Robots Hit Battlefields -- And Kitchen Floors

Patrick Seitz
Wed Apr 30, 6:52 PM ET

The long-promised robot revolution has finally begun.

Robotics is having a big impact on the military, medical, education and home-cleaning fields.

After years of false starts, robotics is poised for fast growth, says Susan Eustis, president of WinterGreen Research. "It's going to be a hugely exciting run the next 15 years," she said.

The U.S. military is leading the way. It expects to have 6,000 robots in use in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere this year. That's up from 5,000 last year. In 2004, it had just 162 robots, mostly for mine-clearing. Today, military robots check out roadside bombs, dispose of explosives and conduct reconnaissance missions.

"There's a huge push in the Department of Defense to do everything we can to get soldiers and Marines out of harm's way," said Kevin Fahey, program executive director of ground combat systems for the U.S. Army. "We're doing everything we possibly can to 'unman' things."

Speaking at Pittsburgh's RoboBusiness 2008 conference in April (related story on A4), Fahey said the military would much rather send a robot into a cave or to check out a possible car bomb than to have a soldier do it.

Demand for military robots "will continue to go up," he said, because they give soldiers an advantage and save lives.

In 2007, the U.S. military ran more than 11,000 ground robotic missions, such as checking out improvised explosive devices. On about 1,000 missions, the robots were rocked by explosions. More than 100 were destroyed.

Global sales of military ground robots are forecast to reach $20 billion a year by 2011, up from just $442 million last year, says WinterGreen. Companies like Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC - News), iRobot (NasdaqGM:IRBT - News) and Foster-Miller build remote-controlled robots for that market.

Congress has set a goal of automating a third of military ground vehicles by 2015, helping spur demand.

The Defense Department has already had success with unmanned aerial vehicles. These drones can track enemy movements and even fire missiles.

The Pentagon is also interested in armed ground robots capable of deploying lethal or nonlethal force, Fahey says.

Unmanned ground and aerial vehicles for the military are the most successful robotic markets today. But surgical robots, materials-handling robots and oil-well-boring robots are among the most promising markets, says iRobot Chief Executive Colin Angle. Industrial floor-cleaning robots also have great potential, he says.

Surgical robots broke through in a big way with Intuitive Surgical's (NasdaqGS:ISRG - News) da Vinci systems. Other companies will likely follow.

Angle counts 20 current and possible markets for robotic technology in the years ahead.

"We don't really have the killer app yet that's going to drive the industry," Angle said at RoboBusiness. Yet the robotics business is making tremendous progress, he says. For example, more than 3 million home-cleaning robots, most from iRobot, have been sold.

"We're founding better companies and building better robots," Angle said.

Many colleges now offer degrees in robotics. And robot kits are used to teach high school and younger students about science and engineering.

With a growing skilled work force and many successful trials, the robot industry is reaching critical mass, says WinterGreen's Eustis.

WinterGreen sees the market for medical and health care robots reaching $14 billion in 2014, up from $627 million last year.

IRobot's Products Clean Up

It says household robots for vacuuming, lawn mowing, pool cleaning and other chores could be a $1.7 billion market in 2014, up from $227 million last year.

The Burlington, Mass.-based iRobot is a big player in this market with its Roomba, Scooba and other robots.

Educational robotic kits and robot toys are projected to reach nearly $3 billion a year in sales in 2014, up from $185 million in 2007, the research firm says.

Microsoft (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) believes the robotics industry is on the cusp of great things, says Tandy Trower, general manager for the software maker's robotics group.

The Redmond, Wash., company in April released a preview version of its second-generation robotics programming platform, called Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008. It plans to release the finished product this year.

Microsoft entered the robot software market in 2006. Its new software offers improved run-time performance, tools and distributed computing capabilities. The Windows-based software can be used by academics, hobbyists and commercial developers to create a variety of robot programs and testing scenarios.

Financial companies and scientific researchers are using Microsoft's robotics software because of its ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, Trower says.

Japan Filling Big Need

Technologies developed for the robotics industry are being used to enhance products from cell phones to cars, says Paolo Pirjanian, chief executive of Evolution Robotics. Those technologies include visual recognition systems used to do image searches with camera phones.

New features in cars, such as self-parking, lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control, also use robotics technology.

While the U.S. leads in military robot technology, countries like Japan and Korea are at the forefront of consumer and commercial robot technology.

A recent study estimates that robots could be doing the work of 3.5 million people in Japan by 2025. The Machine Industry Memorial Foundation, a Japanese think tank, says robots could help avert worker shortages as the country's population declines and ages.

The foundation, an affiliate of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, sees robots providing such services as medical and nursing care, household cleaning, delivery, pruning trees and harvesting crops.

Ellie