- Capability group
- Robotics & Autonomous Systems
- Domain
- Critical Technology · Hard Power
- Identifier
- factbase.org/cap/P7EQBHDX11
- Reference
- Autonomous robot Wikipedia
Papers
80k
2020–2024
Paper growth
+85%
2020–24 on 2015–19
Patent families
101.6k
2020–2024
Filed abroad
29%
families in more than one office
In the framework
What the capability covers and what it leaves to others, and the indicators it will be measured by.
Bounds
Covers autonomy as technology; the governance of autonomous weapons belongs to the governance domain, their employment to National Security, and the underlying models to Artificial Intelligence.
Lineage
Relocated in v0.1 from the split group (formerly Autonomous systems operation technologies) at the same level, carrying its identifier; broadened to trusted autonomy, because assurance, not autonomy alone, is where fielding is decided.
Indicators
- research publication share in autonomyResearch
- autonomous vehicle testing permits and milesPending
- autonomy patent familiesPatents
Research
Papers classified to the capability, by year and by the nation of their authors' institutions, 2020–2024. Read from the v0.0 research topic Autonomous systems operation technologies.
Papers by year
The five leading nations, papers by year
Share of papers, 2020–2024
Of papers with a known author nation; 29% have none and are left out.
- 1China28.0%18,823 papers
- 2United States13.5%9,072 papers
- 3India5.2%3,523 papers
- 4Germany5.0%3,388 papers
- 5United Kingdom3.5%2,389 papers
- 6Japan3.4%2,274 papers
- 7South Korea2.9%1,973 papers
- 8Italy2.6%1,774 papers
- 9Canada2.4%1,630 papers
- 10France1.9%1,283 papers
Leading institutions, 2020–2024
By fractional count: each paper divided among its authors' institutions.
- 1Beijing Institute of Technology587fractional papers
- 2Tsinghua University567fractional papers
- 3Beihang University482fractional papers
- 4Tongji University440fractional papers
- 5Shanghai Jiao Tong University383fractional papers
- 6Harbin Institute of Technology348fractional papers
- 7National University of Defense Technology342fractional papers
- 8Northwestern Polytechnical University316fractional papers
- 9Technical University of Munich303fractional papers
- 10Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics291fractional papers
Patents
Patent families by the nation of origin of their applicants and their earliest priority year, from the CPC and IPC classes the capability is read from. 2025 onwards is incomplete: families are published 18 months after priority.
Families by priority year
The five leading origins, families by year
15,063 applicants filed here in 2015–2024; the five largest held 14% of families (HHI 65 of 10,000: unconcentrated).
Share of families by origin, 2020–2024
- 1China57.0%57,916 families
- 2Japan11.4%11,550 families
- 3United States11.0%11,168 families
- 4South Korea9.2%9,315 families
- 5Germany5.3%5,356 families
- 6France1.1%1,070 families
- 7Sweden0.8%814 families
- 8Taiwan0.6%613 families
- 9United Kingdom0.4%445 families
- 10Israel0.4%402 families
Applicants filing most internationally, 2015–2024
Families filed in more than one office, by applicant as the offices name them.
- 1TOYOTA MOTOR CORP3,275international families
- 2TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD3,270international families
- 3HONDA MOTOR CO LTD2,101international families
- 4HYUNDAI MOTOR CO LTD1,772international families
- 5BOSCH GMBH ROBERT1,704international families
- 6FORD GLOBAL TECH LLC1,600international families
- 7KIA CORP1,367international families
- 8GM GLOBAL TECH OPERATIONS LLC1,255international families
- 9SZ DJI TECHNOLOGY CO LTD1,211international families
- 10LG ELECTRONICS INC1,108international families
Classification read
- G05D1/00 Automatic control of vehicle position, course and altitude · 875.3k documents
- B60W60/00 Drive control for autonomous road vehicles · 159k documents
- G06V20/56 Vehicle perception of surroundings from on-board sensors · 191.1k documents
Shares inventions with
Capabilities whose classes the same families also fall in, by overlap (Jaccard).
- Uncrewed & Collaborative Systems7,664 families · 0.116
- Applied AI & Advanced Analytics21,945 families · 0.091
- Advanced Imaging & Photonic Sensing4,804 families · 0.044
- Radar & Radiofrequency Sensing3,396 families · 0.044
- Advanced Robotics3,982 families · 0.042
Companies
50 companies in this capability, across 8 regions. The leading 12:
- 1WaymoAlphabet's self-driving unit, the world's largest fully driverless robotaxi service, running paid rides in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta.Operation
- 2TeslaDevelops the vision-only Full Self-Driving stack across millions of vehicles and launched its Robotaxi service in Austin in 2025.Design
- 3BaiduIts Apollo platform and Apollo Go robotaxi service run driverless rides in Wuhan and other Chinese cities and are expanding abroad.Operation
- 4MobileyeLeading supplier of EyeQ vision chips and driver-assist and autonomy software (SuperVision, Chauffeur, Drive), majority-owned by Intel.Design
- 5NVIDIAIts DRIVE Orin and Thor computers, DriveOS software and Isaac/Omniverse simulation are the leading compute and validation platform for autonomous vehicles and robots.Equipment & materials
- 6Toyota MotorThe largest international patent filer in autonomy, developing automated driving through Woven by Toyota and the Toyota Research Institute.Research
- 7HuaweiIts Qiankun ADS intelligent-driving system is fitted to a large and growing number of Chinese vehicles, including the HIMA brands.Design
- 8DJIThe world's dominant maker of autonomous civil drones, and its spin-off DJI Automotive/Zhuoyu supplies driver-assist systems.Manufacture
- 9Robert BoschThe largest automotive supplier of driver-assist and automated-driving sensors, ECUs and software, and a top-five autonomy patent filer.Equipment & materials
- 10Anduril IndustriesBuilds the Lattice autonomy software and autonomous systems such as the Fury collaborative combat aircraft, Ghost drones and Dive-LD undersea vehicles.Design
- 11Pony.aiRuns fully driverless robotaxi and robotruck services in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai.Operation
- 12WeRideOperates level-4 robotaxis, robobuses and robosweepers in China, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Europe.Operation