware components. Facing different parts provided by suppliers, OEM manufacturers need to have a high level of hardware integration capabilities to meet the performance requirements of different customers;

Software and Artificial Intelligence Technology Research and Development and Integration:Robot OEM manufacturers need to invest a huge amount of capital and manpower in researching and developing the most core robot software and artificial intelligence software technologies; at the same time, there is a lack of unified standards for robot-to-IoT device docking in the industry, resulting in manufacturers having to invest a large amount of research resources in IoT technology research and development and device docking;

Commercial Implementation:OEM manufacturers need to go through a long process of market demand understanding, product design, research and development, production, verification, and need to establish an effective sales and service system. However, most manufacturers still rely on the sales channels of traditional offline channel partners and lack a mature commercial implementation system;

Solution Completeness:Most OEM manufacturers are restricted by their core technology breakthrough capabilities and in-depth understanding of pain points in various vertical application fields, and can only provide products or solutions for single scenarios or specific links, making it difficult to meet the comprehensive needs of end customers and hindering the horizontal expansion ability of business areas;

Solution Implementation and Service Provision:Currently, OEM manufacturers mainly rely on channel partners to serve end customers. Due to the lack of relevant technical backgrounds among downstream customers, they highly depend on the solution implementation and service provision capabilities of suppliers. However, channel partners often lack professional knowledge reserves and core technology capabilities and cannot provide high-quality services.

The emergence of robot mobile platform manufacturers has greatly promoted the process of large-scale commercial implementation of robots and driven the development of the entire industry. In the era of technology inclusiveness, mobile platform manufacturers advocate more for co-constructing ecosystems with software and hardware providers in various industries, integrating solutions, and achieving win-win cooperation.

The Unique Positioning of Mobile Platform Manufacturers:

1) Focus on serving the common and general needs of different scenarios, enter the industrial chain with standardized and modular general products, and through cooperation with business partners in the industrial chain, serve non-standardized needs of multiple scenarios with combined standardized products;

2) Serve a large number of mid-to-long-tail customers in multiple scenarios;

3) Lead the formulation of industry standards, empower emerging manufacturers, promote the commercial application of technologies, and drive the development of industry ecosystems;

4) Diversify revenue sources according to service scenario segmentation; serving mid-to-long-tail customers has the characteristics of high gross profit and high repurchase rate.

Overall, robots with autonomous mobility have been widely applied in various scenarios. The application of autonomous mobile robots has taken the lead in scenarios such as food delivery, hotel distribution, reception, and cleaning and disinfection. The potential market scale of mature application scenarios exceeds one trillion yuan. At the same time, in addition to mature application scenarios, there are more industrial, public service, special service, and personal/home service scenarios that have not yet met the demand for mobile robots, and this type of demand has broader development prospects and nearly trillion-dollar growth space.