Robotics in Industry 4.0: A Bibliometric Analysis (2011-2022)

Robotics forms an integral part of industry 4.0, the industrial revolution of the 21st century. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of Web of Science (WoS) indexed publications addressing this emerging field from 2011 till June 2022. WoS research publications were firstly analysed along multiple verticals such as annual counts, types, publishing sources, research directions, researchers, organizations, and countries. Next, co-authorship collaborations among authors, organizations, and countries were discovered. This was followed by an analysis of co-occurring keywords related to robotics in industry 4.0. Finally, a detailed citation analysis was carried out to unearth citation linkages among authors, institutions, documents, nations, and journals. Latest trends, under-investigated topics, and future directions are also discussed. Primary results indicate that more than 3000 articles are being published annually in this emerging field, with a total of 18,893 documents published in WoS during the last decade. The 'IEEE Access', Chinese Academy of Science, Wang Y. (USA), and the USA emerged as the topmost productive journal, institution, author, and nation. Porpiglia Francesco (Italy), Chinese Academy Science and USA obtained the highest co-authorship total link strength (TLS); whereas Lee Chengkuo (Singapore), China, Chinese Academy Science, and the IEEE Access scored the highest citation TLS among authors, countries, organizations, and sources respectively. Machine learning (ML) emerged as the highest co-occurring keyword, followed by artificial intelligence (AI). Computer Science emerged as the most trending research domain, followed by general applications. In the future, ML and AI will advance more sophisticated robots in industry 4.0 systems.