A clear distinction needs to be made between professional cleaning robots and those used domestically in private homes. Differences are in unit costs, reliability, dependability, and life-cycle requirements in these spheres. In economic and labor terms, industrial cleaning represents one of the most dynamic ib the areas of corporate services. In 2018, the global market size for floor cleaning machines was around USD 5.38 bn. Further growth of 8.5% CAGR was expected until 2025; however, the market stagnation for traditional (hand-guided) machines at the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis dampened the increases. On the other hand, Covid-19 has also led to a new awareness of cleaning in everyday life, and it is expected that the demand for cleaning services will increase again. The growth of the sector in the long term can be explained mainly by the evolution of the penetration of cleaning companies into the market due to the constant outsourcing of services. Given the strong growth of cities, especially in China, the cleaning market in the Asia Pacific region is expected to increase above average until 2022. While cleaning robots have been sold below their potential for many years, the market is now taking up more and more as cleaning robots become more skilled and less expensive – especially in-floor cleaning. Thus, cleaning robots have become a constant highlight at exhibitions like the 2020 INTERCLEAN in Amsterdam. Also, offering cleaning robots, as a service (RaaS) seems to be an upcoming concept that is adopted by several manufacturers for floor cleaning and window cleaning robots. In this case, robots compete with the monthly salary of a human cleaner while making it easy for customers to compare costs and avoid high investments. The sections include robots used in comparable environments and/or accomplishing a set of comparable tasks. In addition to professional floor cleaning, the areas of wall, tank, pipe, window, boat, and vehicle cleaning are also attributed here. Exceptional innovation was recorded in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Suddenly, the request for robots able to perform disinfection indoors and outdoors exploded. The fact - that robots can run without a human nearby turned out to be a high benefit to protect the human workforce from infection. The ability to work around the clock and the immunity to the strong cleaning agents used for disinfection were other important factors.
The increasing energy efficiency and the expansion of renewable energy supplies also impact the robotics market. The Pleo robot from Blade Runner proposes the possibility of autonomous cleaning of arrays of solar panels and, consequently, increases the efficiency of solar energy systems. A similar system Kolchar S2 is provided by SolarACM, which performs cleaning tasks remotely. It is installed on a solar panel and, thus, is a tracked vehicle. Another indicator of which niches offer significant opportunities for the development of service robotics is the cleaning of marine cages or water pools. As water flows through sea cages, biofouling begins to appear. The Net Cleaning Robot by Yanmar allows cleaning net cages in sizes up to more than 160 meters in circumference and more than 50 meters below the water surface. Robots for cleaning water basins in fish farms and industrial facilities are also produced by Weda. Hexagone offers solutions for cleaning aquatic pools as well as residential pools. Removal of waste from water surfaces such as rivers is the challenge that Ranmarine Technology has accepted. Their WasteShark can operate for six hours without recharging and gather up to 200 liters of plastics, alien vegetation, and floating debris. Similar robots are developed by Clean Sea Solutions. The solution “Marine Litter Hunter” can autonomously transport waste. Robots also exist for the cleaning of beaches, such as systems from Dronyx and PTTEP. While these systems are teleoperated, recent research projects aim for autonomous navigation on the beach using natural landmarks. As the number of wind turbines worldwide increases together with their size, the cleaning and maintenance (e.g., grinding) of wind turbine blades becomes a growing challenge. Robotic solutions for blade cleaning were developed by Aerones, which proposes a flying drone for spray cleaning, as well as a climbing robot. Rope Robotics developed a prototype for a tracked robot that moves on blades and can carry different tools for cleaning or grinding. A versatile robot for cleaning an entire bathroom, including sinks and bathtubs, is currently being developed by Peanut Robotics. The system can autonomously change between tools, such as mops and spray bottles, and is intended to be used, for example, in hotels.