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Research and Development Management pp 105–123Cite as

Technology Forecasting: Case of Robot Technology

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Abstract

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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering and Technology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    Apisit Charoensupyanant, Byung Sung Yoon, Edwin Garces, ShengTe Tsai, Jisun Kim & Tugrul Daim

Authors
  1. Apisit Charoensupyanant
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  2. Byung Sung Yoon
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  3. Edwin Garces
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  4. ShengTe Tsai
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  5. Jisun Kim
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  6. Tugrul Daim
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jisun Kim .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering and Technology, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

    Tugrul Daim

  2. Department of Engineering and Technology, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

    Jisun Kim

  3. Department of Engineering and Technology, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

    Kenny Phan

Appendix

Appendix

Technology area

Issue

Counts

Total

Power system

Short battery life

30

30

Navigation system

Still missing spots left unclean

24

132

Get stuck and cannot figure the way out

53

Cannot find the way back to the base

30

Won’t clean on dark carpet

4

Poor transition between different kinds of floor

10

Wheels get stuck

12

Cleaning system

Not high power suction (can’t suck sand and long hair)

21

38

Small bin (capacity)

11

Cannot clean well on carpet

18

Customer service

Poor quality service

11

11

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Charoensupyanant, A., Yoon, B.S., Garces, E., Tsai, S., Kim, J., Daim, T. (2017). Technology Forecasting: Case of Robot Technology. In: Daim, T., Kim, J., Phan, K. (eds) Research and Development Management. Science, Technology and Innovation Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54537-0_7

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