Coronavirus — How it is expected to Influence Deep Technologies across Industries
Written by Rahul Saraf, AVP — Strategy, BIS Research
Covid-19 has essentially brought the world, economies and lives to a halt. The global human population is fighting a battle for survival, and there is no reason to believe that we will not prevail. However, this global shock will leave a very deep mark.
A response to this economic shock, once we eradicate the virus, will be equally strong. This response will be towards building capabilities in ways that we can hold off such threats in the future, deal with them much better if it does come to it, and overall bring to bear the best of technologies and innovations.
I am taking this opportunity to highlight 9 themes / products which may see global presence and scale far sooner than imagined. Further, post an internal review with experts, I am calling out some specific best in class deep technology research reports for organizations to leverage now!
- Feeding 8 to 9 Billion in 2050
A. AG002C: Precision Agriculture :-Digital agriculture increases automation in farming and reduces manual dependency on the yield, thus mitigating the effect on daily farming. Different application segments include irrigation, field monitoring, fertilization, spraying, planting, data management, and others.
B. AG045A: Agriculture Technology-as-a-Service :-Using technology and sharing the risk with other players in the ecosystem can help reduce water consumption, increase crop yields and make agriculture a viable option at scale. ATaaS business model allows farmers to subscribe to agriculture technologies rather than acquiring them through a capital expense.
C. AG043A: Agricultural Pheromones :- Indiscriminate use of pesticides is leading to concerns on the health of produce. Further, the resistance of pests to these pesticides is creating a strong need for alternative crop protection solutions, with Agricultural Pheromones (especially sex pheromones) being one of the best.
D. AG046A: Indoor Farming :- Rising focus on personal health is driving a change in behavior of consumers, who now are concerned about the food they eat in terms of its place of origin, freshness, and nutrients. Indoor farming helps address these as well as transform the way food is produced globally.
2. Securing Livestock
A. AG053A: Animal Genetics :- Modifying animals/livestock genetically for disease-resistant traits can aid to reduce the animals’ chances of getting infected by viruses such as the COVID-19 and transmit further.
3. Building a Digital Manufacturing and Responsive Supply Chain Capability
A. DT012A: Industrial IoT :- What we are witnessing in this crisis that those organizations that were already on the path to be digitally transformed, are showcasing an ability to minimize global supply chain disruptions and modify manufacturing plans. Industrial IOT is an essential component of this digital transformation.
B. ES044A: IoT Chip :- Constantly emerging demand in consumer electronics applications, declining sensor cost and innovations in silicon chip technology driving growth.
C. MC065A: Global Polyamide Powder For 3D Printing :- 3D printing has proved its usefulness in multiple applications across industries. Polyamide powder as a 3D printing material finds very good use in automotive, aerospace, medical, consumer goods and others, with aerospace industry being the dominant user.
D. AD046A: Logistics and Warehouse Robot :- Scale of operations of E-commerce is driving demand for these robots as they ensure automation, strong accuracy, and minimal downtime. These advantages help companies improve on their order to ship cycle times, thereby improving customer retention.
E. ES024A: Intelligent Lighting Controls :- Energy conservation and cost control are two of the big reasons for the sale of intelligent lighting controls. Integration of the physical security industry with intelligent lighting, voice control features and an increase in smart homes are further driving demand.
4. Supporting a Digital Life / Remote Workforce
A. AD015C: Collaborative Robots :- Cobots, different than traditional industrial robots, are designed to work autonomously with safety assured by isolation from human contact. The global collaborative robot market has gained widespread importance with the growing need for improved productivity, speed, and efficiency, continuous decrease in size of the available workforce, and overcoming the safety concerns for labour working around robots in shared workplaces.
B. AD009B: Telepresence Robots :- Increased need for organizational efficiency, increase in elderly population, remote workforce, and rapid technological advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics is helping grow demand for these products in healthcare, education, enterprise, personal, and manufacturing.
C. ES039B: Wireless Charging :- Increased shipments of smart handheld devices, standardizations of wireless regulations, increasing battery anxiety among the consumers, amongst many other advantages are driving strong growth in this industry.
D. ES033A: Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality :- Augmented reality and mixed reality devices have penetrated a plethora of application areas including industrial, healthcare, automotive, aerospace and defense, and education, among others.
5. Health & Safety
A. ES017C: Video Surveillance :- The rising security concerns, along with the need for highly efficient and time-saving surveillance systems at affordable costs, is a pressing matter to be looked upon in the current scenario
B. BA023B: Automotive Cabin Air Quality Sensor :- The globally rising level of air pollution, deteriorating cabin air quality, and growing awareness toward passenger safety and comfort have resulted in an increased demand for automotive cabin air quality sensors.
