Developing industrial robot technology in Sweden, West Germany, Japan and the USA
Abstract
The main purpose of this contribution is to explore the range of applicability of science and technology indicators in the field of industrial robots. The combination of various science and technology indicators leads -if correctly interpreted- to a valid and most helpful representation of trends in robot research and technology; thus, the reader is provided with a considerable amount of information on this field of research and technology in the United States of America, Japan, West Germany, and Sweden. This contribution, by its nature, does not allow for a microlevel analysis of R and D activities. The discussions are focussed on conditions and developments on the national level. Only some parts of patent and literature statistics are broken down to the institutional level. The last paper also provides an outlook on the time regime between research, development, innovation and commercialization in the robot field.
