Role played by industrial robotics in driving growth now to be replicated by service robotics for the new service economy.

Global Industry Analysts report the world market for service robots projected to reach $9.1B by 2018.

RESEARCH & MARKETS?Service robotics, after decades of focused R&D, is finally emerging as a commercial technology. Robots at last have begun moving from shop floors to homes, offices, hospitals, museums, and other public places in the form of self-navigating lawn movers, vacuum cleaners, window washers, and surgical operators.

Robots are now poised to assist surgeons in operations, intervene in life-critical or dangerous environments for search and rescue operations, operate in field areas such as agriculture, forestry, mining, cleaning, construction, demolition, and freight transport, etc.

Over the last few years, there has been an astonishing growth in the use of service robots in professional as well as personal use applications, with future projections indicating even stronger growth.

The coming years are expected to witness growth in private use of robots in homes for domestic household applications.

The tertiary sector represents one of the most important of the three economic sectors, especially in the developed markets.

Major demographic changes in the offing

For instance, marking the American economy’s transition into the post-industrialization era is the fact that services contribute towards a large chunk of the nation’s gross national product. Against this backdrop, service robots offer the technological platform required to support the growing needs of the domestic services industry.

The role played by industrial robotics in driving growth of the economy during the industrialization period will now be replicated by Service Robotics in the new service economy.

With the future of national defense hinging onto robotics, robots are forecast to emerge into a top national priority for countries like the US and Europe both on the commercial security service and defense fronts.

Major demographic changes over the next decade, such as, aging and retirement of the current workforce will create large gaps in the workforce, thus helping create widespread opportunities for Professional Use Service Robots.

The aging baby boomer population additionally creates a need for assistive care and this opens up immense opportunities in applications ranging from communication, household tasks, personal transport, to rehabilitation.

In the coming years, Telepresence robots capable of keeping the elderly in touch with their families, surveillance robots capable of guarding a home, and surgical/medical care robots capable of assisting the disabled, elderly and surgeons, are expected to witness strong demand.

As stated by the new market research report on Service Robotics, Europe represents the largest regional market worldwide.

Asia-Pacific is forecast to emerge as the fastest growing market with a CAGR of 13.4% over the analysis period.

Growth in the region is led by burgeoning economies such as India and China, increasing disposable incomes, improving lifestyles, and growing consumer affluence.