Top 7 Robotics Trends & Predictions for 2022

With the huge shift towards automation across industries all around the world as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is time to explore the effects this may have on the way business is conducted during the next twelve months. 

To kick off the new year, Meili Robots has compiled a list of the seven biggest trends and predictions for the robotics industry in 2022: 

1. Robotic Process Automation (RPA):
   As the name suggests, RPA is a commonly used technology for businesses that deal with a large amount of repetitive tasks. A great example of such a business would be hospitals that deal with manual invoicing, appointment scheduling, and inventory management — all tasks that can easily be automated through RPA.
2. Robotics as a Service (RaaS)
   Thanks to ever-growing trend of everything-as-a-service models, small firms are now being enabled and empowered to adopt robos and RPA in the form of subscription-based Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) as well as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models — such as Meili FMS. 
3. Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) as data acquisition platforms
   Driven by the e-commerce growth, labour shortages, increasing automation, and mass personnalisation of goods, the demand for AMRs has been growing at incredible rates — from €0.88B in 2017 to an estimated €6.17B in 2022. In fact, AMRs are now expected to start acting more like IoT hubs — where mobile robot software would add another €2.64B to the AMR market value.

4. Multi-purpose robots & cobots
   Retail automation is seeing significant growth, too, with retailers being expected to add multi-purpose robots to work alongside their team — and thus referred to as cobots — in order to carry out multiple tasks at once and thereby making it easier for them to meet the ever-growing customer expectations and shopping demands. At the same time, cobots are permanently taking over certain jobs across different industries to improve workplace safety and efficiency.

5. Increased awareness of the lack of interoperability
   With the increasing adoption of robots across the industries comes an increased need for a solution that addresses the lack of interoperability in the industry: 
   
   “Interoperability is a factor that could be easily overlooked by many robot operators. It allows robots to communicate with each other and other systems to enable an efficient and safe working environment. If not tackled, it can be a crippling pain point that halts the productivity of the facility — or even grinding it to a halt as some, if not all, robots start obstructing or interfering with each other.” - Aldus von der Burg, CEO, Meili Robots

6. Delivery robots on the rise
   The market for delivery robots is expected to grow from a value of €188M in 2021 to nearly €850M by 2026 — following a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35.1% during the forecast period. This market growth is mainly driven by the reduction of last-mile delivery costs, increased venture funding, and an increased demand for delivery robots in the retail and food and beverage industries.

7. Increased robotics demand & abilities
   Last but not least, with robots becoming smarter every day thanks to the advances in technologies such as Machine Learning, AI, and the IoT, more and more industries that have been adopting robots are becoming smarter too — think of warehouses, distribution centres, and manufacturing facilities. With processes being increasingly automated, companies will see great advances in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and operational consistency. 

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Contact Information

Michelle Schlechtriem
Content Manager
michelle@meilirobots.com
Copenhagen, Denmark