Robot Market Watch 2010

iRobot CEO Colin Angel claimed recently in Wired that there is no good business model for a robot servant.
Nobody wants to pay massive amounts of cash for the androids the company is capable of making today.

Chief engineer Satoshi Shigemi, project leader of the ASIMO development, Honda R&D Co., Ltd said in an interview with Infonaut, that Honda has so far only reached about 10 percent of its technological targets for commercial humanoid robots. Much more research and development is needed before humanoids can be sold on consumer markets. Many issues such as safety, reliability, user friendliness are critical, human-robot interaction has to be considered carefully, even power supply is critical. Honda is focusing on human-robot interaction research to examine the diverse levels of robot acceptance and interaction around the world. The aim of this research is to better understand what the ideal interaction and communication between people and humanoid robots ought to be in the future. People need to be able to comfortably communicate with the robot so that it can react properly to their commands and carry out their wished when assistance is needed.
In his opinion consumer robotics is still in its infancy and it will take many years until affordable partner robots will be available on the market.

In the meantime new robots are developed to attract researchers and early business adopters. Some of the latest developments are new personal robot platforms and mobile telepresence robots.

PR2 - Personal robot platform
Willow Garage has announce that PR2, a robot platform for research and development is officially for sale. PR2 is priced at $400,000 but for individuals with a proven track record in contributions to the open source
community, the company also introduced an award which amounts to a $120,000 discount on PR2 purchases.

YouBot - Mobile robot arm 
Geman KUKA Robotics has unveiled a omni-directional mobile platform called "YouBot" with a 5 DOF
manipulator mobile robot. YouBot is prized € 19.990 excl. VAT and shipment and will be shiped in December 2010. Universities and research facilities are eligible for a 20% academic discount on KUKA youBot hardware. Early bird discount of 25% on KUKA youBot hardware is available until 15. September

Telepresence robots 
A new generation of telepresence robots is now available in the US for those who need to be att two places
at one. Telepresence robots are remote controlled cameras on wheels and connected via Wi-Fi to the users
computer or moble phone. The user can communicate via a "human-scale" robot with other people and
move around a workplace or home from anywhere.

VGO

VGO from Vgo Communications is a 4 foot high robot with a 7 inch display screen, camera auto-tilts based on drive speed. top 4,4 km/h (2,75 mph), text-to-speech, remote monitoring headlights and auto-docking to the charger. His battery life is around 6-10 hours of use. Vgo works over Wi-Fi, with a recommended bandwidth of at least 384kbps for good streaming of the H.264 video and audio. It´s four microphones provides good all-round audio pick-up in meeting scenarios. His camera can be positioned for "any view"
with a 60 degrees field of view. Finally, the dedicated Vgo app includes easy driving controls and works on any Windows PC with Webcam, speakers and mic attached. VGO is prized $ 4.995.

Tilr 

Tilr from RoboDynamics was introduced in 2007 and is a human-scale robot (3,8 or 4,2 foot high) with a 8 inch touch screen, and a 55 degrees camera view. Top speed is 3,9 km/h (2,4 mph). Web-based controls, video communication via Skype, Google Video Chat or MSN. The Tilr is prized $10.000.

Anybot QB

QB from Anybots, unveiled in May 2010 is an self-balancing, two-wheel drive robot, 2,6 to 6 foot high, with a 3,5 inch screen. Top speed is 5,6 km/h (3,5 mph). QB is prized $ 15.000

RP-7 Intouch Health

In the high-end segement is the RP-7 from InTouch Health, a 5,5 foot high robot with a 15 inch screen. RP-7 is FDA-cleard and connects directly to Class II medical devices including electronic stethoscopes, otoscopes and ultrasound. The RP-7 units sell for about $120,000 each, but most accounts are leasing the units for between $5.000 to $ 7.000 a month.

Willow Garage is developing a telepresence robot called Texai. It is 5,2 foot high and has a 15 inch screen. Top speed is 1,5 mph. No price available yet.

In Europe French Robosoft and US-Swedish Giraff Technologies are also developing telepresence robots targeting elderly and health care markets.  Robosoft has announced an agreement with US start-up Hoaloha Robotics to work collaboratively on the design of a socially assistive robot. See here.

Mobile robot arm from KUKA

After desktop computing and desktop 3D printing now it´s time to think desktop manipulation and tele-manufacturing. In a near future thousands of students and entrepreneurs will get access to new design and production tools to learn, experiment and realize their product and service dreams. A new era of small scale production and tele-operated manufacturing may be at the horizon, a renaissance for local production and new craftsmen and women?

German industrial robotics manufacturer KUKA Robotics has developed a mobile manipulator for education and research that could become instrumental for promoting and accelerating research in mobile manipulation. The robot is called „youBot“ and has the weight and size to fit on a regular desktop although this is not intended to be the primary work space.

In a student project of the Bavarian elite graduate program Software Engineering at the University of Augsburg an early prototype of the KUKA youBot was connected to the Nintendo Wii controller. Motions of the controller are translated into motions of the youBot arm which holds a wooden marble labyrinth game. Different game modes are possible, where two players can play cooperatively or against each other. 

The omni-directional mobile platform with a 5 DOF manipulator mobile robot is prized € 19.990 excl. VAT and shipment. First KUKA youBots will ship in December 2010. Universities and research facilities are eligible for a 20% academic discount on KUKA youBot hardware. Early bird discount of 25% on KUKA youBot hardware is available until 15. September 2010. 

Locomotec, the official KUKA youBot distributor, has registered the robot in the ECHORD hardware list. Based on the listed robotics hardware European universities and research labs can propose so-called experiments. Experiments are small-scale focused research projects with a strong focus on industrial relevance.

Investing in Robot Stocks

In 2003 Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot, gave a TED-talk predicting "robots will invade our lives". In 2007 Bill Gates predicted in Scientific America the robotics industry as the "next PC industry". Roboticists in Japan, South Korea, USA and Europe predict that robots will enter our homes and do everything from vacuum cleaning, dish washing, cooking, monitoring children and elderly in the near future. A multi billion growth industry is expected to develop in the next couple of years, but no one can say with any certainty when this will happen. So far, the number of robotics companies traded at the stock market are few and dominated by industrial robotics , only a few are related to service or consumer robotics.

Investing in robotics stocks has been a disappointment so far as shown in the stock graph below. In the last five years leading consumer robotics company iRobot (IRBT) has lost 45 percent of its stock value. Even industrial robotics companies such as Japanese Fanuc (6506), German KUKA (KU2) or US Adept (ADEP) have lost value caused by financial crisis and recession starting in 2007-08.

Source: Google Finance

But one robotic stock that did very well during the recession is Intutitive Surgical the global technology leader in robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS). The Company's da Vinci® Surgical System offers surgeons superior visualization, enhanced dexterity, greater precision and ergonomic comfort for the optimal performance of MIS. In June 2003 the share was trading at $6.02, now it is trading around $ 360.

Source: Google Finance