Mobile Robots and Autonomous Vehicles:

Last week Amazon announced that it planned on hiring 100,000extra workers to meet the rise in demand for online shopping created byCoronavirus-caused shutdowns and social distancing. On 19 March 2020, unionssaid workers were demanding that Amazon takes their lives seriously. The nightbefore a facility in Queens, NY, had been closed for deep cleaning after anemployee tested positive for the virus.

There are reports that some Amazon warehouse workers inItaly and Spain have tested positive. In France, several hundred Amazon workersprotested to demand better measures to protect their safety. In Italy, therehave been calls for a strike. This and similar developments once again bringinto focus the motivation, and at times the imperative, to increase automationin the logistics and delivery chain.

IDTechEx have been examining the technological and commercial trends in this field for several years. Their report Mobile Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, and Drones in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040 focuses on automation of movement in every step of the logistics and delivery chain ranging from a warehouse or a factory to the delivery of goods to the final customer destination.

This landscape and therefore, the scope of the report includes the following:

The emerging technology research firm finds that this market in total will reach $81 and $290 billion in 2030 and 2040, respectively.This is a colossal transfer of value from wage expenses to a combination ofcapital investments and service subscription to autonomous robots of varioustypes. This staggering headline is, of course, very large, and hides the keyindividual trends characterizing each technology and use case. In the remainderof this article, IDTechEx analysts seek to highlight the key trends.

Goods-to-personautomated carts/robots

Large fleets of robots are already deployed to help automatethe goods-to-person step in many fulfilment centres. These robots move rackswithin robot-only zones, bringing them to manned picking stations.

This is a fast-growing market space. The landscape was seton fire when Amazon acquired Kiva Systems for $775M in 2012, thereby leaving agap on the market. Today, significant well-funded alternatives such as GeekPlus(389$M), GreyOrange (170$M), and HIK Vision ($6Bn revenue) have emerged,achieving promising and growing deployment figures. The number of start-ups hasalso increased, especially within the 2015-2017 period.

IDTechEx forecasts the annual unit sales to double within six years. Despite the large deployments already, they assess the real global inflection point to arrive around 2024 beyond at which point the pace of deployment will dramatically accelerate. Indeed, the research firm forecasts that between 2020 and 2030, more than 1 million such robots will be sold accumulatively. It is, therefore, an exciting time.

Collaborativeautonomous mobile robots

Another major trend is the use of autonomous mobile robotsand vehicles. Autonomous mobile robots are emerging, which offerinfrastructure-independent navigation in defined indoor environments. Theserobots boost productivity and enable many hybrid human-robot interaction modes.They can also bring automation to warehouses and fulfilment centres which werenot specifically designed and built to support robotic goods-to-person.

The technology is enabled by better SLAM algorithms. Thealgorithms based on different sensors, including stereo camera and 2D lidars are evolved enough to handle safe autonomous navigation within manystructured indoor environments with a high degree of control andpredictability.

The technology options however are still many, and choiceshave long-lasting strategic consequences. The business models are also variousand evolving. Some are offering their technology as RaaS (robot as a service).

There have also been some notable recent acquisitions.Amazon acquired a company focused on camera-based navigation, which wouldenable object detection and classification, and thus more intelligentnavigation. Shopify acquired a firm with a full solution, including the entiresoftware stack. Overall, the IDTechEx report Mobile Robots, AutonomousVehicles, and Drones in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040forecasts that more than 200k robots could be sold within the 2020-2030 period(this figure includes those that can perform picking of regularly orirregularly shaped items).

The report Mobile Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, and Drones in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040 provides a comprehensive analysis of all the key players, technologies, and markets. It includes technology roadmaps and twenty-year market forecasts, in unit numbers and revenue, for all the technologies outlined at the beginning of the article (13 forecast lines). It offers a twenty-year model because IDTechExs technology roadmap suggests that these changes will take place over long timescales. In their detailed forecasts, the report clearly explains the different stages of market growth.

Mobile Picking Robots

Picking or grasping technology is an essential component ofwarehouse automation. Today, many firms and research groups are deploying deeplearning to enable robots to pick novel and irregularly shaped items rapidlyand with high success rates.

A limited number of firms have integrated picking arms onmobile platforms. Today, these mainly pick box-shaped items in knownenvironments. However, progress will bring these technologies to more varieditems. It will also allow better integration of the robotic arm with the mobileplatform.

In the short term, more learning is required. However,recent advances on the algorithm side suggest that progress will be rapidalthough the algorithms will need to achieve not just high rates but alsohigh-speed to drive down the ROI on these tools. In the very long term though, IDTechExforecast that 36% and 38% of AMRs in warehouses sold in 2040 will be able topick regular as well as irregular-shaped items, respectively. This pointstowards a major long-term technology transformation, requiring automationbeyond just autonomy of movement. IDTechEx Analysts consider this a majortechnology development opportunity.

