2024 could be a year of building robotics momentum. Source: Adobe Stock
2023 was a year of great change within the robotics industry. We’ll see ripple effects from the latest booms in artificial intelligence and humanoid robots for years to come. Entering into 2024, a number of promising technologies and use cases are primed for growth.
With 2023 in the rearview mirror, it’s time to look ahead to what the next 12 months have in store for the robotics industry. Here are five robotics trends that we think will take center stage in 2024.
Generative AI will make robots smarter, more social
It would be impossible to talk about 2024 without theorizing how generative AI will continue to affect robotics. It was one of the biggest trends in robotics in 2023, and, if anything, it’ll be even more present in 2024.
“Language models aren’t just for IoT anymore. Given the ease with which interfaces like ChatGPT can interpret prompts into commands, there will be a new class of tools emerging that seeks to combine the best of natural language processing and perception hardware,” said Brandon Minor, co-founder and CEO of Tangram Vision. “This feels like a natural extension from an engineer’s point of view, and success would add a layer of ‘magic’ to any tech demo.”
“However, this might also lead to unintended consequences in deployment for collaborative robotics suites,” he told The Robot Report. “Robotic systems that are suited for specialization might feel external pressure to generalize overnight. After all, to a hammer, everything is a nail, no matter what someone else might prompt.”
Researchers and developers are already using GenAI to make robots faster learners for difficult manipulation tasks. This research will likely continue this year, and some applications may even make their way into commercial robotics.
In addition, generative AI can make robots more personable, as it makes it possible for robots to understand natural language instructions. In 2023, Boston Dynamics used ChatGPT to turn one of its Spot quadrupeds into a tour guide, and we’ll see more projects like this in the year to come.
“The robotics industry is experiencing a paradigm shift moving from a focus on hardware to software, so there is immense opportunity for GenAI applications,” observed Amir Bousani, co-founder and CEO of RGo Robotics.
“While the robotics industry is historically slow-moving to adapt to new technologies due to its complexity, I believe GenAI will be felt industry-wide within the next five years,” he said. “When it does reach critical mass, applications for mobile robots could include more sophisticated navigation behaviors based on interactions with their environment.”
Robots get out of the warehouse and into new roles
Robots have come a long way from being used almost exclusively for automotive manufacturing. Now they’re working in warehouses, grocery stores, fast food restaurants, and more. Enabled by generative AI, robots could interact with people more naturally in the next year, making them better for public-facing roles.
“In 2024, we’ll see an acceleration of robots in public settings: sidewalk delivery, restaurants (both front of house and back of house), hotels, hospitals, parking lots, and more,” said Adam Rodnitzky, co-founder and chief operating officer of Tangram Vision. “Part of this comes down to the startups serving these markets reaching a point of maturity where they can deliver reliable fleets into these venues.”
“Part of it also comes down to the fact that the startups serving these markets must now scale those fleets — or else,” he told The Robot Report.
Mobile robot use cases will expand in 2024
Just a few years ago, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) were a nascent technology that many industries were hesitant to use. Today, they’re a $20.3 billion industry, according to Markets & Markets. The firm predicted it will grow to $40.6 billion by 2028.
“AMRs have been on the market for around 10 years,” said Rasmus Smet Jenson, vice president of marketing and strategy at Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR). “The first few years saw robot enthusiasts and others testing single robots, but now companies from myriad industries deploy large fleets of robots into core production.”
Despite this growth, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and AMRs have mostly found footholds in warehouses, where they can be used to transport goods to workers who will store them or pick individual items for order fulfillment.
In 2024, we’ll likely see mobile robots step out of the warehouse and into more unstructured environments. They’re making headway in places like airports, where they can deliver goods to people waiting at their terminals.
Mobile robots could also become more common in outdoor environments, where they’re already being used to mow lawns or transport produce on farms.
“Thus far, most of the investment for mobile robots has focused on indoor applications, like warehouses,” Bousani said. “As robots have become increasingly more sophisticated over the years with new perception technologies, they can better understand complex environments.”
“In 2024, we will see more robotics companies further integrate AI to not only help robots learn faster, but, almost more importantly, to better process the large amounts of data mobile robots can gather,” said Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics. “This will allow these robotic systems to better prove their ROI, leading to an increase in the rates of deployments.”
“AMRs are widely used to move materials within production and in warehouses,” said MiR’s Jensen. “We expect these application to continue to be the most common areas in 2024, but as AMRs become mainstream, we’ll see even more use cases. Expect to see newer solutions such as mobile cobots and AMR pallet jacks/forklifts as well as we’re definitely seeing the demand for those grow.”
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Humanoids to keep making headlines, but deployments will still be rare
We’re only a few days into 2024, and we’ve already seen companies teasing new humanoid robots. Just like 2023, humanoids will take center stage in 2024. Companies will continue to innovate and release new models or updated versions of existing legged robots.
However, it’s unlikely that these robots will make their way into the world at scale – yet. While Agility Robotics is testing its Digit in Amazon warehouses and with GXO Logistics, it seems to be the exception.
Developers face a few more years of development before humanoids will enter the workforce in large numbers.
“Across the industry, there needs to be more education to customers — and the end users — around the different advantages of robotics,” said RGo’s Bousani. “Right now, there is a common perception that humanoids will displace traditional human jobs and reshape the future workforce. While humanoids will not take over the workforce any time soon, advancements in human-level perception and computer vision technologies will unlock entirely new applications and uses for mobile robots over time.”
“Investments in humanoids like the Digit robot will gain traction for specific applications but not become mainstream anytime soon,” he said.
Robotics developers will go all in on Rust in 2024
In September 2022, Linux’s “benevolent dictator for life,” Linus Torvalds, mentioned that the Rust programming language would be used in the upcoming Linux 6.1 kernel. This opened doors for robotics developers to rely less on C as a programming protocol.
In addition, developers have added several new features to Rust to make it more secure and functional. Heading into 2023, it could make some serious inroads into robotics.
“Because of Rust’s inherent memory safety and management, it is very well suited for the world of robotics,” said Tangram Vision’s Rodnitzky. “While many roboticists have casually dabbled with Rust, there is a growing contingent that are pushing ever more aggressively for broader adoption within the robotics community.”‘
“Significant startups such as Scythe Robotics have adopted it as their language of choice, and the scope and number of active development projects are increasing significantly,” he said. “In particular, Rust working groups and projects that work within the ROS [Robot Operating System] framework are seeing a significant uptick in participation and adoption.”
Robotics will be apart of are society.