In early 2020, we supported the National Robotics Network (NRN) in undertaking a strategic mapping exercise of robotics and artificial intelligence (RAI). It was for the UK in a wide range of sector applications, including but not limited to, aerospace, nuclear, oil & gas and rail.

The primary aim of this exercise was to facilitate a desiloing of R&D efforts across these diverse sectors and promote the development of a cross sector supply chain for RAI technologies.

Nearly thirty projects, from five industry sectors, were reviewed. Individual concept diagrams and roadmaps were produced along with combined roadmaps for each sector. An overall integrated roadmap, covering all sectors, was also produced. This information was analysed in an industry-wide workshop that explored additional technologies from the Idea Catalog. Follow up working groups identified the prioritised opportunities for future detailed scoping and development.

The key findings were:

There was significant commonality in needs across many industries. In addition, the type of technologies being proposed to address those needs were also similar.
Primarily, the main differences across sectors exist in a difference of scale (large versus small), problem-specific needs and the regulatory environment.
There is clearly a substantial opportunity to focus research and development on a limited number of areas to yield particularly high benefits.

Focussed research and development in key themes offers a high rate of return since they will have applications across multiple industries.

The report explained the process used to develop key themes and their specific prioritised work areas. It also provided a framework for collaboration to support cross-sector development of technologies along with a suitable execution strategy for the NRN Board.

You can download the 2020 Summary document here.

See here for further information on the NRN. They are refreshing the roadmap this year and would like your comments.