Robotic Automation Emerges as a Threat to Traditional Low-Cost Outsourcing. Why outsource when you can automate? For most organizations, the answer is IT bureaucracy. Budget bottlenecks and IT’s ability to convolute any process improvement with massive waterfall technology implementations, even when the need is immediate, make automation a challenge. Yet automation looms as the right solution for the majority of rules-driven processes that are being outsourced today. HfS Research has spent some time examining a new technology called robotic automation, pioneered by UK-based vendor Blue Prism, that enables non-engineers to automate certain business processes quickly and cheaply.
The technology appears best suited for processes that are highly rules driven, and the requirement for which is too tactical or short-lived to justify development by IT organizations that favor service-oriented architecture (SOA) and tools like business process management (BPM) suites. Social Business Vendor Profile: IBM >A Tour of Robotistan: Outsourcing's Cheapest Destination > Augmented cognition. Augmented cognition (AugCog) is a research field at the frontier between human-computer interaction, psychology, ergonomics and neuroscience, that aims at creating revolutionary human-computer interactions.
The creation of such interactions stems from the ability of technology to measure human information processing and a user’s cognitive state. Various research projects aim at evaluating in real-time the cognitive state of a user, and this is most commonly evaluated by using either EEG or fNIR systems. Another main concept of AugCog is to design closed-loop systems to modulate information flow with respect to the user's cognitive capacity. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has an AugCog research program. See also[edit] References[edit] Fuchs, Sven; Hale, Kelly S.; Axelsson, Par;, "Augmented Cognition can increase human performance in the control room," Human Factors and Power Plants and HPRCT 13th Annual Meeting, 2007 IEEE 8th, vol., no., pp. 128–132, 26-31 Aug. 2007.
Build Your Own Google Glass. Last April, Google announced Project Glass. Its goal is to build a wearable computer that records your perspective of the world and unobtrusively delivers information to you through a head-up display. With Glass, not only might I share fleeting moments with the people I love, I’d eventually be able to search my external visual memory to find my misplaced car keys. Sadly, there is no release date yet. A developer edition is planned for early this year at the disagreeable price of US $1500, for what is probably going to be an unfinished product. But if Google is able to start developing such a device, it means that the components are now available and anyone should be able to follow suit. Most of the components required for a Glass-type system are very similar to what you can already find in a smartphone—processor, accelerometers, camera, network interfaces.
I needed a microdisplay with a screen between 0.3 and 0.6 inches diagonally, and with a resolution of at least 320 by 240 pixels. Monitor: March of the Lettuce Bot. Kuka | automatica 2012 presentation. Robotic Start-up Companies. Instructions: Use Google's directional and + and - markers on the left of the map to navigate and hone in on an area of interest (or double click near where you want to enlarge). Click on marker to get pop-up window with name, location and link to company's website. Filter: This global map does not cover an additional 1,000+ Ancillary Businesses such as image systems, software developers, engineering and consulting firms, integrators and resellers, designers, servo, laser and stereo camera providers, etc. Nor does it cover 250+ other educational facilities and research labs. These can be found in our Ancillary Businesses and Educational and Research Facilities Directories.
The map is also limited by my own research capabilities, language translation limitations, and scarcity of information about robotics companies in emerging countries. * Professional service robots - Continued Increase. Professional service robots - Continued Increase World Robotics 2012 - Service Robots published Taipei, 30 August 2012 - About 16,400 service robots for professional use were sold in 2011, 9% more than in 2010, reports the IFR Statistical Department in the new study "World Robotics 2012 - Service Robots", which was published on Thursday in Taipei.
The sales value increased by 6% to US$ 3.6 billion. Main applications: Defence and milking robots With about 6,600, service robots in defence applications accounted for 40% of the total number of service robots for professional use sold in 2011. The total number of field robots - mainly milking robots - sold in 2011 was about 5,000 units, accounting for a share of 31% of the total unit supply of professional service robots. Considerable growth potential of logistic systems and medical robots Sales of medical robots increased by 13% compared to 2010 to 1,051 units in 2011. A strong growing sector will be the mobile platforms in general use. * Industrial and service robotics in Europe - August 2011. * www.robotics-platform.eu/cms/upload/News/Pdf/2010-11-15_EC_DG_Industry_published_study_Robotics.pdf. Robotics Trends for 2012. What's in store for robotics in 2012? Nearly a quarter of the year is already behind us, but we thought we'd spend some time looking at the months ahead and make some predictions about what’s going to be big in robotics.
