The idea for this report was to dream up interesting uses for autonomous mobile robotics in the future, including in energy and mining. But to our amazement, many of these ideas are already being piloted. We reviewed the pilots in this 18-page report. They suggest transformational economic impacts and moderate energy/materials upside.
Autonomous mobile robotics seem to be at a biting point. If you can train Level IV autonomy in a vehicle that navigates all the complexities of roads, then the genie is out of the bottle. And what other tasks can be performed autonomously, in smaller and/or more specialized robots?
This 19-page report is about autonomous mobile robotics, which are importantly different from industrial robots. The latter are fixed in place, which means they do not need to be as ‘smart’, and they can run on mains electricity.
Autonomous mobile robots, by contrast, require more processing power and will tend to be energized by batteries.
Fascinating examples of autonomous mobile robotics are explored on pages 2-15, from autonomous robot lawnmowers, to deliveries, to warehousing (example here), to underground mining of coal/copper, to installing solar modules.
In each case, we attempted to quantify the mass of the robots, the mass of their batteries, their power consumption and their annual energy use. This suggests general rules for the power consumption and battery sizing of robots.
Upside for energy and materials demand is modeled and discussed on pages 16-18. Robotic solutions hinge on an ecosystem of computation, electrification, lithium ion batteries, Rare Earth magnets, multiple sensors, buffered with capacitors, and comprise 5-20% copper by mass.