C. MC088A: Bio-Based Cosmetics and Personal Care Ingredients :- The growing consumer inclination toward the adoption of bio-based products due to rising health and environmental concerns is expected to drive the market
6. Urban Mobility
A. AD075A: Urban Air Mobility :- Future of flights is taking a dynamic shift. With overburdened roads and urban congestion, industry stakeholders are now investing in urban air mobility (UAM), a safe and efficient on-demand air traffic operation for passengers and cargo in a manned or unmanned aircraft.
B. BA022B: Advanced Driver Assistance System :- The rising awareness toward air quality and safety & health concerns, along with technologically advanced offerings by automotive OEMs is leading to the integration of in-cabin air quality sensors in the vehicles. Luxury vehicles are integrated with multiple sensors in the vehicle’s cabin for the detection and monitoring of numerous harmful substances including exhaust gases, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate & dust particles
C. MC051A: Graphene-enhanced Composites :- Graphene-enhanced composites meet the growing demand of the automotive sector for lightweight and energy efficient vehicles. Graphene-enhanced composites are lighter yet stronger than steel which makes them the composites of choice to reduce CO2 emissions and achieve more fuel economy of the vehicles.
7. Drones / Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
A. AD010C: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles :- The global unmanned aerial vehicle market is expected to witness a high growth rate owing to the growing usage of UAVs for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations, need for transferring large amount of data in real time, and need for secured satellite communication data link for military applications. Moreover, the increase in demand for UAVs across sectors such as military and defense, homeland security, and commercial is another major factor behind the growth of the global UAV market.
A. AD037B: UAS Traffic Management (UTM) System :- This system is in its developmental phase. Many successful tests and demonstrations for communication prototypes, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, mission planning, and longer-range application prove that a commercialized market for unmanned traffic management is gradually emerging. Moreover, the need for UTM services has also resulted in the development of regulatory framework for the deployment drones around the world.
B. AD047A: SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) Technology :- SLAM technology used across industries has experienced continuous technological advancement and the accuracy has significantly improved. Adoption across robots, UAVs, and augmented reality applications is increasing, owing to their greater accuracy and minimal hardware requirement. Major platforms where SLAM technology is used include robots, UAVs, augmented reality, and autonomous vehicles, with major end-users of these platforms being commercial, household, manufacturing and logistics, and military.
C. AD024B: UAV Propulsion System :- The global UAV propulsion system market has gained widespread importance owing to the growing need to deploy UAVs in diverse and emerging applications.
D. AD043A: Drone Camera :- Increase in demand of drones for imaging applications, rise in usage of low-cost Do-It-Yourself (DIY) drones, and high demand of drones for surveillance applications are driving the growth in the drone camera market.
E. AD082A: Autonomous Drone Wireless Charging and Infrastructure :- The increasing demand for BVLOS drones in different commercial applications in the future is expected to help in fuelling the market for the wireless drone charging systems. This is because a drone with high payload capacity and endurance needs more power backup for continuous operations.
8. Satellites
A. AD040B: Small Satellites :- The space sector is undergoing a rapid transformation and new business opportunities are arising for commercial players. A “NewSpace” is emerging, for small satellites in low earth orbit for different applications coming from end-users.
B. AD025B: Small Launch Vehicles :- With a surge in demand for small satellites (including nano, micro and cube satellites) from different end-users for different applications, a dedicated and affordable launch service industry is emerging.
C. AD067A: Space Propulsion System :- Companies are creating expertise in providing propulsion technologies ranging from electric propulsion, hybrid propulsion, green propulsion, reusable propulsion to more conventional liquid and chemical propulsion technologies. These find good use in satellites as well as big and small size launch vehicles.
D. AD072A: Space Electronics :- The high demand of electronics coming from space industry is a mega shift. Future opportunity lies in providing space-qualified electronics, including commercial off the shelf electronics (COTS), to end use in launch of small satellites, mega constellations, ridesharing rockets, mission critical vehicles, robots and dedicated small launch vehicles.
9. Defense
A. AD006B: Small Arms :- Ongoing and future modernization plans of the Armed Forces in major economies of the world is leading to a robust growth in manufacturing of small firearms to fulfil the requirement from military as well as commercial (competitive shooting sports and hunting) sector.
B. AD042B: Undersea Warfare Systems :- Undersea warfare is getting recognized as a major aspect of a country’s defense strategy due to mounting anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) threats by rivals. These systems can help offset an enemy’s numerical or geographic advantage.
About the Author
Rahul Saraf is an experienced value engineering, product marketing, and program management professional, having worked in associated roles in global IT and engineering organizations (SAP, DuPont, Honeywell & Lincoln) for over 15 years. Prior to joining BIS Research in its strategy and marketing unit, he was with SAP for over a decade in its Digital Transformation Office, within the Office of the CEO. At BIS Research he heads the business strategy division and is also leading product management across the technology vertical, encompassing 5 COEs and 4 Industries.
Please feel free to write to him at rahul.saraf@bisresearch.com for any queries.
