14 Publicly Traded Robotics Companies That Are Changing the Game

The robotics industry is booming, and lots of companies are cashing in on the revolution. In 2022, there were 3.9 million industrial robots operating in factories around the world. The countries that relied most heavily on robotics included the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Germany, with industrial robots and automation impacting the automotive, electronics and manufacturing industries.

Robotics technology isn’t merely applied to mundane or repetitive tasks; robots can now perform complicated procedures that have long been the domain of specially trained humans, including scouring dense forests to find missing hikers and even performing minimally invasive heart surgery.

Here are 14 publicly traded robotics companies where humans work hand-in-hand with robots to tackle complex problems.

 

Industrial and Consumer Robotics Companies

The use of AI-enabled robotics is burgeoning in the industrial and consumer sectors, where it’s used to do everything from quickly ship packages to explore oceans for untapped oil deposits. Below are eight publicly traded companies that develop robots or implement them with business contexts in mind.

 

• Location: Zürich, Switzerland  
• Stock Symbol: ABBNY 

Known for its slate of electrification and automation solutions, ABB has designed robots for various use cases. The company’s collaborative robot YuMi can handle smaller objects up to a pound in weight and displays seven degrees of freedom to operate safely alongside humans. Meanwhile, ABB’s Flexley Tug is an autonomous mobile robot that combines AI and vision technology to navigate the workplace while pulling trolleys. 

 

• Location: Houston, Texas
• Stock Symbol: OII

Oceaneering International’s fleet of remotely operated vehicles assists oil and gas companies with underwater operations. The company’s eight different robots do everything from lifting massive amounts of weight to helping with underwater rig inspections to fixing any problems with underwater pipelines. Oceaneering International’s Liberty E-ROV has performed 80 missions and helped reduce support vessel hours and offshore crew hours as well as eliminated 13,700-ton support vessel CO₂ emissions since its launch in 2017.

 

• Location: Lincolnshire, Illinois 
• Stock Symbol: ZBRA 

Zebra Technologies offers a range of software and hardware products, including a lineup of autonomous mobile robots. The Fetch100 Roller and Fetch100 Shelf can transport bins, totes and packages in workplaces while the Fetch100 Research is tailored to serve the needs of teachers and academics. Teams can coordinate Zebra’s AMRs with the cloud-based Zebra Symmetry platform for added convenience.

 

• Location: Waltham, Massachusetts
• Stock Symbol: HYMTF 

Boston Dynamics creates human- and animal-like robots that have done everything from carrying heavy loads in factories to performing reconnaissance for the U.S. military. The company showcases a long line of advanced robots, culminating in its current robots Spot and Stretch. While Stretch is a robotic arm that can handle hundreds of items per hour, Spot is a mobile robot that can carry items within challenging workplace conditions.

 

• Location: Boston, Massachusetts  
• Stock Symbol: PIAGF

Piaggio Fast Forward offers an AI robot called Gita that helps users with everyday tasks. The AI robot acts as a hands-free carrier built with “​​pedestrian etiquette” to make walking around easier. Gita’s AI capabilities include a three-dimensional understanding of people, obstacles, speeds and trajectories so that it can dynamically follow behind users, process visual and spatial information in real time and continuously learn.

 

• Location: Rochester Hills, Michigan 
• Stock Symbol: FANUY 

Fanuc specializes in creating industrial robots for manufacturers, with a robot lineup that includes electrical injection molding machines, ‘robodrills’ and automated lasers. In addition, the company has a lineup of CRX cobots, with the most robust model possessing a payload capacity of 66 pounds. Customers can use Fanuc’s IoT applications to monitor their robots, compile data and stay on top of maintenance.

 

• Location: North Reading, Massachusetts
• Stock Symbol: AMZN

Amazon Robotics creates and implements autonomous robots, control software and robotic language and vision sensing for its fulfillment center operations. Originally called Kiva Systems, the company uses its robots as automated storage and retrieval mechanisms throughout its vast warehouses. Amazon’s robots have already made an impact within the company’s warehouses, and the company has expanded its presence in the robotics field by forming a science hub in collaboration with MIT.

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• Location: San Francisco, California
• Stock Symbol: PATH

UiPath offers robotic process automation software that implants AI into robots to help them perform tasks more efficiently and continue learning. The company aims to enhance robots with the skills needed to process documents, recognize dynamic interfaces and make complex decisions. UiPath’s RPA platform can work with a variety of platforms and enterprise applications like Salesforce, Microsoft, Workday and ServiceNow.

 

Defense and Military Robotics Companies

From unmanned AI drones that roam the sky to working alongside military personnel on the battlefield, AI-enabled robots are drastically changing the nature of defense and warfare in a variety of ways. Here are three publicly traded ones at the forefront of military robotics.

 

• Location: Arlington, Virginia 
• Stock Symbol: AVAV

AeroVironment is a developer of unmanned aircraft systems for the Pentagon and dozens of other allied nations. The AeroVironment Puma helps rescue and research teams survey land and gather data. It was even used by the U.S. Coast Guard to chart Antarctic ice sheets. The Switchblade, a much larger drone designed for warfare, is equipped with thermal visioning and can fire missiles with extreme precision.

 

• Location: Arlington, Virginia 
• Stock Symbol: BA

One of the world’s largest producers of civilian and military aircraft, Boeing uses autonomous robots in a large portion of its military operations. The company’s Echo Voyager is an unmanned submarine that’s used to ferry military equipment deep beneath the sea. Boeing is also expanding its operations into space with the X-37B, which functions within 150 to 500 miles above Earth for long-term space missions.

 

• Location: Waltham, Massachusetts
• Stock Symbol: RTN

Defense contractor Raytheon designs robots to help soldiers on the ground and autonomous aircraft to defend the skies. One of Raytheon’s military robots is the “Coyote,” a drone used to track and shoot down enemy unmanned aerial vehicles. The Coyote’s unique swarming ability enables tens of the small autonomous drones to gather in a group, identify enemy targets and employ attached warheads to take them out.

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Healthcare Robotics Companies

Robotics and AI have become much more prevalent in the healthcare industry, implemented in everything from research to training to surgeries. Below are three publicly traded companies whose robots make the healthcare industry safer and smarter.

 

• Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Stock Symbol: SYK

One of the largest biotechnology companies in the United States, Stryker makes robotic-arm-assisted surgery machines. Using 3D modeling of bone anatomy, the company’s Mako robots assist surgeons in joint surgeries for partial and total hip and knee replacements. In June 2017, the Stryker Mako robot performed the 100,000th robotic-arm-assisted surgery in the U.S. when it helped surgeons complete a knee surgery.

 

• Location: Madison, Wisconsin 
• Stock Symbol: ARAY

Accuray’s robots help with cancer treatments and surgeries. Employing a variety of arms, they administer radiotherapy to affected parts of the body, including the pancreas, lungs and brain. The Accuray CyberKnife System is the first surgical tool that administers robotic radiotherapy. Instead of traditional chemotherapy that targets a wide area of the body, the robotic surgery tool pinpoints specific areas where cancers are found and keeps collateral damage to a minimum.

 

• Location: Sunnyvale, California
• Stock Symbol: ISRG

Considered the originator of surgical robotics, Intuitive developed its da Vinci System to assist with minimally invasive surgeries. Surgeons face a console that displays exactly what the robot is seeing while the robot makes incisions and performs surgeries more precisely than humans are able to. It also comes with several different attachments for instruments and vision. Widely deployed around the world, Intuitive’s da Vinci has now completed over 14 million procedures across three decades.