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Triggering Mass Robotic Adoption Through Next-Gen Actuator Versatility

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Triggering Mass Robotic Adoption Through Next-Gen Actuator Versatility

Technology is now fundamental to all enterprise strategies aimed at reducing costs, improving competitiveness and capturing new market opportunities. Robotics & Intelligent Operational Systems (RIOS) are the new vanguard of emerging technologies promising effectiveness, performance optimization, and cost-cutting by drastically transforming tasks and entire processes.

While  the “buzz” around robotics has never been greater, RIOS adoption is still in its early stages, and the fragmented robotics industry is challenged to achieve the level of applicability, reliability and proven effectiveness demanded by both consumers and enterprise users. The existing limited level of actuation flexibility available for basic repetitive industrial applications has supported growing adoption rates, but a vast majority of the total robotics market remains untapped - $1.2T by 2025 (as projected by Myria Research).

However, a new generation of actuator is capable of being the needed game changer that radically advances and widens robotics adoption by reducing costs and enabling new applications across vertical markets. Vancouver-based Genesis Robotics’ LiveDrive symbolizes the nextgen and new class of actuation performance for robotics. The dramatic improvements delivered by LiveDrive has the ability to accelerate adoption, provide the solution to create the inflection point for mass adoption across vertical sectors, and as a result, potentially double the entire addressable market for RIOS solutions.

Fast Evolution for New Market Opportunities

1) Total Addressable Market Expansion

The most striking general business outcome to look forward to, thanks to a new generation of actuator, is the increase of the total addressable market for robotics. Currently, numerous use cases across sectors have been unsolvable with existing robotic solutions due to inefficiency and/or total cost requirements that are unable to compete with current processes. However, breakthrough actuator technology delivering significant improvements in price, speed, and safety, have the ability to open up new design possibilities, therefore creating new use cases, disruptive usage models, and new markets.

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This makes estimating the new size of the total addressable market for robotic solutions challenging to produce. That said, analogies with recent industries having experienced technological breakthrough and growth of their addressable markets do exist (e.g. the IT industry and the democratization of Personal Computers as well as the explosive growth in the Internet). This make extrapolations for the robotics industry possible.

Various valuations position the current addressable market for robotics solutions anywhere between $3T and $10T. The variations in valuations are due to the low level of maturity and standardization of solutions, but a consensus would bring the number to $7T. Based on extrapolations aforementioned, the impact of introducing revolutionary actuation capabilities would make the total addressable market for robotics double the consensus, placing it at $14T, with a slight increase to $16T through the subsequent six to seven years.

Assuming a reasonably fast adoption of a nextgen actuator by robotics industry incumbents and future players, or presuming the emergence of a strong industry leader embracing the technology, the transition from current to “nextgen” addressable market (i.e. successful design and production of solution integrating new actuators) is estimated to take 2-3 years. This is a relatively short period of time considering the vast array of uses for a new potential solution but justified by the increased versatility provided.

2) Impact on Industry Development: Getting Closer to Inflexion Point

Another non-negligible impact of a new class of actuation technology entering the market is the predictable acceleration of adoption by the enterprise as well as consumers.

Including the weight of hardware, software, and all peripheral professional services (pre-deployment consulting, implementation, alignment with other systems existing systems and processes, solution management and maintenance, etc.), the robotics industry was projected to grow beyond $1T in size by 2022-2023 by research companies and professional associations.

This was by counting on current hardware technologies that would be supplemented mostly by incremental improvements, together with the continuous development of digital technologies and their adaptation for robotics solutions (e.g. by balancing hardware limitations with greater computing capabilities, algorithms, et al, therefore, enhancing adaptability). Furthermore, a reduction in costs for all pieces of technology makes the development of more advanced solutions more common and affordable.

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However, a new class of actuation technology with a whole new form factor, with no backlash, having high precision, that is back drivable, with a high impact tolerance would have two main effects: 1) a reduction in complex programming and maintenance needs and 2) boost the development of new elaborate robotics solutions for various untapped or specific applications (e.g. surgery, precision manufacturing, consumer applications requiring extremely high-security features, etc.).Therefore, old robotics designs equipped with such a new actuation technology would largely surpass their older versions.

Estimates vary and to actually predict the impact of net-new robotic solutions serving novel applications is a challenging exercise. But projection scenarios indicate an inflexion point for the robotics industry closer to two years from today (versus three – four years), a similar CAGR (30% to 40% for the five years following inflexion point, at best) as presented by research firms, results in a $1T industry by the 2022-2023 horizon (versus 2023-2025).

