Automation in the delivery/logistic and warehousing/fulfillment chain is a growing market. A particularly exciting subset of this is the use of mobile robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles for automation of movement-based tasks. This field encompasses a diverse range of robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles, which help goods in their journey from origin to destination.
The IDTechEx report ‘Mobile Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, and Drones in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040’ finds that the market for mobile robotics and drones in delivery and warehousing is likely to reach a staggering $81 and $290 billion in 2030 and 2040, respectively. Of course, the devil is in the detail and this headline figure masks great diversity of technologies, markets, form factors, and fortunes.
In the rest of this article, we draw from our updated report to highlight the key trends in the use of mobile robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles in this sector. In this article, we focus on the use of mobile robots and autonomous vehicles in indoor applications. In a follow-up article, we focus on outdoor applications.
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 covers automated as well as autonomous carts and robots, automated goods-to-person robots, autonomous and collaborative robots, delivery robots, mobile picking robots, autonomous material handling vehicles such as tuggers and forklifts, autonomous trucks, vans, and last mile delivery robots and drones.
Indoor Automation
e-commerce is changing the way warehouses are constructed and operated. One way or another, warehouses must become more adept and efficient in handling multi-item instant order fulfillment. The use of automation is an essential part of the answer to this requirement.
Automated guide carts and vehicles (AGC and AGV) have long been in use. They are infrastructure dependent, meaning that they follow a fixed infrastructure, such as conductive wire or magnetic tape, in going from A to B. Therefore, they are reliable and trusted to handle all manner of payloads. Their installation is however time-consuming, and their workflow is difficult to adapt. Furthermore, they, in their classical forms, are neither fast nor efficient utilize rs of space. Finally, they do not lend themselves to human-robot collaborative workflows.
Consequently, as a technology, we think that they are on shaky ground, unless they adapt. This is because the technology is evolving towards more autonomous and infrastructure-independent navigation. We forecast that they will tend towards obsolescence and increasingly become confused to ever narrower market niches. Overall, our report ‘Mobile Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, and Drones in Logistics, Warehousing, and Delivery 2020-2040’ finds that their market will shrink by 50% in 2030 compared to the 2019 level.
In many supplier quarters, adaptation is underway. However, many will find the journey too challenging given that that the emerging technology will require software expertise. Bridging the skills and knowhow gap and evolving the product portfolio will not be straightforward. Indeed, it poses challenging strategic questions in terms of how to acquire the necessary knowhow.
A Bright Spot for Automated Robots
One very bright spot for automated robots however is in goods-to-person automation within fulfillment centers. Special robot-only zones are created within warehouses in which these robot fleets move racks at high speeds to a manner picking station. The productivity gains are clear and proven. The technology results in space-efficient and compact warehouses. The pick-rates significantly improve and the headcount drops.
Many product design innovations helped enable this market. The hardware requires good acceleration and deacceleration to operate at high speeds with minimal spillage. The racks require special adaptations to steady the load during transit. The suspension system- which lifts and lowers the racks- require special design and engineering. The robots will include multiple motors, allowing them many degrees of freedom in movement. The navigation technology itself is not complex though as it is often fiducial based, mainly in the form of barcodes often printed at regular intervals on the ground.
They key value-add technologies are on the software side though. This includes the entire stack from customized firmware sitting on the motor drivers all the way to the fleet and task management levels. The business model is also an important differentiator with many moving towards becoming full solution providers.
This is a fast-growing market space. The landscape was set on fire when Amazon acquired Kiva Systems for $775m in 2012, thereby leaving a gap on the market. Today, significant well-funded alternatives such as GeekPlus (389$m), GreyOrange (170$m), and HIK Vision ($6bn revenue) have emerged, achieving promising and growing deployment figures.
The number of start-ups has also increased, especially around within the 2015 to 2017 period. Not all will be successful though even if they offer a good enough technology. In particular, doubts over the long-term viability of some start-ups’ business model and financial health acts a barrier against long-term adoption by major end users.