Or at least what we think is going to be big. Lacking divine powers (or a time machine) to peek into the future, we relied on our experience as longtime observers of the robotics landscape, covering the field here on Automaton and on Hizook, another leading robotics blog. To make sure our forecasts aren’t too far off, we asked a group of roboticists with different backgrounds for their predictions for 2012. This “panel of experts” provided invaluable insight, and after we tabulated everyone’s suggestions we narrowed it all down to the final 12. It was not an easy task. So many great ideas. Again, we’re not trying to present a comprehensive survey of the state of robotic research in 2012. Last year, a curious adornment started appearing on many robots’ heads. Global Demand For Robotics To Surpass $30 Billion In 2016.
ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS, the electronics industry market research and knowledge network, announces the availability of a new report entitled "Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets". Global demand for robotics will reach $21.8 billion in 2011. That value is projected to reach $30.1 billion in 2016, after increasing at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7%.
The global robotics market can be broken down into four regions that account for the sale of virtually all robots – Asia, North America, the European Union, and other markets. The Asian region, valued at $7.7 billion in 2011, is projected to reach $10.9 billion in 2016, yielding a CAGR of 7.2%. The North American region should be worth $4.9 billion in 2011, and in 2016 that value should reach $5.6 billion, a CAGR of 2.7%.
Robotics can be considered to be a subfield of automation. The global robotics market was promising at the turn of the millennium, but felt the effects of the recent economic downturn. Service Robotics Market (2012-2017) – Global Forecast & Assessment by Applications & Geography, Market Research Report :MarketsandMarekts. With the high adoption of service robotics systems in various professional and personal application areas, it is now expected that the demand in both these applications would transform the future of the service robotics market. The global service robotics market is expected to grow from USD 6.97 Billion in 2014 to USD 18.02 Billion by 2020 at a CAGR of 17.36% between 2015 and 2020.
The base year used for this study is 2014 and the forecast period is from 2015 to 2020. This report provides a detailed analysis of the market based on type, component, application, and geography. It has been estimated that the professional service robotics applications would hold a large share of the global market, in terms of value. To estimate the size of the service robotics market, top down and bottom up approaches have been implemented. Target audience: Report scope: Market, by type: aerial, ground, and underwater. Available Customizations: Product Analysis Geographic Analysis Company Information. Business Insider | Countries Where Robots Are Taking Over. Robots are taking over factories around the world. The International Federation of Robots tracks the growth in usage, production, and trade in robots, and the numbers have grown at a tantalizing rate.
Robot sales jumped by 38 percent in 2011, and the worldwide stock of robots is estimated to be in the range of 1,153,000 - 1,400,000 units — up from a minimum stock of 1,021,000 units in 2009. South Korea lead the way in robot density in 2011, with 347 robots per 10,000 workers in the manufacturing industry. What's more impressive is the tremendous spike in robot density; South Korea had 287 robots per 10,000 workers in 2010. Here are the countries where robots are taking over manufacturing: The automotive industry has an even greater robot density. Although three of the top four countries for robot densities stagnated from 2010-2011, developing countries like China, Thailand and Brazil saw big gains in robotic density.
Here are the countries where robots are taking over auto production: * Amazon buys Kiva for $775 mio. HP stirs more concerns with decline in printing. As if Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) didn't have enough problems with its lagging personal-computer business and admission it paid billions of dollars too much for software firm Autonomy, sales of printers -- long one of the Palo Alto tech giant's main revenue sources -- are shriveling. HP executives insist printers, ink and related products will remain essential for businesses and many individuals. But people aren't printing as much as they used to, in part, according to some experts, because of smartphones and tablets, which enable vast amounts of information to be easily accessed from anywhere. And the experts predict the trend will increase, which could further threaten HP's bottom line. "They are in trouble over the long term," said Federico De Silva, a principal analyst at the Gartner market research firm.
Gartner foresees global sales of printers and copiers -- which had been $50 billion in 2010 -- dwindling to $47.8 billion in 2014. That's just what HP doesn't want to hear. WTEC - Industrial, Service and Personal robots. The Robot Report - tracking the business of robotics. Statistics - IFR International Federation of Robotics. World Robotics 2013 Service Robots The total number of professional service robots sold in 2012 rose by a relatively low 2%compared to 2011 to 16,067 units up from 15,776 in 2011. The sales value slightly decreased by 1%to US$3.42 billion. Since 1998, a total of more than 126,000 service robots for professional use have been counted in these statistics. It is not possible to estimate how many of these robots are still in operation due to the diversity of these products resulting in varying utilization times. Some robots (e.g. underwater robots) might be more than 10 years in operation (compared to an average of 8 years in industrial robotics).
Others like defence robots may only serve for a short time. With about 6,200 units, service robots in defence applications accounted for almost 40% of the total number of service robots for professional use sold in 2012. In 2012, about 3 million service robots for personal and domestic use were sold, 20% more than in 2011. R4H | Final Report. EU: Roadmap for application of robotics in medicine and healthcare.