Robots

• [New] The Federal Highway Administration is awarding $49.6 million to 10 projects to develop intelligent transportation systems that will boost street safety, relieve congestion, and enhance vehicle connectivity as well as provide support for autonomous vehicle tech.
• [New] Combined with a new Lidar SoC manufactured using Intel silicon, Mobileye posits that it will be able to scale its autonomous driving technology for mass consumer use by 2025.
• [New] Kroger will open its automated fulfillment centers in 2021, FreshDirect built out an automated fulfillment facility in D.C. using Fabric's technology, while Walmart started testing grocery delivery via autonomous vehicles.
• [New] After years of development and testing Walmart will be using fully autonomous box delivery trucks to make deliveries in Arkansas starting in 2021.
• [New] Figures from Statista suggest that automation in the global mining industry will be a $4m industry by 2026, and developments such as the use of 32 220-tonne autonomous vehicles at China's Xiwan coal mine suggest that the mining industry is prime for a significant expansion of autonomous technology.
• [New] Starting in 2022, the FAA's Remote ID requirement will necessitate every drone sold in the U.S. that weighs more than 0.55 pounds to come with a way to broadcasts its location and identification to local authorities.
• Drones and related technologies are projected to actually create 100,000 new jobs in the United States alone by 2025.
• Several outlets are reporting that the focus for automotive companies, at least in the consumer sector, will be more on electric vehicles than autonomous vehicles at CES 2021.
• Hyundai Motor Group will apply Level 3 autonomous driving technology to mass production models in 2022 and push for commercialization projects for autonomous driving technologies such as robotaxi services in 2023.
• Starting in 2022, the FAA's Remote ID requirement will necessitate every drone sold in the U.S. that weighs more than 0.55 pounds to come with a way to broadcast its location and identification to local authorities or a digital license plate for drones.
• If you take the case of the U.S., where there are at least 700,000 bridges currently in use, saving that much money for a drone bridge inspection every two years could mean a total savings of $10.2 billion - every two years.
• A nearly 48% growth for AI tools in education over the next three years, and a recent McKinsey & Company report suggested that up to 40% of teacher tasks like grading and lesson planning could soon be outsourced to technology.
• The central government has reaffirmed a goal to adopt highly autonomous cars on a massive scale by 2025 in its finalized blueprint (in Chinese) for intelligent and electric vehicles released late October.
• DJI made a solid case that it does not pose a national security risk to the United States through multiple US-government initiated third-party audits that found that DJI drones do not collect data.
• AFRL is running a separate project, dubbed R2-D2, to develop an autonomous drone using AI-driven systems that is expected to square off against a human pilot in a fighter jet by 2024.
• In 2016, the IFR predicted 10% growth for professional service robotics over the next few years from $4.6 Billion, but by 2018 they were recording 61% growth to $12.6 B and by 2020 the IFR has recorded 85% overall growth expecting revenue from service robotics to hit $37 B by 2021.
• Hyundai Motor has shown growing interest in automated vehicle technology and robotics over the past years, and said it will invest up to 1.5 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in robotics by 2025.
• Tesla chief Elon Musk has saidhe expects his company to create a truly complete autonomous vehicle by 2020, and the number of vehicles capable of operating with a lesser degree of autonomy - such as automated braking and lane-changing - will become an increasingly common sight.
• FO packaging is expected to gain wider adoption as 5G, AI, and autonomous driving take flight in the coming years - and revenue stemming from FO packaging is expected to reach $2 B - $2.5 B by 2025.
• After Bayraktar TB-2 drones and Roketsan-manufactured smart munitions were paraded in Baku last week, higher-end Turkish systems can be expected to enter the Azerbaijani arsenal in the coming years.
• Tesla chief Elon Musk has said he expects his company to create a truly complete autonomous vehicle by 2020, such as autonomous braking system and autonomous lane-changing - will become an very common sight.
• By 2030, experts expect further breakthroughs in areas such as healthcare analytics, autonomous vehicles, and intelligent tutoring systems.

Last updated: 17 January 2021