This document provides an overview of the state of robotics in 2015. It discusses major trends seen that year, including faster/cheaper components, more startups and funding, and the growing robot-as-a-service model. Specific areas covered include drones becoming more advanced and popular, progress in autonomous vehicles, the expansion of service robots into new industries, lifestyle robots entering homes, and continued development of social robots.
2. ROBOTICS
Foreword
This report shares our experiences in the space
since the creation of the 'Robotics' track at HAX.
The full “Hardware Trends 2016” report will be
published next year. Comments are welcome!
Thanks to HAX robotics founders and industry friends
for their contributions, and to all robotics lovers out
there who help make things happen.
Benjamin Joffe (ben@hax.co)
Cyril Ebersweiler (cyril@hax.co)
Duncan Turner (duncan@hax.co)
Email: makeit@hax.co
Apply: www.hax.co
Twitter: @hax_co
Intro
3. • What’s a robot today?
• What happened in 2015?
• What are the trends?
• What barriers remain?
• What’s coming next?ROBOTICS
A few questionsIntro
4. Source: HAX State of Robotics, November 2015
ROBOTICS
Intro The robots are coming!
Drones
Autonomous
Vehicles
Service
Robotics
RoboMing
Tools
+ most major car makers (Toyota, Volkswagen, GM, Renault-Nissan, Hyundai-Kia, etc.)
Robot
Arms
Cobots
Robot
Toys
Lifestyle
Robots
Social
Robots
Robots are getting cheaper, smarter, more varied
and reaching new industries.
Others
8. ROBOTICS
Barely a robot?
• Most don’t adapt and make decisions.
• Yet, they are gradually entering the field of
robotics thanks to computer vision and
adaptive algorithms.
Drones 3d printersRoombas Factory arms
What’s
a robot?
9. ROBOTICS
Platforms
Several hardware and software
“platforms” help the development of
robotics projects:
ROS: Robot Operating System
OpenCV: open source computer vision library
Developer arms: various of projects
Anatomy
of a robot
10. ROBOTICS
Actuators
• Actuators convert energy mostly
into rotational or linear motion.
• “Motors” are actuators, as are
pneumatics, hydraulics, solenoids
or shape-memory alloys and
polymers (SMA/SMPs).
Source: www.robotshop.com
Anatomy
of a robot
11. ROBOTICS
Pneumatic & HydraulicDC linear actuator
Stepper motorGeared DC motor
Linear SMA
“Classic” DC motor
Solenoid
Industrial servo
Anatomy
of a robot Actuators
12. ROBOTICS
• How many senses can a robot have?
Surely more than five!
• A flurry of sensors have been made smaller,
cheaper and better thanks notably to sales
of smartphones and gaming consoles.
• Sound: infra, audible, ultrasound
• Light: IR, visible, UV, in particular for RGBD/LIDAR used
for SLAM (simultaneous localization & mapping)
• Touch: piezo/pressure
• Smell: chemical
• Other: accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, barometer,
temperature, fingerprint, and many more!
Sensors
Anatomy
of a robot
13. Multi-touch touchscreen
display, triple
microphone configuration,
M8 motion coprocessor,
3-axis gyroscope,
accelerometer, digital
compass, iBeacon,
proximity sensor,
ambient light
Touch ID fingerprint
reader, barometer
ROBOTICS
Robots can thank Apple, Microsoft and Nintendo
Sensors
Anatomy
of a robot
14. ROBOTICS
Microcontrollers &
Microprocessors
• Microcontrollers and microprocessor are the
onboard control, the “brain”.
• They very in cost, size, power, community/
support, availability and complexity…
• The options range from a chip to a
development board or a full-blown computer.
Source: www.robotshop.com
Anatomy
of a robot
22. ROBOTICS
Trends
• Major investments in 2015.
• Most are still glorified RC copters.
• Effort is put on software for navigation,
obstacle avoidance and some vertical
applications like surveying & delivery.
“Drones are still pretty dumb.
The biggest obstacle right now is…
the ability to avoid obstacles.”
Chris Anderson, CEO, 3DR
Drones
36. • GoPro announced its own camera
drone for 2016.
• A flurry of other drone companies
received angel, seed financing,
and/or crowdfunded.
• Many startups are yet to ship their
first product.ROBOTICS
Other dronesDrones
37. • Key players in the drone space have
formed the Small UAV Coalition to inform
policy makers and promote safety.
• Members include Amazon, DJI, 3DR,
Google, GoPro, Parrot and more
ROBOTICS
Drone IndustryDrones
40. ROBOTICS
• Autonomous vehicles are now a
mainstream topic.
• On the road with Tesla autopilot.
Google, Uber and car makers are
also on the job.
• Regulations making progress.
Vehicles Trends
46. USA
ROBOTICS
Robot car racing
“In the future, all vehicles will be assisted
by AI and powered by electricity, improving
the environment and road safety.”
Denis Sverdlov
Founder of Kinetik & ROBORACE
Races with autonomous cars will
take place before Formula E
on the same circuits
Vehicles
48. ROBOTICS
Trends
• Entering more industries
• Robot-as-a-Service model
• More companies & funding
“Autonomous ground service robots today have
the same kind of momentum that drones
enjoyed 2-3 years back.”
M.A. Shah, Co-founder,
Simbe Robotics
Service
robots
49. Amazon bought Kiva for $775M.
Over 15,000 robots are deployedROBOTICS
WarehouseService
robots
67. ROBOTICS
• Robots in the house!
• Most are still very simple in terms
of decision and movement
autonomy, but they are improving
and coming down in price.
