Consumer Robots - Domestic Appliances

Consumer robots are defined as Robots that are operated by, or interact with, untrained, or minimally trained people in everyday environments. Typically these robots will be bought or leased and used to provide services to individuals.
These robots will be considered to fall within the consumer regulatory framework. They are likely to be mass produced, although not in every application. The business models will typically be based on B2C transactions either on a purchase or hire basis.

Domain Overview

The domain can be divided into a number of different sub-domains:
 Domestic appliances
 Entertainment
 Education
 Assisted Living
Each of these sub-domains has particular characteristics.

Sub-Domain: Domestic Appliances

Robotics technology has wide applicability within the domestic appliances market. The
addition of Robotics Technology typically enhances products by extending functions through
providing a degree of autonomy. Over time there is a user expectation that robotic based
appliances will be able to complete many household tasks autonomously. In the assistant care
market assistance in everyday tasks such as food preparation and cleaning are fundamental to
extending the utility of the home for the elderly and infirm.
Robotics technology has been applied to domestic appliances for over ten years, starting with
pool cleaners, vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers. The market in these areas is now maturing
and individual sales volumes are increasing. Europe has globally competitive domestic
appliance manufacturers and there is extensive opportunity not only within the European
market but in the global market for robotics technology. It is estimated that the Domestic
Appliance market for robotics will grow to more than €10Bn by 2020. This is an area of high
growth potential and an important sector within the robotics market as it also promotes the
public awareness of robotics and has the potential to drive part costs down as a result of the
volumes of units shipped thereby enabling other lower volume markets.

Current and future opportunity
Although the first robot vacuum cleaners started to appear in the mid 1990’s they have still to
reach the market penetration levels of manual appliances. Although Europe started this trend
it has not held that lead to date. The current expectation is that a new wave of smarter
cleaning machines based on improved technology will significantly grow the market taking it
beyond current sales of low millions of units per annum. Even with current figures the
numbers of units sold dominate the figures for service robot sales. Europe has strong
domestic appliance manufacturers and it is expected that they will start to gain back a
significant share of this market.
Applications in pool cleaning and lawn mowing are now also growing however it has taken the
market some time to develop. Appliances that are able to map the space they are cleaning
and make deliberate decisions about how to clean that space are only now becoming available. There is still considerable market fragmentation and therefore opportunity for
consolidation.
There is an opportunity to apply current improvements in robot technology in order to bring
appliances closer to the point where using manual appliances is no longer necessary. It is also
expected that the market will broaden into delivering other types of appliance.
It is expected that the domestic appliance market will stimulate focused research and
innovation and has the potential to develop a European supply chain.
Future market opportunity centres on the application of more advanced robot technology to
domestic appliances to provide significant robot functions and step changes with direct
consumer benefit. The market driven nature of this domain means that the development of
technology will mainly concentrate on step changes that raise TRL and Capability levels. In
particular dependability is critically important in the more advanced applications, appliances
will need to be able to recognise failures and remain safe. Consumers are always quick to
recognise what works and what does not, so fulfilling a genuine user need is essential.

Typical goals for advancing system function are:
 Extension of the robotic function to reach beyond the robot
 The development of multi-modal appliances. For example cleaning including specific dirt
and stain removal actions.
 The ability to learning optimal paths, patterns and room layouts without the need for
barrier devices or other types of marker.
 Systems that can take instructions to perform a range of different functions within a
given context.
 Systems able to handle unexpected events in their environment.
In the longer term there are opportunities for the integration of manipulators with mobile
bases, or in fixed appliances, such as a tumble dryer, in terms of combining clearing and
cleaning functions. However the cognitive interaction between user and robot needs to
increase to match the complexity of the environment and the objects to be cleared before a
useful function can be achieved.

Key Market Data
The Domestic Appliance market is typically divided into small and large appliances and into
cleaning and laundry. Robotic applications will therefore fall into different sectors within this
market.
Technical consumer goods market in Europe is worth some €200bn per annum of which the
European small appliance market is worth some €13bn per annum and the large appliance
market €30bn. Robot products are likely to fall between these two markets and the consumer
electronics market which is also some €30bn. Europe has three of the top five global suppliers
in this market and several of the market leaders in individual sectors.
It is estimated that the Domestic Robotics market will be worth more than €10Bn in 2020
from its current base of €3bn. Sales of domestic robots including floor cleaning robots are
experiencing double digit growth per annum.
The domestic vacuum cleaner market is currently dominated by the US based iRobot Corp.
The global annual sales volume of cleaning robots is estimated at 2.5 million units per annum.
There are an increasing number of “clone” products and a number are offering enhanced
mapping. Dyson has entered the European market in 2016, after its Japan launch in 2015,
with its 360 Eye product offering a better cleaning performance and advanced vision based
mapping.

Relationship to other domains and markets
There is a strong relationship with the existing domestic appliance markets and some of the
suppliers in the robot market are established domestic appliance manufacturers. Where there
is a strong existing market for manual devices carrying out the same function there will be
significant IP benefits in promoting collaboration between conventional appliance
manufacturers and robotics technology companies.
There are strong links to the component supply industry because of the need to drive the
down the cost of robot parts, mechanisms, sensors and associated sub-assemblies through
mass production.
There are opportunities in collaboration with semiconductor manufacturers and silicon
designers to incorporate dedicated processing and sensor integrated processing in order to
reduce costs.
There is strong overlap with the assistive care market where systems that support the elderly
population impact on domestic appliance functions such as food preparation, cleaning and
house maintenance.