Stats and predictions about service robotics

… Bloomberg Businessweek’s “Service Robots: Rise of the Machines (Again),” said that the U.S. was ahead in the the race to provide non-manufacturing robots because “the service market is expected to double in size by 2013, and of the 200 or so top companies, nearly 70 are in the U.S., twice as many as are in Germany or Japan.”
… The article also reported that the U.S. had “blown” nearly all of the industrial robot business.
… The International Federation of Robotics, in their $415 2010 WorldRobotics Service Robots Report, detailed all these companies and their robotic offerings.
… iRobot’s CTO Tom Wagner, in smartplanet, talked about robots in defense, homes, healthcare and hospitals, and suggested that, unlike manufacturing, service robots will be mostly autonomous. “On the home side, it’s providing solutions that give you back time; on the defense side, it’s solving problems that put lives in danger.” These we’ll see this decade, well before we see human-robot communication and human-like robots.

Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.

Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.