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2023 has been filled with thrilling improvements throughout the robotics business. We’ve seen the rise of latest applied sciences, and robotics builders have pushed the boundaries of what robots can do.
On the similar time, there was a dip in robotics funding throughout the board, and a few sectors have struggled to achieve public belief.
As 2023 involves an finish, let’s look again at a few of the largest tendencies within the robotics business this yr.
Humanoid robots make strides
Had been it not for ChatGPT – extra on that later – humanoid robots would have been the most important story in robotics, automation, and AI of 2023.
In January, Boston Dynamics posted YouTube movies of its Atlas robotic operating round a simulated building website and throwing a bag of instruments onto a scaffold.
At CES, service robots together with Enchanted Instruments’ Miroki and Miroka, plus Aeolus Robotics’ aeo, stored the dream alive with robots for hospitals and hospitality, respectively.
Different humanoid robots rising this yr included Determine AI’s Determine 01, Sanctuary AI’s sixth-generation Phoenix, Unitree’s H1, and Apptronik’s Apollo. In September, Tesla confirmed its Optimus, which it initially introduced in 2022, shifting in new methods, and in December, it demonstrated Gen 2’s dexterity.
Firms elevating cash to proceed growing humanoid robots included Apptronik’s unspecified funding from Terex in February and Determine AI’s $70 million Collection A in Might. China lately introduced plans to mass produce humanoids by 2025 as a part of its ongoing technological rivalry with the U.S.
Whereas some firms, corresponding to Sanctuary AI, claimed to be constructing “general-purpose” robots, most are beginning with logistics purposes. Nevertheless, none are but being utilized in manufacturing environments, and lots of technical challenges stay.
Whereas it’s spectacular that such techniques can climb stairs and transfer round in areas designed for people, their dimension and weight require security scrutiny. Requirements group ASTM Worldwide in Might launched the F45.06 Subcommittee on Legged Robotic Programs.
A keynote panel at RoboBusiness 2023 included founders of main humanoid builders, together with Apptronik’s Jeff Cardenas, Agility Robotics’ Jonathan Hurst, and Sanctuary’s Geordie Rose. They mentioned design challenges and the evolution of robotic dexterity.
RoboBusiness 2023 featured a keynote panel together with representatives from three main humanoid producers. Seated left to proper: Mike Oitzman (moderator); Jonathan Hurst Co-founder and Chief Robotic Officer | Agility Robotics; Geordie Rose CoFounder & CEO | Sanctuary; Nick Paine Co-Founder and CTO | Apptronik
Probably the most promising information about humanoid robotics got here from Agility Robotics, which demonstrated its Digit shifting totes at ProMat. In September, the corporate stated it’s constructing “RoboFab,” a manufacturing facility in Salem, Ore., to supply as much as 10,000 robots per yr.
In October, the corporate introduced that Amazon was conducting the primary industrial testing of a humanoid robotic.
Generative AI guarantees to vary human-robot interplay
Current advances in synthetic intelligence dominated the information cycle for all of 2023, and never simply in robotics circles. Whereas OpenAI first launched its Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) in 2018, it wouldn’t attain extensive use till GPT-3.5, which OpenAI launched on the tail finish of 2022.
GPT-3.5 gained 100 million customers in simply 2 months. Initially of the yr, ChatGPT handed the ultimate examination for the College of Pennsylvania’s Warton Faculty’s Grasp of Enterprise Administration (MBA) program.
After the success of GPT-3.5, a slew of different firms launched their very own generative AI packages. Microsoft launched Kosmos-1 in February, OpenAI launched the up to date GPT-4 in March, and Google launched Bard later that month.
These choices have opened the door for the robotics business to start testing generative AI to unlock new capabilities.
Agility Robotics has experimented with utilizing giant language fashions (LLMs), which energy instruments like ChatGPT, to manage Digit. It took the corporate solely two weeks to create a demo of Digit following natural-language instructions.
Microsoft has introduced plans to construct GPT-powered robots with Doosan Robotics and plans to make use of generative AI to develop robots with Rockwell Automation.
At RoboBusiness in October, we hosted a generative AI keynote panel. It featured:
- Pras Velagapudi, vice chairman of innovation at Agility Robotics
- Jeff Linnell, founder and CEO of Formant
- Ken Goldberg, the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley
- Amit Goel, director of product administration at NVIDIA
- Ted Larson, CEO of OLogic
Subsequent yr has all of the makings of one other yr of innovation on the subject of AI. Researchers, who’ve taught robots choose tomatoes or rapidly be taught new duties utilizing AI, stated they’ve solely scratched the floor of prospects.
