Technology Forecasting: Case of Robot Technology

Though vacuum cleaning robots have been regarded as the most promising product which can penetrate the consumer market as a robotic product, the technology of vacuum cleaning robots seems not to be developed enough to snuggle into customers' choice yet. And, the Technology development of vacuum cleaning robots depends on several factors driven by technological improvements in order to be adopted in the market. Therefore, this study questions why the technological factors cannot meet consumers' expectation and how much improvements are required for these factors. For these questions, this study explored the problems which customers recognized on vacuum cleaning robots by customers' voice analysis, and investigated current status and trends of vacuum cleaning robot technology developments. The results showed that some of technologies are not enough matured and developing actively for customers' expectations.