Research Articles

When picturing a robot, an intimidating human-like figure might come to mind, but what if they could help businesses gain maximum benefit from their unmatched efficiency and power? Service robots are technological marvels proving to possess the enhanced capabilities of human labor, with fantastic flexibility and unmatched power, while always looking smart.

Tunneling magneto resistance sensors are rapidly disrupting the automotive and wearables industry. These tiny sensors leverage quantum phenomena to provide a performance edge over classical incumbents, including industry mainstays such as Hall effect sensors. Although they don't depend on the more exciting effects such as superposition and entanglement, in this article, IDTechEx highlights the lessons to be learned from the success of TMR sensors in the emerging quantum sensor market.

Thursday 2 November 2023 - The emerging demands on radar from developing autonomous vehicle technologies; What a 4D imaging radar is and why it is needed; What routes are available to create 4D imaging radar; How radar technologies and implementations are diverging; Who the leading suppliers in 4D imaging radar are

Wednesday 1 November 2023 - The state of the wearables market in 2023; Assessing the value proposition of combining AI with wearable data; Case studies across multiple form-factors - Smart watches - could AI unlock advanced medical monitoring applications?; Skin patches - is AI software the key to unlocking the consumer market for continuous glucose monitors?; Brain computer interfaces - will AI gift earphones with mind-reading powers? Outlook for the future: hype vs. reality

Graphene has long been seen as a "wonder material" and a solution to many of the world's challenges. The reality is very different as, unsurprisingly, the hype did not immediately translate into commercial success.

Friday 3 November 2023 - Analyze financial activity in 2023 within the AM industry; Identify AM industry trends and challenges from 2023 and predict future 2024 industry moves; Present IDTechEx's 2024 takeaways for the 3D Printing market

Quantum dots (QDs) could potentially be targeting the huge consumer electronics application via its adoption in image sensors, apart from existing industrial applications. IDTechEx has published its view on the global quantum dot markets and enabling technologies in their report "Quantum Dot Materials and Technologies 2024-2034: Trends, Markets, Applications".

A complimentary magazine by IDTechEx providing insights and outlook to 2034 for key technologies.

In the realm of automation, where innovation meets industry, a groundbreaking revolution is sweeping through the landscape of automated guided vehicles (AGVs). Traditionally confined indoors for tasks like intralogistics and material handling, AGVs are breaking free into the great outdoors, driven by advancements in navigation technologies and the emergence of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs).

The rise in vehicle autonomy is expected to bring revolutionary technology to the automotive display sector. It will bring a shift in focus from OEMs, enhancing passenger entertainment on-board and increasing the number of displays capable of delivering a more immersive experience via augmented reality (AR).

Wednesday 25 October 2023 - Air Quality Monitoring Technology: Comparing the Opportunities in Smart Cities, Smart Buildings, and Smart Homes - What are the latest innovations in miniaturized gas sensor technology? What is the state of the market for air quality monitoring? Why is adoption into 'smart-cities' still niche? How do opportunities compare between smart-building and smart-home?

In the ever-evolving energy storage landscape, the advent of solid-state batteries (SSBs) is leading to a new era of possibilities. As the demand for higher performance and safer energy storage solutions grows, SSBs have emerged as a frontrunner in the race for next-generation battery technology.

Thursday 26 October 2023 - Visualizing Beyond the Visible Spectrum: Assessing the Future of Image. Vision beyond visible light spectrum - expanding visualization of electromagnetic spectrum; Growing interest in SWIR imaging and key technologies targeting this space; Challenges facing this sector and opportunities for market entrants; Applications benefitting from SWIR growth from autonomous vehicles to agriculture; Emergence of event-based vision and miniaturized spectrometry

Flying cars might not yet be mainstream, but as developments in the electric and autonomous vehicle industries are making progress globally, the future of driving is set to look very different.

Radars are already cemented into the automotive market as they provide popular ADAS features such as adaptive cruise control (ACC) and blind spot detection (BSD). Despite their near ubiquitous presence in vehicles, IDTechEx's new report "Automotive Radar 2024-2044: Forecast, Technologies, Applications" finds that there is still large growth potential for this sensor, mostly driven by new opportunities for short-range radars.

If biotechnology was a color spectrum, where different colors correspond to different application areas (i.e. medicine, agriculture, etc.), then what is white biotechnology? White biotechnology is the industrial production and processing of chemicals, materials, and energy using micro-organisms like bacteria and yeast.

A new high-power charging solution is required to meet the market need of the truck and bus industry to charge electric heavy-duty vehicles in an acceptable amount of time. As a result, the Megawatt Charging System (MCS), a charging system for large battery electric vehicles, is now being developed.

IDTechEx's new report "Autonomous Cars, Robotaxis and Sensors 2024-2044" shows that autonomous cars are slowly, but very surely, becoming a part of everyday life. Although they have been hyped and overpromised for a long time, in the last couple of years, the industry has accomplished some significant milestones. The US and China both now have a handful of cities allowing commercial robotaxi services from industry leaders such as Cruise, Waymo, Baidu, AutoX, and more.

For thousands of years, people have relied on and continue to rely on their vision to assess their surroundings. They evaluate objects and apply pre-conceived hypotheses based on what they see, and they do this daily.

