Project outputs

Market-Robotics

The market earned revenues of $1437.9 million in 2009 and robot sales to the Central/Eastern European countries surged by 73% in 2010. Various regions experienced different rates of recovery in robot sales in 2010. About 30,600 units were sold in Europe, 50% more than in 2009. This data proves that there is a need for the European robotics industry to find ways of filling the gap and competing against their Asian competitors.

MEGAROB robot will answered the needs of the manufacturers when reevaluating investment priorities on technologies/products that help improve efficiency and reduce costs. It will thus be a benefit for the market for industrial robotics.

From 1998 to 2008, worldwide wind turbine sales have grown approximately 29% annually while in the EU, installed wind power capacity has increased by an average of 25% annually from 1997 to 2007. In terms of installations of wind turbine, the EU market has grown by 19% annually and has amounted € 11.3 billion of investments per year.

MEGAROB would then be an advantageous tool to allow the construction of these wind towers with components built up with high level of accuracy and within a reduced timeframe. This will have a positive impact on the European wind tower manufacturers and increase the level of competitiveness of the European companies of the sector.

Regarding the construction sector in Europe, in 2010-2011, the sector counted 3.2 million of enterprises corresponding to a number of 12.7 employees for turnover amounted € 1.665 billion.

The use of MEGAROB technologies can extend the possibilities of civil engineering to the infrastructures construction using new high-performance materials like composites, replacing the current manufacturing methods using metal or concrete and imposing a major technological leap over the current state of the art.

Europe’s aerospace and defense companies proved able to turn in good overall performances in 2010. However the environment in which they operate kept becoming increasingly challenging, due to a rising pressure on defense investments and stricter lending criteria from financial institutions.

According to the difficulties faced by the sector, in particular through the reduction of investments, MEGAROB would be an important answer to enable the sector to product their components with high level of accuracy and within a smaller amount of time. This would allow the European aerospace and defense sector to be even more competitive.

Other industrial sectors will be approached when starting the technology transfer of the MEGAROB concept such as ships building and railways. In order to give a rough idea of the promising market the latter could be, one can emphasize the fact that the European rail supply industry has a leading position in the world market, valued around 50-60 billion euros in 2003, of which it captures between 60 and 70 % and directly employs 130,000 people in Europe and more than 1 million indirectly.

The previous sectors are directly related with the content of MEGAROB, but due to one of the aims of the project is to achieve a long-range and high-accuracy robotic system adaptable to all types, sizes, quantity and complexity of parts, makes the MEGAROB solution extensive to any other kind of sector or industry, as logistic, automotive and big machinery manufacturing.