Analysis and Forecast of Patent Trends in Unmanned Delivery Robot Technology: Focusing on Last-Mile Delivery Technology

Abstract

With the advent of the untact era due to COVID-19, demand in the existing online market and the courier and logistics industry is accelerating. At the same time, the problem of decreasing available labor force due to decreasing population growth rate and aging is growing, causing difficulties due to labor shortage. In this paper, we examine the patent application trends of unmanned delivery systems by country, technology, and major applicants, and identify the degree of patent activity of major companies through index analysis. To this end, we analyzed domestic and foreign patents on unmanned delivery robot technology filed up to July 2021, and classified them according to the technology classification system to present the outlook of unmanned delivery technology. The analysis showed that robots, drones, and unmanned delivery boxes, which combine IoT technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution based on last-mile delivery technology, are expanding their scope of use. In addition, the development of cooperative delivery services combining robots and drones is expected, and the differentiation of delivery costs between rapid delivery by drones and regular delivery by robots is expected. This paper is expected to raise awareness of unmanned delivery technology among related companies and researchers, and to serve as a reference for future research and development for efficient last-mile delivery