The market for mobile robots in the logistics, delivery, and warehousing sectors will be worth $83 billion by 2032. Over the subsequent ten years to 2042, it will experience a 251 percent increase to $334 billion.
That’s according to a report from IDTechEx, Mobile Robotics in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2022-42.
In these spaces, robots typically automate movement-based tasks, including picking, lifting, and carrying. Device types include automated guided vehicles (AGVs), automated guided carts (AGCs), autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), mobile case-picking machines, mobile manipulators, autonomous Level-4 trucks, last-mile delivery platforms (including autonomous vans and smaller robots for packages), and drones.
The report also discusses some of the enabling technologies, including sensors.
However, it is not a simple story of growth and demand booming on the back of consumers wanting faster, lower-friction experiences.
Some technologies are likely to be interim solutions. For example, many AGCs and AGVs are local infrastructure dependent, often running on grids within warehouses and other facilities.
“Their installation is time-consuming, and their workflow is difficult to adapt. Consequently, they are on relatively shaky ground, because the technology is evolving towards more autonomous and infrastructure-independent navigation,” says the report.
“But they are more reliable in terms of transporting heavy loads for a long distance. Therefore, we forecast their market will have healthy growth [from now] but start to decrease between 2032-2037 (depending on product forms). They will increasingly become confined to ever narrower market niches.”
That said, grid-based AGCs will still have applications in goods-to-person automation in fulfilment centres and large warehouses. “Special robot-only zones are created within warehouses in which these robot fleets move racks at high speeds to a manned picking station, leading to clear and proven productivity gains. This will be a fast-growing market space by 2030.”
In general, however, automated processes will gradually make way for autonomous systems, enabled by better simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) algorithms.
In other words, over the next 20 years the direction of travel will be towards AMRs, which may place fewer demands on industry, save time and money, and be easier to scale and adopt flexibly.
However, Transform Industry believes uptake will also depend on public and business acceptance of autonomous systems, which will need to prove they are far better than 99 percent safe.
Other technologies will also evolve. Over time, relatively simple solutions such as case-picking robots – which deal with containers of standard size and shape – will make way for devices that can handle more complex or irregularly shaped items, notes the report.
That said, the economic and storage advantages of standardised boxes and flat-packed items are likely to remain, for sellers at least.
Outside the warehouse, the market will be dependent on regulation, cost, and risk. The report says, “The major pain points nowadays in the trucking industry, and especially long-haul trucking, include high operation cost, driver management, and safety.
“Implementing high-level autonomous heavy-duty trucks can well address those pain points, and potentially can improve safety during driving. According to known recent regulatory changes and information about level-4 autonomous truck pre-orders, IDTechEx anticipates the market revenue will start to be generated in 2025.”
Transform Industry believes that cost cannot be the prime focus of this debate, as consumers are unlikely to accept rising unemployment in the name of higher margins for multinationals.
Autonomous last-mile delivery is another emerging hotspot, with technologies including autonomous electric vans, small delivery robots for packages, and autonomous delivery drones.
The report again makes the familiar point: “Last-mile delivery is the most expensive part of delivering a parcel. Autonomous last-mile delivery solutions, however, can hugely save the cost and improve the delivery efficiency in a more ecological way.
“It is estimated that implementing autonomous last mile delivery solutions can potentially save 55 percent of current costs in the short term and may save over 80 percent in the long term.”
However, Transform Industry believes this is only one part of the picture. Innovators may be overlooking a significant problem, certainly when it comes to the use of drones in last-mile delivery: the nuisance and risk of filling the skies above our towns and cities with thousands of noisy rotorcraft.
This will particularly be the case if drones are mainly carrying small, non-essential items. Meanwhile, creating a supporting infrastructure for drones in cities will create new costs that are not faced by road-based solutions, and don’t seem to be factored into this or other reports.
As well as the public relations nightmare of trillion-dollar companies like Amazon making city life unbearable for citizens, the concept is highly risky. The market could disappear in the wake of the first serious accident involving a delivery drone.
Despite this, aviation authorities are moving towards cautious acceptance of autonomous flight, if currently within limited test areas.
Transform Industry believes insurance will be another dimension. It stands to reason that on-demand, per-flight drone insurance will be a growth area in the years ahead. However, with lower premiums for routing drones away from offices, railways stations, hospitals, and other high-risk areas, the knock-on effect is likely to be parks and beauty spots becoming highways for drones. Again, public acceptance is far from guaranteed.
IDTechEx at least acknowledges that road is likely to remain the dominant channel for transporting goods to consumers. Drones will arrive at scale later, and probably in smaller numbers.
