As the world’s market for robots is heating up, European robotics are set to colonise the world’s services industries.
SPARC
According to a recent article on Robohub.org European companies like ABB, Comau, KUKA, and Schunk have traditionally been world leaders in producing manufacturing robots.
With world competition in robotics increasing, Europe has launched a public-private partnership called SPARC, intended to make sure European businesses stay ahead in the game.
The SPARC website writes that:
“With €700M in funding from the European Commission for 2014 – 2020, and triple that amount from European industry, SPARC is the largest civilian-funded robotics innovation programme in the world.”
The move to SMEs
Whereas Europe’s share of the robotics manufacturing market stands at 32%, its share of the robotics service industry is an impressive 63%. SPARC says that this is due to “Europe’s excellence in interdisciplinary research in ‘intelligent robots’ and a culture of cooperation between industry and academia.”
The next big aim for SPARC is to move European robotics innovation even further into the terrain of start-ups and SMEs.
The plan is to make sure that future power-houses of European services robotics will emerge from these smaller business – and that SMEs themselves will benefit from smart robot technology.
As the European Commission recognises.
“SMEs are the backbone of Europe’s economy. They represent 99% of all businesses in the EU. In the past five years, they have created around 85% of new jobs and provided two-thirds of the total private sector employment in the EU. The European Commission considers SMEs and entrepreneurship as key to ensuring economic growth, innovation, job creation, and social integration in the EU.”
The SPARC roadmap
As one would expect, SPARC has recently released its 365 page multi-annual roadmap MAR, detailing how its robotics vision should be achieved.
Though, as its authors say, and in their defence, the roadmap is not a linear document intended to be read as a whole, but a technical guide that “identifies expected progress within the community and provides an analysis of medium to long term research and innovation goals.”
Interestingly, the document lists the way SPARC sees the world of robotics divided into distinct technologies, “where each technology is divided into clusters each characterised by a purpose”:
- Systems Development: Better systems and tools
- Human Robot Interaction: Better interaction
- Mechatronics: Making better machines
- Perception, Navigation and Cognition: Better action and awareness
What will the robots do?
The European focus on the robotics services industry means that the SMEs will most likely be working on innovations in robots for healthcare, agriculture, transport, civil, consumer, and commercial applications.
As the Robohub.org article says:
“For the most part, focus is on improving quality of life for Europeans with practical solutions to practical problems. The technology is motivated by societal challenges, including: aging populations, healthcare, concern for the environment, and access to resources including food, minerals, and energy.”
What about Brexit?
But what would happen to the UK part of this European collaboration should the UK leave the EU?
The complexity of modern international trade and collaboration is perhaps not grasped by politicians who win or lose elections based on simple slogans and binary choices offered up to an electorate kept in the dark.
When it comes to our collective future, maybe the robots would actually do a better job of making considered, long-term political choices?
We’ll have to wait and see.
Want to find out more about how robots are changing our world? Make sure you sign up to the Robots at Work event in March and join your peers for a lively debate on the matter.