Besides working for Bismarck and writing, I spend a little time volunteering for an organization called Tech London Advocates (TLA) — specifically for their robotics division. We have begun doing meetups in London where a handful of automation start-ups pitch their companies for 5 minutes each after which abscond to the nearest bar to do some networking.
The latest meeting was informative from a UK perspective. The considerable German representation indicated to me that plenty of Europeans remain drawn to the UK — or at least London. The attendants were also generally very aware of the UK’s failings when it came to automation, but were somewhat fatalistic about ever getting to the environment some other countries enjoy. Some founders had talked about their experiences in Shenzhen in much the same way a Chinese traveler would describe Pittsburgh or the Rhine valley in the 1890s. The stand-out takeaways were:
This is a difficult time for the robotics industry. Lots of robot companies are going through a funding diet. There are considerable layoffs and profitability often remains elusive.
Nevertheless, there are some interesting projects to look forward to over the next few years. Ocado and self-driving software developer Oxbotica look to test last-mile delivery in 2023. These bots are a lot bigger than the Starship bots seen in Milton Keynes. I look forward to seeing the public reaction.
The agricultural robotics space is heating up. Muddy Machines has so far specialized in automating the harvesting of Asparagus with very small vehicles equipped with tailored end-effectors. It has completed a pilot project and has been asked to supply over 100 machines over the next year. A lot of this interest stems from worker shortages. Agricultural automation is one of the best prospects for outdoor robotics provided that labour shortages are hitting farming businesses across the entire Western world. This should be a priority for any government that wants to maintain competitive agriculture without a glut of cheap foreign labour.
One thing holding ground-based agricultural robots back is an EU directive (2006/42/EC), which has remained entrenched in UK law post-Brexit. It essentially demands a driver in control within a visual line of sight for an autonomous tractor, drone, or robot in a farming context. This might well apply to drones as they are dangerous even if they stop in mid-air. But for fairly slow-moving and small ground robots, this legislation is needlessly stifling and could be changed quite easily. An upcoming update to the EU machinery directive looks to be even more draconian. This is a particular area where UK divergence would make a lot of sense.
A UCL professor for self-driving cars was very clear in asserting that China will be the first in scaling autonomous vehicles. He argued that the pilot projects going on in Shenzhen are of a much higher level of sophistication and complexity than what is going on in Europe or the US. This chimes with Bismarck’s view that China, out of all the great nations, is the most determined to scale up automation — primarily because it has few other options to alleviate demographic decline.
The UK robotics scene has lots of very capable companies but they are in need of significant government investment. This intralogistics startup called Magway is developing software for closed shuttle infrastructure that will transport goods first around fulfillment centers and airports and then expand to city and countryside-spanning networks. Much as I like the proposition, this presumes effective infrastructure, something the UK has struggled with.
I had a great talk with a representative of Remix Robotics. The company has had a varied history but has ended up as a hardware consulting firm. Essentially, they do bespoke hardware and engineering projects to build robots for robotics companies and larger manufacturers. Many robot start-ups frontload their efforts into software development and run on a robots-as-a-service model. This could be the long-term moneymaker but a lot of those software capabilities are going to be commodified by a few larger platforms. It was good to see a company that was not looking to take over the industry and instead focuses on building sophisticated hardware for unique tasks — something that will not be commodified any time soon.
That is all for this week. I am hoping TLA Robotics will act as a forum to link up roboticists with politicos, think tankers, and civil servants. Currently, those linkages are not well developed and this can be seen in policy papers related to robots. If you are interested in getting involved, coming to the next TLA, or just asking questions, DM me on Twitter or email at rian@bismarckanalysis.com.