Mobile Robots & AMR Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing growth has cooled from its 2023 peak. 580 records in 2023 gave way to a -22% move from 460 (2021) to 357 (2024), the most recent year that can be read as complete.
- The field is not winner-take-most. The leading assignee holds 386 records but the top 5 combined are only 18.7% and the top 10 only 26.4% of all 4,912 records in scope — a long tail does most of the filing.
- Control and manipulation dominate the claim space. G05D (control of non-electric variables) touches 38.1% of records and B25J (manipulators & robots) 25.4%, while business-logic and image-processing classes sit well behind.
Filing growth compares 2021 (460 records) with 2024 (357) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 4,912 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset spans 4,912 published records filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from filings that combine autonomous mobile robot or mobile robotic platform terminology with navigation, sensing, or actuator-control language. It captures warehouse and logistics AMRs, personal and service robots, and the sensing and control stacks that let a wheeled or legged platform localise itself and move without constant human input. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so any read on the most recent year or two understates real activity.
Filing offices skew heavily toward the United States, followed by the European Patent Office, the WIPO PCT route, India, Germany and Australia — a spread that points to a field being litigated and licensed globally rather than confined to one jurisdiction.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 4,912 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose from 141 in 2017 to a peak of 580 in 2023, then eased to 357 in 2024 — a -22% move from the 460 filed in 2021. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the publication lag and should not be read as a real decline yet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G05D (control of non-electric variables) appears on 38.1% of the 4,912 records and B25J (manipulators & robots) on 25.4%, well ahead of navigation-and-positioning classes G01C and G01S (12.7% and 12.3%) and AI-model class G06N (12.4%). Because a record can carry several classes, these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 4,912 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 Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about mobile robots & amrs patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim and the most-cited prior art
Warehouse automation using autonomous mobile robots (US20230356947A1)
The filing describes a rotating camera mounted on an autonomous mobile robot that reads floor markers to localise and navigate a warehouse floor, coordinated by a central server that routes the robot to specific pick locations and cues warehouse staff via handheld devices to load or unload items.Filed by an individual inventor rather than a corporate assignee, dated 2023-11-09 — illustrative of how narrowly a marker-based localisation-and-dispatch claim can be drawn even in a crowded field.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20070192910A1 | Companion robot for personal interaction | 993 |
| 2 | US20190339688A1 | Methods and systems for data collection, learning, and streaming of machine signals for analytics and mainten… | 974 |
| 3 | US20190364492A1 | Methods and devices for radio communications | 876 |
| 4 | US20080027591A1 | Method and system for controlling a remote vehicle | 857 |
| 5 | US20220066456A1 | Obstacle recognition method for autonomous robots | 763 |
| 6 | US20200348662A1 | Platform for facilitating development of intelligence in an industrial internet of things system | 733 |
| 7 | US6922632B2 | Tracking, auto-calibration, and map-building system | 726 |
| 8 | US20040143602A1 | Apparatus, system and method for automated and adaptive digital image/video surveillance for events and confi… | 724 |
| 9 | US20210157312A1 | Intelligent vibration digital twin systems and methods for industrial environments | 716 |
| 10 | US6809490B2 | Method and system for multi-mode coverage for an autonomous robot | 650 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus — read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three readings of the dataset that matter more than any single ranking.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
One assignee holds 386 records, well ahead of the field, but the top 5 combined account for only 18.7% of all records in scope and the top 10 for 26.4%. That leaves the large majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, so a freedom-to-operate search has to look well past the household names.
Growth has cooled from a 2023 peak, not collapsed
Annual filings peaked at 580 in 2023 before easing to 357 in 2024, a -22% move from the 460 filed in 2021. Several of the more active assignees also show falling year-on-year counts in the most recent tracked year, but with publication running about 18 months behind filing, that recent dip is at least partly a reporting artefact rather than a real retreat.