Efficiency Requirements for Key Vertical Sectors and Impact on Targeted Addressable MarketSeveral major vertical sectors already benefit from robotics solutions meant to deliver increased operational effectiveness, with increasingly more providers of such solutions entering the market and introducing or validating early standards such as “Cobots” –or collaborative robots- which are industrial machines deemed to work semi-collaboratively with factory staff.

Despite the incremental improvements delivered, the lack of innovations for actuation technologies is even more evident when analyzed through the lens of major vertical sectors’ functional and total cost requirements.

For the below analysis, functional requirements are the combination of speed, accuracy, flexibility, precision and other elements of versatility.

Total cost requirements represent all direct and indirect costs implied during the lifecycle of a solution: engineering, design, development and manufacturing costs of a RIOS solution, in addition to implementation, deployment, maintenance and repurposing costs from running the robotics solution.

For each type of system, a non-exhaustive list of applications currently explored face viability challenges that could be solved by a better actuator, as well as a list of future applications made possible by the same better actuators.

a) Healthcare Environment

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Healthcare is possibly the most obvious vertical sector for which current technology capabilities are limiting development of high value added robotics solutions. Despite a generally higher cost acceptance, driven by the cost of non-robotics machines commonly used in healthcare environments, existing technologies are not meeting the terms of functional requirements. There is a particular large market opportunity for assistive robots both within healthcare institutions as well as the growing market for in-home care.

b) Industrial Environments (Manufacturing, Logistics & Warehousing)

Industrial robotics is the industry sub-segment which has experienced the earliest and fastest development, especially for solutions servicing the manufacturing sector. However actual applicability, despite the emergence of collaborative robots, vision systems, and mobile platforms, has been mostly restrained to the replacement of human workers for highly repetitive, basic, sometimes dangerous tasks. For those, first generation robots are increasingly used in an effort to cut costs at the expense of flexibility (e.g. “on-demand” manufacturing impossible to achieve) thus only representing a short-term efficiency patch for end-users.

Any precision or low-repetition industrial process (e.g. aeronautic, semi-conductor manufacturing, etc.) would benefit significantly from collaboration or assistive robots powered by next-gen actuators. Additionally the growing demand for short run, highly variable, or highly customized manufacturing, needs a robotics solution with low maintenance and programming requirements, as well as the ability to be re-tasked quickly, if not on-demand.

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c) Outdoor Environments (Energy & Mining, Agro-Farming)

Industries with difficult or unmanageable terrain or working environments, such as forestry, mining, oil & gas (both in the field and in refineries), as well as some agriculture will benefit significantly from a new generation of low complexity designs that can use next gen actuators to support walking robots (two legged though multi-legged). The military has pioneer much of this work with current class actuators, but there was difficulty supporting the task due to the lack of back drivability to take the impact of walking as well as the maintenance complexity of geared systems. In most cases walking robot designs reverting to hydraulic or pneumatic systems. Next gen direct drive actuators with no gearbox, high torque, and instantly back drivability solve all of these problems.

Actuation Versatility Impact on RIOS Ownership Costs, Applicability, and Innovations Addressing New Use Case

1) Business Process: Beyond Modeling, Architecting

As explained previously, existing RIOS solutions are brought to market aligned with value propositions promising incremental efficiency over existing methods and processes. These are cases of business process modeling: the activity of modifying processes of an enterprise in order to deliver incremental improvements.

New use cases, enabled by a next generation of actuators, result in rethinking processes, creating new ones, and not simply modifying old ones. This becomes a case of business process architecture: the activity of creating new processes for an enterprise in order to deliver new, higher value outcomes.

For the robotics industry, it implies reviewing and creating a usage model offered to users (enterprise or consumers alike): simplified down to requiring no, or limited, specific skills for operating solutions, guaranteed safety, affordability, and with a level of flexibility that will deliver use cases that support all workers. In this new robotics industry era, the “Assistive Robotics” era, individuals regardless of their level of skills remain in the value chain and participate in it, removing several societal hurdles early robotic solutions face.

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2) “Assistive Robotics” made possible

Assistive Robotics is defined in this document, as a robotics system for which cognitive intelligence is provided by a human user and supplemented by computing and sensing components. In addition, the actuation components can be used to augment and/or reproduce a human user’s sequence of actions. Conceptually, these “assistive robots” are both fixed and mobile arms, for example, that replace traditional robot arms without moving to a full exo-skeleton.

