2020, the year of robotics?

Will the robotics sector develop further or cool down in the coming months? The opinion of a sector expert.

It's an exciting time to work in the robotics industry. Driven by the growing diversification of the industry, the global sector, whose revenues today total more than $ 100 billion, has experienced rapid growth in recent years .

Industrial robots are no longer the exclusive pre-square of heavy industry or large factories. Collaborative robots, in particular, have helped to broaden the corporate customer base to include medium and even small businesses.

But is this golden age coming to an end? We spoke with Chris Harlow, director of product development at Realtime Robotics, about his forecast for 2020 and beyond. For him, if the good period that the sector is going through should continue, it will not last in all markets.

Especially with regard to collaborative robots (or "cobots"), these small units have contributed to the expansion of industrial automation beyond large factories. "Demand for cobots has peaked due to reduced functionality and capacity," said Chris Harlow. According to him "by 2025, manufacturers will no longer invest in these systems, and traditional cobots will be replaced by better technology for the human-robot work cell".

Industrial robots easier to handle

Part of the changes in the industry will be due to the increasing capabilities of traditional industrial robots, which have long been confined to cages, but which begin to work with humans through advanced vision systems and a host of other safety devices.

"Industrial robots will become more persuasive as they will become much easier to program," says Realtime's director of product development, interviewed by ZDNet. "With the expansion of robotic automation into new industrial areas such as logistics and electronics assembly, this will be critical to facilitate large-scale adoption." From script-based programming to programming based on graphics will be the catalyst behind it, "says the latter.

In the medium term, however, Harlow warned that the regulatory environment could slow the pace of progress. "In the 2020s, the landscape of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology will shift from the 'Wild West' where almost everything goes to a more controlled regulatory environment. The introduction of compulsory legislation will inevitably slow down the pace of progress, which will have an impact on robotic automation, "he says.

"For example, AI and ML algorithms will be subject to security regulations, which will hamper the speed of development of vision systems that are key to AV systems and industrial robots that take on more complex tasks such as kitting. or sorting packages ", adds the latter, for whom the current situation could harm an industry which has recorded an average annual growth rate of 26% in recent years.