From IoT, to 5G and artificial intelligence, we’re already seeing multiple advanced digital technologies converge, drawing the physical and digital worlds ever-closer.
Impact of this convergence will be felt most acutely in industry; revolutionising the way we design, plan, operate or deliver consumer facing products and services.
Amongst other trends in the cyber physical world – like the metaverse, or Digital Twins – the rise of remote and autonomous machines is a trend most businesses will need to take note of: in fact, Digital Catapult pinpointed robots and autonomous machines as a key trend for 2022 – with the projected global market size for robotics by 2026 coming in at a staggering £53.8 billion..
While the most well-known example of this trend is autonomous vehicles, the pandemic has led to increasing interest in advanced digital technology-enabled autonomous machines for other parts of the economy.
Here are my predictions for the five industries that will keenly feel the benefits of robots and autonomous machines:
- Manufacturing
Machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies will provide the power for automated systems, robotics and cobots (robots that can learn multiple tasks to assist humans) to help reduce cycle time, labour time, and quality errors. On a basic level, robots can even assist humans with ‘heavy lifting’ – as is becoming common in countries with an ageing population, like Japan.
Robots and autonomous machines are able to conduct the mundane, repetitive, physically demanding or even dangerous tasks that humans would otherwise have to do – providing workers with safer and better quality work to be more productive on the shop floor.
Exacerbated by the pandemic, we’ll also see a rise in manufacturers conducting work at a distance; Ford, for example, is just one company using immersive headsets and tools like the Microsoft Hololens to carry out remote meetings and training for their engineers…Read more