Tuesday 7 November 2023 - Electrification in Cars and Beyond: What's Happened and What to Expect - The automotive market - key technology trends and technology companies becoming involved in electric cars; Electric and fuel cell trucks; Air taxis (eVTOL); An overview of electrification across vans, trucks, buses, 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, microcars, construction vehicles, trains, boats, and ships

As reported by Nvidia's Q2 financial statement, its second-quarter data center's revenue was a record US$10.32 billion, up 141% from the previous quarter and up 171% from a year ago. With the increasing demand for high-performance servers in data centers, IDTechEx has seen challenges in data center thermal management and tremendous opportunities in this industry.

IDTechEx forecast the Li-ion battery market for electric vehicles to reach US$380 billion by 2034. With this huge increase in value, the safe and reliable operation of these (sometimes combustible) assets while maximizing the performance extracted from them becomes critical. The battery management system (BMS) plays a central role in the safe and reliable operation of Li-ion batteries but is somewhat overlooked with regard to its potential for also moving battery performance forward.

As the energy and industrial landscapes experience transformative shifts, the hydrogen economy stands at the threshold of sustainable growth. The envisioned hydrogen value chain will integrate production, storage, and distribution systems, supporting a wide array of applications that span industrial processes to various transportation sectors.

Thursday 19 October 2023 - Introduction to and working principles of redox flow batteries; Energy and power decoupling explained; Levelized cost of storage (LCOS) vs. Li-ion; Introduction to RFB chemistry benchmarking; Current and future market applications of RFBs; discussion on long duration energy storage; Membranes used in redox flow batteries and introduction to other components; Overview of market analysis and recent RFB installations made by key players; IDTechEx's outlook and conclusions

Gas sensor technology makes the invisible, visible. A plethora of different technology types can be used to measure analytes related to safety and health - quantifying the composition of air quality inside and out

Thursday 12 October - An introduction to EMI shielding for electronics, including the transition from board/enclosure level shielding to package level shielding; How trends in semiconductor packaging such as heterogeneous integration will affect EMI shielding requirements and demand for novel deposition capabilities; Emerging materials for EMI shielding, including particle-free (molecular) conductive inks and MXenes

Over the last decade, redox flow battery (RFB) deployments have been sporadic and few compared to ever-growing Li-ion battery deployments for stationary energy storage applications. However, as the penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE) sources into electricity grids increases globally, so will the need to manage more uncertain and variable electricity supply.

Wednesday 11 October 2023 - Solid-State Batteries - Technologies, Challenges, Breakthroughs, and Beyond: Solid-state battery definition and fundamental concept; Value propositions; Potential for enhanced safety, energy density and performance; Technology types, challenges, improvements; Application and commercialization

The road to fully autonomous vehicles is, by necessity, a long and winding one; systems that implement new technologies that increase the driving level of vehicles (driving levels being discussed further below) must be rigorously tested for safety and longevity before they can make it to vehicles that are bound for public streets.

2022 saw the aerogels market take a large leap forward with the success of electric vehicle (EV) batteries as an application. Historic growth has been steady for other applications, but with the growth fuelled by the EV market, there is the opportunity for several other applications to take advantage of the scaling production volume.

It is no secret that electronic devices are becoming increasingly compact, with greater functionality contained in smaller volumes. As such, increasing efforts are being made to mount integrated circuits (ICs) and other components such as antennas closer together, sometimes within the same semiconductor package.

Wednesday 4 October 2023 - Discuss the key components of a PEM fuel cell including their form and function within the fuel cell system; Provide information on emerging technological innovation for each of the major components, both in terms of materials and manufacturing; Outline key technology trends driven by external factors such as sustainability; Overview the PEM fuel cell market within the context of the broader fuel cell electric vehicle market

Thursday 5 October 2023 - Introduction to automotive displays - how we got here; Display technologies - from incumbent technology to future display technologies; Display types - from how they are currently presented to how they will look; A holistic approach to displays - from the display technology to the key additional components that ensure the display's optimal performance

The global quantum dot (QD) material market is projected to reach US$550 million by 2034. However, this remarkable figure merely scratches the surface of the potential magnitude the market of their enabled products is set to attain, especially in one of QD's potential application markets: displays.

Tuesday 10 October 2023 - Mobile Robotics in Logistics - Over 20-fold Revenue Increase in the Next Two Decades; An overview of mobile robots and a breakdown of different types of mobile robots used in logistics; Exploring the reasons behind the rapid growth of mobile robots in logistics and the benefits they offer to various industries; Discussion of the fundamental technologies and components that empower mobile robot systems; Analyzing the present state of the market, including noteworthy developments such as acquisitions and new product launches by industry leaders; Delving into the obstacles and regulatory considerations that mobile robots face, along with a timeline for addressing these challenges; Providing an overview of IDTechEx's independent forecast for the future of mobile robots in the logistics sector.

In 2023, almost every VR device uses LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) to replace the real world with digital content, but a shift might be underway in 2024. Apple's Vision Pro is set to be one of the earliest VR devices to use OLED-on-Si technology, also known as micro-OLED, in a move to shrink headsets down whilst offering extremely high-quality images.