Choosing and cell robotic suppliers mark milestones
Whereas generative AI and humanoid robots garnered quite a lot of consideration this yr, conventional robotics purposes have additionally superior. Choosing robots and cell robots had been nonetheless chugging alongside in 2023.
In August, Locus Robotics, a Wilmington, Mass.-based developer of autonomous cell robots (AMRs), introduced its robots have picked greater than 2 billion models. The milestone got here simply 11 months after it picked its first billion models in 2022.
Locus additionally had a booming vacation season this yr. Its robots picked 331 million models for its third-party logistics (3PL) companions, with about 7 million common each day picks.
With regards to selecting robots, producers have pushed the robotics business to make them extra versatile and simpler to put in. This yr, we’ve seen extra and extra robots that may deal with variable-mix, variable-volume strains.
After years of labor on grippers and machine imaginative and prescient, suppliers of selecting techniques, distributors corresponding to Brightpick, Covariant, and Mecalux reported progress in 2023.
As well as, “no-code” techniques, which could be put in and not using a robotics engineer on website, have gotten extra frequent, had been out there from firms together with ABB, Strong.AI, and Yaskawa.
Autonomous autos get yellow flags
Autonomous autos (AVs) have had a bumpy journey in 2023, and Cruise, the self-driving unit of GM, has been on the middle of a lot of the controversy.
Weeks earlier than 2023 started, Cruise had already began dealing with troubles. In December 2022, the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into Cruise’s automated driving system.
The NHTSA’s ongoing investigation focuses on two alleged issues with Cruise’s AVs. The primary is that they could brake too laborious when automobiles strategy them from behind, leading to potential hazards for different drivers. The NHTSA additionally expressed concern in regards to the tendency for Cruise’s autos to change into immobilized on the highway.
Regardless of the investigation, Cruise attained 1 million driverless miles simply 15 months after it gave its first journey. All year long, the corporate expanded its San Francisco and Phoenix providers, launched providers in Houston, and introduced plans to begin providers in Nashville; Charlotte, N.C.; and extra.
In April, nonetheless, Cruise recalled 300 robotaxis in response to an accident through which its AV hit the again of a San Francisco bus.
A Cruise robotaxi didn’t brake rapidly sufficient behind a metropolis bus in San Francisco. | Supply: Cruise
A serious milestone got here in August, when the California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC) granted Cruise and Waymo their last permits. These permits allowed the businesses to cost for all rides, broaden hourly operations and repair space, and add as many robotaxis to the businesses’ fleets as they need.
The California DMV suspended Cruise’s last allow a bit of over two months later. California officers claimed that Cruise didn’t present regulators all of its footage from an Oct. 2 incident. Throughout that incident, a Cruise robotaxi dragged a lady after she was hit by a unique automobile pushed by a human.
After being hit by the primary automobile, the lady was thrown into the trail of the Cruise automobile, which couldn’t brake in time to keep away from her. Cruise disputed claims that it withheld footage or data from the DMV, however it paused all of its operations nationwide to reestablish belief with the general public.
For the reason that California DMV suspended its permits, Cruise has been on a little bit of a downward spiral. In November, Cruise additionally laid off contractor employees who had been liable for cleansing, charging, and sustaining autos.
Later final month, Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt and co-founder Dan Kan resigned. Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s former govt vice chairman of engineering, took over as president and chief know-how officer.
Extra lately, Cruise laid off 900 staff, 24% of its workforce.
Cruise hasn’t been the one AV firm to wrestle this yr. In February, Tesla issued a voluntary security recall on the request of the NHTSA after the company decided that the corporate’s superior driver help function, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software program, may create a “crash danger.”
The recall affected nearly 363,000 Tesla autos outfitted with FSD. Earlier this month, it recalled greater than 2 million autos because the NHTSA continues to analyze issues of safety with its Autopilot system.
These incidents have left the general public and regulators cautious of the AV business as a complete. Whereas Waymo nonetheless maintains its permits from the CPUC, and different firms like Zoox have begun testing their robotaxis on public streets, it’ll take time to win again public belief.
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Robotics business sees gross sales dip after file years
In 2022, North American robotic gross sales hit a file excessive, in keeping with the Affiliation for Advancing Automation (A3). It beat out 2021, which additionally set a file.
The robotics business started to decelerate on the finish of 2022, as a lot of the file breaking gross sales occurred within the first 9 months of final yr. This decline carried over into 2023.
2023 began gradual, with first-quarter gross sales dipping 21% from the identical quarter in 2022. This continued all year long, as gross sales in Q2 had been down 37% from the yr earlier than. Altogether, the U.S. robotics market was down 29% within the first half of the yr.