Autonomous forkliftsand other industrial vehicles

Autonomous forklifts and tugs are emerging onto the market.The navigation technology has progressed significantly. Naturally, the cost ofautonomous forklifts is higher, but the claimed ROI by many suppliers is within12-18 months. The cost includes the installation and maintenance as well as thecost of the autonomous sensor suite, traction control and drivers, and thesoftware, which can be amortized over a growing deployed fleet. Overall, priceparity on an annual operational cost basis is nearly at hand in some high wageterritories.

The unit sales here can reach 1.8k in 2020, which seems ahigh number but still small relative to the addressable market. Over the past1.5 years, however, this market has also entered the early stages of its growthphase. Analysis and interviews conducted by IDTechEx suggest that inflectionpoint is likely to be reached around 2025-2027. After this point, they projectthe sales to grow, already exceeding 100k units by 2030. Note that IDTechExgenerally develops 20-year forecasts for autonomous mobility as the technologywill inevitably take time to be rolled out.

Long-haul truck delivery

Long-haul trucks are a prime target for autonomous mobility.This is because autonomous mobility can address many industry pain-points andbecause there is a clear commercial case, unlike passenger vehicles. The firstpain point is that there is a shortage of drivers, which could increase to 160kper 2028 in the USA. The second pain point is the operating cost, this isbecause wages are high, and likely to go up given that demand outstrips supply.Safety requirements limit the number of uninterrupted hours a driver can spendon the road, limiting the productivity of the asset. Finally, the longstretches of highway lend themselves well to autonomous mobility, unlike thechaotic conditions in dense urban driving.

IDTechEx has carefully analyzed the companies and technologies behind autonomous trucking. Their report Mobile Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, and Drones in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040 offers deep technology analysis and granular market forecasts. It is plausible that the deployed trucks could exceed 1300 units by the end of 2020; this is still a small number but shows the direction of travel. The report finds that the deployment of level-4 autonomous trucks will grow slowly until 2025, after which point the growth has the potential to rise rapidly. IDTechExs estimate suggests that the market could reach 550k level-4 units/year by 2030. Their roadmap suggests that level-5 will remain virtually non-existent for another decade and will only grow beyond 2030. The full 2020-2040 forecasts, segmented by autonomy level is available on http://www.IDTechEx.com/Mobile.

Last-mile deliveryvans and side-walk robots

This is an interesting technological frontier. The cost oflast-mile delivery is often 50% of the total cost. As such, there is a strongcommercial incentive to automate this step to boost productivity. There are twoapproaches: on-road last-mile delivery vans or pods and side-walk robotic.

The on-road vans and pods share many technologicalchallenges with other on-road autonomous vehicles. The difference however, isthat they can operate in limited well-mapped and known-environments and thatthey can potentially travel at low-speeds. They also will not have passengerson-board, simplifying some of the safety challenges.

IDTechExs report identifies and profiles the key companiesactive in this field. They analyze the technological progress, challenges, andinnovation opportunity. The report develops short-, medium-, and long-termmarket forecasts segmented by level of autonomous. It finds that package (orsimilar) delivery vans and pods will be deployed in small number until 2026.Indeed, the annual deployments will remain below 3k units/year until 2026. Themarket growth for level-4 vans/pods will then accelerate, especially from 2027onwards. Level-5 mobility will onlyarrive from 2032 onwards and even then, only in small numbers.

The side-walk robots have their own unique design andtechnology challenges. The economics underpinning their business cases are alsodifferent. The key for them is extending the autonomy level of the side-walkrobots to a point where very large fleets with a very small number of remotehuman teleoperators can be deployed.

Here too, despite the progress, the deployment will remainsmall in the short term. IDTechEx forecast that annual deployment will remainaround or below 3k unit/annually until 2024, their model however projects ahump in 2025. This is likely because the technology will have reached enoughmaturity to prove its business case and also to address many of the edge pointsin its autonomous navigation. The market has the potential to then rapidlyaccelerate to 30k units/year by 2030. The costs will, of course, be lowespecially as the camera and lidar costs (if lidar is deployed) will bedramatically reduced and the fleet-to-operator ratio driven up. The money asforecast in the report will be in the services which scale with theaccumulated fleet size and utilization rate thereof.

This report Mobile Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, and Dronesin Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040 provides a comprehensiveanalysis of all the key players, technologies, and markets. It offerstechnology roadmaps and twenty-year market forecasts, in unit numbers andrevenue, for all the technologies outlined above (13 forecast lines). It buildsa twenty-year model because IDTechExs technology roadmap suggests that these changeswill take place over long timescales. In the detailed forecasts, the researchfirm clearly explains the different stages of market growth and outline the keyassumptions/conditions as well as data points that underpin the model.

Sea News Feature, March 30

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COVID-19 Pandemic Pushes Logistic Automation up the Agenda - Sea News