Doosan Wants Robots to Prove Their Worth and Earn From It

Industrial robots are already productive assets. The problem is that their financial value is still largely judged through the company that owns them. Doosan Robotics and machine-economy infrastructure company peaq are trying to change that. Their new partnership is designed to give individual robots a verifiable operating record that could eventually support financing and insurance based on the machine’s actual performance and not only on the buyer’s balance sheet. 

The first Doosan A-Series collaborative robot is already running on peaqOS, with more integrations planned over the coming months. The concept is to create a digital identity and performance history for the robot. Utilisation, tasks, operating conditions, maintenance and performance can become verifiable indicators of how the machine is being used and how it is performing. That could give lenders and insurers a clearer basis for assessing condition, residual value and risk.

Doosan’s hardware is already generating much of the underlying data. Its cobots use torque sensors across all six joints, allowing force, contact and cycle behaviour to be measured directly. The partnership also addresses an equally practical problem: idle capacity. Robots are purchased to handle peak workloads, but remain a paid-for asset outside those hours. peaqOS is being tested to let machines generate additional value from spare resources such as computing capacity, with that activity recorded against the robot.

 If a robot can prove what it has done, how reliably it has performed and what additional income it generates, its operating history could become part of the asset itself. 

For industrial robotics, that opens a path from machines that are bought and depreciate to machines whose performance can be measured, financed and monetised.