By Chris Buck, ROBO Global
Even in a down market, the robotics trajectory is up, up, and away!
Investing in a down market requires a higher level of due diligence. While it can feel a bit more daunting, if you’re aiming for long-term gains, you can actually find yourself in a sweet spot—especially if you’re able to identify opportunities that are poised for growth, no matter what the state of the market overall. If you’re seeking a buy low/sell high opportunity (and, quite frankly, who isn’t?), the first place to look may be the exciting and fast-growing universe of robotics.
Related: Can AI Transform the Health Care Sector?
Robotics is fascinating. Yes, it’s a great investment opportunity. But even more, the innovations that are happening right under our noses are downright amazing. Even for me—someone who spends most of my days learning and talking about robotics, automation, and AI—I find myself constantly surprised by just how fast the industry is delivering real innovations that will impact our lives in very real ways. And soon. Here are just a few of the latest innovations that have me on the edge of my seat:
Automated (and Flying!) Cars
Flying cars from the Jetsons are finally becoming a reality! As a recent transplant from San Francisco to the Dallas suburb of Frisco (sorry, SF friends!), I was more than a little surprised to hear about Uber’s groundbreaking project at Frisco Station, just a few miles away from my new home.
In this unlikely location, Uber recently signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to create its own air traffic control system to manage low-flying, autonomous aircraft that will take passengers into the heart of downtown in no time. This video shows how the planned aerial taxi service will help this mom get home to the kids after a day at the office.
And Uber isn’t alone. More than a dozen companies currently have flying cars in the works, including Airbus, Boeing, and Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk. Uber expects its cars to be in the air by 2023. That’s just 5 short years away!
Of course, there’s no doubt that before anyone is ready for an autonomous flying car, we need to get comfortable with having self-driving cars on the road. Last month’s crash of a self-driving Tesla made a lot of headlines and brought the technology under new scrutiny, but autonomous vehicles are still much safer than cars operated by humans. The potential to reduce traffic accidents will ultimately be what turns this technology into a must-have for personal and commercial use.
According to market research firm Research & Markets, the global autonomous vehicles market revenue is expected to grow by more than 39% per year, to $126.8 billion by 2027.
Medical Robots
The use of robotics in the healthcare industry is nothing new, but it is advancing at a rapid pace. The Renaissance Robot from Mazor Robotics has already improved surgical accuracy by 9% by enabling surgeons to place screws in spines with 99% accuracy.
The popular da Vinci surgical system from Intuitive Surgical uses advanced robotics to turn a surgeon’s hand motions into smaller, more precise robotic movements to improve procedures like prostate cancer treatment and heart valve surgery. And IBM’s Watson gathers and analyzes information from cancer patients and compares it to massive amounts of stored information to help make more accurate diagnoses.
Google, Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard are some of the big names that are making major investments in medical robotics, but there are many smaller players in this sector too.