Control and manipulation crowd the core
G05D and B25J together cover the mechanics of moving and manipulating a platform, and both post the highest class shares in the dataset. Positioning-specific classes such as G01C and G01S sit meaningfully lower, which suggests the busiest prior art is in general motion control rather than in the sensing techniques used to feed it.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to mobile robots & amrs patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the collaboration is
The ranking spans 100 companies counted by the number of records assigned to them. A small number of co-assignee pairs point to joint development rather than pure competition.
One consumer-robotics leader sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee's filing count is more than four times the fifth-place holder's 92 records, reflecting a long-running, well-resourced patent programme built around personal and companion robots rather than industrial AMRs alone.
Portfolio-holding entities file broadly, not deeply
Several of the ranked assignees are portfolio or licensing vehicles rather than operating robotics companies, and their recent-year filing counts have fallen sharply year-on-year. That pattern is more consistent with a maturing licensing strategy than with an operating team scaling R&D.
Joint filings are rare but concentrated around one leader
Only ten co-assignee pairings appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them link the leading consumer-robotics assignee with a heavy-equipment manufacturer and named individual inventors, suggesting targeted joint development rather than a broad industry consortium.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm Inc | 6 | -45% |
| STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC | 2 | -78% |
| Strong Force IoT Portfolio 2016 LLC | 1 | -67% |
| iRobot Corp | 0 | -100% |
| Strong Force VCN Portfolio 2019 LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Honda Motor Co Ltd | 0 | — |
| Five AI Ltd | 0 | — |
| Intel Corp | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you are trying to decide.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the long tail
With the top 10 assignees holding only 26.4% of records, a clearance search limited to household names will miss most of the relevant prior art. Screen against the full ranked set before committing to a claim direction.
Explore the assignee ranking in EurekaStress-test the white-space chips against live filings
The under-claimed sub-areas above are a starting point, not a conclusion. Confirm current filing activity in each before drafting around it.
Search these sub-areas in EurekaTrack momentum, not just headline share
Recent year-on-year drops among several ranked assignees may reflect the publication lag rather than a real pullback. Re-check momentum once 2025-2026 filings finish publishing.
Set up a filing-trend watch in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 386 records, more than four times the count of the fifth-placed holder at 92. That said, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 18.7% of the 4,912 records in scope and the top 10 for 26.4%, so leadership at the top does not translate into control of the field. A large majority of filings sit with a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants, which matters for anyone doing a clearance search.
Filing volume rose steadily from 141 records in 2017 to a peak of 580 in 2023, then eased to 357 in 2024, a -22% move from the 460 filed in 2021. That is the most recent year-on-year comparison that can be treated as reliable, because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and 2025-2026 counts are still filling in. Read the recent apparent dip as incomplete data, not confirmed decline.
Control of non-electric variables (IPC class G05D) appears on 38.1% of the 4,912 records and manipulators and robots (B25J) on 25.4%, making them the two densest claim areas by a clear margin. Navigation and positioning classes such as G01C and G01S sit lower, each around 12%, as do AI-model class G06N and image-processing class G06T. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add to more than 100% and should not be summed.
The heaviest claim traffic sits in general motion control and manipulator mechanics rather than in the specific techniques that coordinate multiple robots, recalibrate localisation markers on the fly, or hand sensor data between heterogeneous platforms. Sub-areas like multi-robot fleet task allocation and battery-swap-aware path planning carry comparatively light filing density relative to their proximity to the crowded core classes. Any first claim there should be validated against current filings before drafting, since white space narrows quickly in an active field.
It is moderately concentrated at the very top but not consolidated overall: the leading assignee's 386 records dwarf the rest of the ranked field, yet the top 5 and top 10 combined shares are only 18.7% and 26.4% of all 4,912 records respectively. Co-assignee activity is also limited, with only 10 identified pairings across the dataset, most tied to the leading consumer-robotics assignee. That combination points to a field with one clear scale leader surrounded by many independently filing competitors.
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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.