Life-
style
Trends
68. ROBOTICS
iRobot sold over
14M Roomba worldwide
Many others entered the market
iRobot has a $1B market cap
Life-
style
73. ROBOTICS
The first robotic kitchen developed by
Moley Robotics in collaboration with
Shadow Robot Company & others mimics
BBC Master Chef Tim Anderson’s moves
Life-
style
77. ROBOTICS
Trends
• Lines between toys, tools and education
are not always clear.
• Edubots = gateway to personalized
learning & getting children into coding?
“Right now, robotics technologies cannot
make robots serve people well, but they can
make people play well.”
Jasen Wang, Founder, Makeblock
Toys
88. ROBOTICS
Trends
• Several investors and corporates
fund social robot projects heavily.
• Will 2016 be the year they break
into the market?
Social
robots
103. ROBOTICS
Trends
• Yaskawa, ABB, Fanuc & Kuka are
world leaders. Chinese are growing.
• Hobby arms are commoditizing.
• Next step is a low-cost pro arm.
“The holy grail of robotics is
an industrial-grade sub-$5,000 arm”
Robot
arms
112. ROBOTICS
Trends
• Collaborative Robots (Cobots) physically
interact with humans in a shared
workspace.
• Cobots can be autonomous, help humans,
or require help.
• The next step is to make them operable
and even trainable by non-experts.
Cobots
124. ROBOTICS
Agribots
• Harvesting, irrigation, pruning, weeding and
thinning devices are being field-tested
worldwide.
• Automated spraying and seeding are done in
Japan and Australia.
• Cow milking is growing; nurseries are beginning
to use pick-and-place robots.
• Aerial observation robots along with in-field
sensors might support the growing field of
“precision agriculture”. Source: The Robot Report
July 2014
Others
126. ROBOTICS
Other robots
• Some fields of robotics are still
confined to experiments and labs.
• Among them:
• Modular robotics
• Biomimetic robots
• Soft robotics
Others
138. Will robots get their
“Macintosh moment”?
ROBOTICS
2016 &
beyond
139. ROBOTICS
• “Plug&play” hardware & software
part will help more projects start.
• Lower price & size of components
will open new opportunities. A low-cost
LIDAR, for instance, would be a boon
to robotics. Some sub-$500 units are
apparently on their way for 2016!
2016 &
beyond
140. ROBOTICS
• Service robots will grow
The “robot-as-a-service” business model
will spread as well. It is, in fact, not so
different from renting a Xerox machine
or hiring a cleaning agency.
• Non-robot devices will get smarter
with computer vision and other sensors.
2016 &
beyond
141. ROBOTICS
Robots are still too dumb
Most consumer robots are wired or
remote controlled. Barely robots, in fact!
“Better & cheaper chips are
needed for path planning,
inverse kinematics, image
processing, object and face
recognition, or collaborative
automation.”
“You can’t
make an
iPhone
out of an
Arduino”
2016 &
beyond
Dan Corkum
Co-founder, Carbon Robotics
142. ROBOTICS
Resolution is too low
• Hobby-level steppers and RC servos
are 100x to 1,000x worse than basic
industrial robots.
“It is like
comparing
a Game Boy
to an HDTV”
• This hurts accuracy,
precision & repeatability.
• Low-grade drivetrains
add slip, flex & backlash.
2016 &
beyond
143. ROBOTICS
Safety is largely ignored
Most consumer robots are not powerful
enough to be a danger, but for how long?
“A robot strong enough
to do something
you really want
can also do something
you really don’t want.”
The issues and ethics
of autonomous car
collisions might apply
to others robots living
alongside humans.
Better find how to
avoid collisions!
2016 &
beyond
144. ROBOTICS
Plug & play hardware
More technical bricks are still needed to
made robotics easier.
ROS makes a lot of
hardware plug & play
and is used by most
startups focused on
autonomous ground
robotics
Open source projects
like ROS, OpenCV and
Linux made robotics
more accessible to
mainstream software
engineers.
2016 &
beyond
145. ROBOTICS
Interfaces still suck
Better interfaces are required to allow
non-experts to interact with robots
“We need natural user interfaces.
Think less along the lines of
controlling with a joystick,
and more like asking
to complete a task.”
2016 &
beyond
Dan Corkum
Co-founder
Carbon Robotics
146. ROBOTICS
Most investors don’t
“get” robotics
• The hardware/software stack of robotics
startups is much more complex than apps or
low-cost consumer hardware.
“Oh! Raspberry pi and kinects - cheap!”
…NOT
• To attract funding, the startup’s business
case also needs to be proven quickly.
2016 &
beyond
147. ROBOTICS
Robotics talent is lacking
Robotics talent is not as readily available
as full-stack web developers. Well-funded
startups often resort to training in-house.
2016 &
beyond
148. ROBOTICS
Robotics talent war
• Uber hired about a third of Carnegie
Mellon University’s famed robotics
center staff, about 50 people in the first
half of 2015 alone.
• Google hired Robert Rose, the
engineering manager who led Tesla’s
Autopilot group.
2016 &
beyond
149. ROBOTICS
Fear of robots?
• Robots are often depicted as threats to our
safety or jobs. Yet, their actions depend on
their design and programming.
• Robots are machines like cotton mills,
washing machines and computers are.
They can be workers, helpers, companions,
pets, tools and toys. Measure of actual
benefits and proper regulation can help
public perception become more realistic.
2016 &
beyond
152. Shenzhen: HAX Accelerator
Product / Market fit
San Francisco: HAX Boost
Product / Retail fit
We invest in,
accelerate
and scale
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153. LIFESTYLE HEALTH ROBOTICS IoT
ENABLEMENT
ADVANCED
MANUFACTURING
HAX Tracks
Global startups - 60% Americas, 20% Europe, 20% Asia
90 investments - 60% B2C, 40% B2B