In theory, Assistive Robotics allows “plug & play” usage model (e.g. human user “teaching” in three-dimension, a sequence that’s reproduced by the machine or human operator using a partial robotics wearable system to augment movement and strength, etc.) for which no specialized skills are required. This would virtually scrap implementation and deployment time/costs/complexity, on top of changing the need for side technologies such as vision systems, elaborate AI, etc.

Attempts to develop assistive robotic solutions have occurred, most notably for healthcare and military (exoskeleton), but also manufacturing (e.g. various collaborative robots). However, results are often deceptive (limitation in dexterity, poor accuracy in reproducing sequences, etc.), primarily due to actuators complexity, efficiency, speed or costs that make it prohibitive.

As mentioned earlier, next-gen actuators promise lower complexity, higher overall performance, lower cost and increased versatility.

Solution: Rethinking Dated yet Omnipresent Power Components from Scratch

1) The need for net-new technological improvements

Most recent incremental improvements in robotics have been digitally-driven and better standards have been achieved thanks to more proficient computing and sensing equipment. Two distinct reasons explain this trend: 1) “digital enablers” have rapidly matured supported by strong and established industry leaders, and 2) the complexity of electro-mechanical system development requires skillsets already scarce within the RIOS industry while software-based (programing, etc.) skills are definitely more common.

In comparison, actuation technologies used in robotics were developed over half a century ago - certainly common and relatively unchallenged, they remain a cost burden, cannot be considered reliable to satisfy standards in any high precision or high-speed situations, and greatly limit innovation and performance.

Worst, fast evolving technologies surrounding robotics, and in particular AI or Cloud Robotics, can’t be exploited to their fullest, further limiting the potential for robotics adoption in virtually all situations.

2) The LiveDrive Technology

LiveDrive, a breakthrough innovation in actuation technology introduced by Genesis Robotics, presents all the fundamental characteristics and features (speed,safety, power, versatility, etc.) that have been describe in this document, and therefore represents the nextgen actuation capabilities enabling the strong development of the RIOS industry through mass adoption boosted by new usage model such as Assistive Robotics.

a. Combinatorial Innovation Driven by three technological discoveries:

The LiveDrive is a radical departure from conventional actuator design. It is well known among roboticists that a direct drive motor would be the ideal actuator, but conventional direct drive

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motors lack the necessary torque. Improvements in conventional direct drive motors of 10-20% are rare. The three foundational discoveries of the LiveDrive break this mold by providing 300% greater torque than a conventional direct drive motor.

THREE FOUNDATIONAL DISCOVERIES

1. Amplified Magnetics

LiveDrive takes the strongest magnets in the world, and nearly doubles their effective force.

2. Structural-magnetic Synergy

The tremendous magnetic forces produced by the LiveDrive would collapse a conventional motor construction. The LiveDrive combines a new level of magnetic performance, with the structural rigidity to withstand the resulting forces.

3. Thermodynamic Anomaly

Heat is a limiting factor in any electromagnetic device. The combination of the first two foundational discoveries provides a level of heat dissipation that allows the LiveDrive to operate at much higher power levels than a conventional motor.

When all three discoveries are combined, the result is a revolutionary advance in robotics. All the benefits of a direct drive motor are achieved at a level of torque that allows the LiveDrive to be used directly in the joints of a robot, without the need for a gearbox.

Never before has this level of speed, torque, and precision been combined in a device with the simplicity to allow low cost manufacturing and ease of implementation. The result is remarkably higher speed combined with the ability to stop fast enough for safe operation around humans. Genesis Robotics and LiveDrive will help to change the robotics industry, helping to build the fastest, safest and most versatile robots available.

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Conclusion / Take AwayWhile often disregarded to the profit of digital enablers (AI, IoT, Sensor technologies including vision systems, etc.), actuation capabilities actually define and enable a vast part of the value delivered by robotic systems. The standardization of a simple, yet efficient and cost effective actuation solution like LiveDrive has the potential to drastically transform the burgeoning RIOS industry by enabling the development of a myriad of new solutions filling the gap with existing robotic solutions.

As part of the expanded markets that can be developed with advanced actuation, Assistive Robotics represents a new way of thinking how human and machines can evolve in the three- dimensional world - introducing new processes with far more capabilities while greatly diminishing the complexity of current deployments.

Symbolizing the nextgen and new class of actuation performance for the robotics industry, LiveDrive has the true potential to double the entire addressable market for RIOS solutions, considerably accelerate adoption, and as a result, positively move the inflection point needle for mass adoption of robotics systems across vertical sectors.

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Produced by Robotics Business Review in partnership with Myria Research. Sponsored by Genesis Robotics.