Robotics: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Status of the industry in India
As of 2026
Chethan.Kumar, March 4, 2026: The Times of India
From: Chethan.Kumar, March 4, 2026: The Times of India
India’s robotics market, valued at about $1.9 billion in 2025, is projected to touch $7.4 billion by 2034, growing 16% annually. The ecosystem remains small, compared to the US, Germany, China and Japan. Yet, a handful of firms and organisations are trying something harder than integration: building the underlying machines themselves.
At the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) ecosystem, Prof Shishir Kolathaya co-founded Strider Robotics with his former student Aditya Saji after years of research that began in 2018. The decision to commercialise came only around 2023 and 2024.
Their robot is a four-legged platform designed to climb multiple floors, traverse uneven terrain, read analogue gauges, take thermal images and log sensory data in hazardous or labour intensive environments. Power plants, coal mines and automotive facilities are among the target sites. “Instead of an engineer walking across floors and manually logging readings, the robot can be pre-programmed to visit locations, capture images, read dial gauges through image recognition and generate reports,” Kolathaya explains.
The company claims that roughly 80% of materials are sourced from Indian vendors. “It is about reducing critical dependencies while building value here,” he says, adding that the real differentiator lies in control systems and integration.
From R&D To Factory Pilots
Aditya Rajawat, co-founder and chief executive of xTerra Robotics, traces the quadruped journey in India back to around 2020. That was when commercial deployments of four-legged robots began gaining global visibility, and imports from China started entering Indian campuses and labs.
Today, xTerra offers a range of legged robotic platforms focused on mobility, autonomy and adaptability for inspection, security and industrial tasks. Their SVAN series includes the SVAN M1, an early quadruped prototype, and the SVAN M2, India’s first commercial four-legged robot designed to traverse complex terrain with advanced sensing and control.
Besides COBOT C1, a robotic manipulator aimed at precision automation, it has developed SCORP, a legged robot with a manipulator arm, enabling it to operate switches and valves, handle objects, and interact safely with its surroundings. This, the company says, can be used for infrastructure inspection, security patrols, under-vehicle checks, campus waste collection and fire-safety audits. Alongside complete robots, xTerra builds supporting hardware.
“When we began as a startup in March 2023, there was effectively no domestic market,” Rajawat says. The first order came in Oct the same year from a research organisation that wanted a platform to develop algorithms. xTerra has since sold its first industrial unit to Siemens Energy and is currently engaging with five industrial players. More than 20 enquiries are under discussion, with potential deployments ranging from one or two robots to fleets of 50.
The price range for a programmable industrial quadruped in India is currently between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 25 lakh, depending on sensors and customisation. Simpler remote-controlled versions imported from China are, of course, much cheaper — between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh. But Rajawat points to a recurring issue: some firms that bought imported robots struggled to deploy them effectively because they lacked the software and system integration needed to make them useful. “Hardware alone is not enough. The stack matters,” he says. xTerra builds both hardware actuators and the software stack inhouse, sourcing only certain components from vendors.
Humanoids, he adds, remain early-stage globally. While there is interest in retail, logistics and hospitality in India, real commercial deployment is still limited. xTerra is developing a humanoid prototype, but has not yet released it.
Warehouse Scale-Up
If quadrupeds are entering inspection and digital transformation, warehouse automation is already at scale. Addverb, based in Greater Noida, gets around 60% of its revenue from exports across Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australia, with the remaining 40% generated in India. Its portfolio centres on autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) such as Dynamo for moving materials and picking multiple cartons as well as robots for rapid parcel sorting.
Beyond traditional warehouse automation, Addverb has expanded into collaborative and assistive robots, such as ‘cobots’, for human-robot interaction, assistive quadruped robots for inspection and patrol, and wheeled humanoid robots suited to industrial tasks.
According to Rajesh Kumar, principal scientist for advanced robotics at Addverb, humanoids are the next frontier. Addverb is testing them in live operational environments. “In 12 to 18 months, humanoids will transition from pilot deployments into early commercial adoption,” he says, particularly in retail fulfilment centres, healthcare facilities and complex warehouse settings.
Addverb designs its autonomy, perception and fleet management software in-house in India and assembles key structural components locally. However, some high-precision components are still sourced globally.
Handling The Unknown
Bengaluru-based CynLr is tackling a different bottleneck: object intelligence, which is basically teaching robots to recognise and handle unfamiliar objects. Founded in 2019, the company operates design and development centres in Switzerland and Bengaluru. Its flagship system, CyRo, is a dual-arm, vision-guided robot that can handle unknown objects without training. Instead of rigid, product-specific lines, CynLr envisions “universal factories” where microfactories can switch between products without custom machines.
CyNoid, a mobile system with three seven-axis arms, and Mantroid, a three-wheeled high-dexterity platform under development, extend this approach. The company argues that India has very few true robotic arm builders and that most firms remain system integrators dependent on imported hardware.
“The ecosystem is still emerging. Talent, funding and supply chains are interdependent,” the founders note.
In Confined, Hazardous Spaces
Armatrix Automations, founded by IIT Kanpur alumni and based in Bengaluru, is targeting confined industrial environments. Its snakelike, super-flexible, long robotic arms are designed to enter ship hulls, aircraft engines, ducts and tanks. The aim is to replace human entry in dangerous spaces. “The biggest challenge is deployment complexity,” says Vishrant Dave, co-founder and chief executive.
Small But Widening Field
Beyond these firms and organisations, others are experimenting with humanoid and semi-humanoid systems. Muks Robotics’ Spaceo line targets navigation and manipulation tasks; Cosine Robots is working on programmable humanoids for developers; Invento Robotics’ Mitra operates in banks and hospitals; and a cluster of smaller companies are showcasing quadrupeds and wheeled humanoids at industry expos.
Yet there are constraints. Robotics is capital-intensive and margin-sensitive. Hardware innovation demands patience. Unlike in the US, where govt agencies such as Darpa supported firms like Boston Dynamics before corporate backing arrived, India lacks similar long-term support programmes.
Still, there is movement. Academic labs, incubators such as ARTPARK at IISc, and early industrial adopters are creating test beds. Multinationals with digital teams in India are piloting locally before global rollout. Isro’s half-humanoid, Vyomitra, is expected to fly to space sometime in late 2026 or early 2027, depending on progress made in the Gaganyaan programme, and defence PSU BEL is working on a four-legged robot for border security.
The shift, founders say, will come when robots are judged less by spectacle and more by return on investment: reduced downtime in a refinery, safer inspection inside a turbine, faster fulfilment in a warehouse.
