Mobile Robot Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
A data-backed look at autonomous mobile robot patents: filing trends since 2017, the concentration among leading assignees, IPC technology composition, and where claim space is still open.
Filing growth = 2021 (749 records) → 2024 (550); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 6,894 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What the autonomous mobile robot patent record shows
Autonomous mobile robot (AMR) patents span navigation, manipulation, fleet control and material handling, and the record in scope — 6,894 published documents filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 — reflects that breadth. The claim language searched here (autonomous mobile robot and close variants) pulls in everything from household cleaning robots to warehouse logistics platforms, which is why the technology composition spreads across eight or more IPC subclasses rather than collapsing into one.
Filing activity rose steadily through the late 2010s, peaked in 2023, and has since eased from that high — a pattern consistent with a technology moving from early differentiation into consolidation around a smaller number of proven architectures. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years of the trend will keep revising upward as more applications publish; treat 2024 as the most recent year that can be read with confidence.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 6,894-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings climbed from 334 in 2017 to a peak of 826 in 2023, then eased to 550 by 2024 — a -27% move from 2021's 749. 2025 and 2026 are undercounted because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; read the tail as incomplete, not as a genuine decline.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G05D (control of non-electric variables, 41.2% of records) and B25J (manipulators & robots, 31.6%) anchor the field. G06Q business/commerce logic, B65G material handling, A47L cleaning appliances, G06F digital data processing, G01S positioning and G05B control systems each sit in the high single digits, showing AMR claims routinely span control, sensing and application-specific hardware in combination.
Shares are the percentage of the 6,894 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Mobile Robots & AMRs: Autonomous Mobile Robot Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
US20220066455A1 — Autonomous mobile robot control system, control method thereof, a non-transitory computer readable medium storing control program thereof, and autonomous mobile robot control device
Filed by Toyota, this record addresses a concrete operational problem: an autonomous mobile robot interfering with pedestrian flow. The system pairs a host management device with environmental cameras that monitor the robot's operating range, estimates how congestion in defined management areas will change over a future period, and adjusts the robot's route plan accordingly rather than relying on static path-planning alone.Abstract condensed from the published filing; full claim language governs scope.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140254896A1 | Unmanned drone, robot system for delivering mail, goods, humanoid security, crisis negotiation, mobile paymen… | 1,044 |
| 2 | US8922163B2 | Automated battery and data delivery system | 1,018 |
| 3 | US20140207282A1 | Mobile Robot Providing Environmental Mapping for Household Environmental Control | 781 |
| 4 | US6389329B1 | Mobile robots and their control system | 698 |
| 5 | US6532404B2 | Mobile robots and their control system | 631 |
| 6 | US20150032252A1 | System and method for piece-picking or put-away with a mobile manipulation robot | 621 |
| 7 | US20070156286A1 | Autonomous Mobile Robot | 588 |
| 8 | US4638445A | Autonomous mobile robot | 553 |
| 9 | US20150073589A1 | Autonomous mobile picking | 542 |
| 10 | US20140277691A1 | Automated warehousing using robotic forklifts | 518 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Four cuts of the same dataset, read for what they mean to someone deciding where to file next.
The top is crowded, the field is not closed
The leading assignee holds 513 records and the fifth-place holder 88 — a steep drop-off that leaves the top 5 combined at only 16.0% of all records in scope and the top 10 at 21.5%. That is real concentration at the very top, but it means roughly four-fifths of the corpus sits with assignees outside the ranked leaders, including a long tail of single-filing entrants.
Volume has pulled back from its 2023 peak
Filings peaked at 826 in 2023 after years of growth, then fell to 550 by 2024 — a -27% move over the 2021-2024 span. That is consistent with a field moving from broad experimentation toward narrower, more defensible claim sets rather than a loss of commercial interest; 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Control and manipulation carry the densest prior art
G05D (control of non-electric variables) touches 41.2% of records and B25J (manipulators & robots) touches 31.6% — the two most heavily claimed subclasses by a wide margin over G06Q, B65G, A47L, G06F, G01S and G05B, each in the 6-10% range. New filings that sit purely in navigation or manipulation control face the densest existing claim coverage.
The US leads filing venue, with EPO and PCT close behind
The United States receives the largest share of filings at 2,250 records, ahead of Europe (EPO) at 966 and WIPO/PCT at 698; China, India and Japan each sit in the 396-541 range. That spread suggests AMR applicants are pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection rather than concentrating in a single home market.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to mobile robots & amrs: autonomous mobile robot patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next questions for teams deciding where to file, litigate or license.
Map the white space inside G01S and G05B
Positioning (G01S, 6.3%) and control/regulating systems (G05B, 6.3%) trail the two dominant subclasses by a wide margin. That gap is worth testing with a freedom-to-operate search before assuming it is crowded.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the long tail of single-filing entrants
With the top 10 assignees holding only 21.5% of records, a large share of the corpus sits with smaller or newer filers. Watching which of those convert into repeat filers is an early signal of who is scaling.
Monitor emerging filers in EurekaRevisit the 2025-2026 trend once publication catches up
The apparent pullback after 2023 is partly a publication-lag artefact. Re-run the trend view in 6-12 months to see whether 2025 filings revise upward.
Set a trend alert in EurekaFrequently asked questions
The dataset covers 6,894 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that match autonomous mobile robot claim language. This includes household, warehouse and industrial applications, since the underlying claims cover navigation and control functions common across all three. The most recent one to two years understate true filing volume because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the real total for 2025-2026 will be higher once those applications publish.
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies, with the leader holding 513 records and a steep drop-off to 88 records at fifth place and 67 at tenth. The top 5 assignees combined hold 16.0% of all 6,894 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 21.5%, meaning the remaining roughly four-fifths of filings sit outside the ranked leaders. That is real concentration at the top but a genuinely open field beneath it, with a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants.
Filings grew steadily from 334 in 2017 to a peak of 826 in 2023, then eased to 550 by 2024, a -27% move over the 2021-2024 span. That pullback likely reflects consolidation around a smaller number of proven architectures rather than declining commercial interest. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not yet be read as confirming a continued decline.
Control of non-electric variables (IPC class G05D) appears in 41.2% of the 6,894 records in scope, and manipulators & robots (B25J) appears in 31.6%, making these the two most heavily claimed areas. Business/commerce data processing (G06Q), material handling (B65G), cleaning appliances (A47L), digital data processing (G06F), positioning (G01S) and control/regulating systems (G05B) each cover a smaller but still meaningful 6-10% of records. Because records often carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read individually, not summed.
The subclasses with the lowest coverage among those tracked here are G01S (positioning, 6.3%) and G05B (control and regulating systems, 6.3%), both well behind the dominant G05D and B25J classes. A lower share does not guarantee an open field, but it does mean fewer records to search and design around before filing. Any white-space claim should still be checked against the most-cited prior art in the corpus, since some of the oldest and most influential records touch navigation and control broadly.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.