According to reports, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) released the world's first international standard for elderly care robots (IEC 63310 "Performance Guidelines for Active Assisted Living Robots Used in Connected Home Environments") led by China, which is a landmark event that has injected strong impetus into the development of the global elderly care robot industry. The standard focuses on the physiological and behavioral characteristics of the elderly, and builds a complete specification system from design to certification, covering general requirements such as usability and reliability, as well as technical specifications for subdivided functions such as health monitoring and communication support, which not only promotes the standardization of China's elderly care robot industry, but also plays a leading role in the world and clarifies the direction for the development of the industry.
According to the United Nations, the number of elderly people in the world has continued to rise in the past few decades, and it is expected that by 2030, the proportion of the world's elderly population aged 65 and above will reach 16%. This trend is even more pronounced in China, where the number of elderly people aged 60 and over has reached 280 million by the end of 2024, accounting for 19.8% of the total population. The rapid growth of the elderly population has made the traditional pension model face great challenges. In terms of family care for the elderly, with the acceleration of the pace of life in modern society, young people are facing the dual pressure of work and life, and it is difficult to devote themselves to the care of the elderly; Institutional pension has problems such as shortage of service resources and shortage of professional nursing staff. In this context, the pension robot came into being, becoming an important breakthrough to alleviate the pressure of the elderly.
From the perspective of the needs of the elderly themselves, as they age, they gradually decline in physical function and cognitive ability. Many elderly people have limited mobility and need assistance in daily activities such as dressing, washing, eating, etc. Some elderly people also face problems such as loneliness and memory loss. Elderly care robots have a variety of functions that can meet these needs. For example, some companion elderly care robots can chat, tell jokes, and play music with the elderly through intelligent voice interaction, which can effectively alleviate the loneliness of the elderly; The robot with health monitoring function can monitor the heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar and other physiological indicators of the elderly in real time, and timely feedback the data to family members or medical institutions to escort the health of the elderly; There are also robots that can assist the elderly in walking and help with simple housework, which greatly improves the elderly's ability to take care of themselves.
Figure: China leads the standard of elderly care robots, and the future market is broad
The progress of technology has also provided solid support for the rise of elderly care robots. The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has endowed the elderly care robot with strong learning and understanding capabilities, enabling it to better communicate with people and understand the intentions of the elderly; The continuous innovation of sensor technology has enabled the robot to have a keen perception ability, which can accurately perceive the surrounding environment and the movements and postures of the elderly to avoid collisions and injuries; The improvement of mechanical engineering technology ensures the stability and reliability of the robot when performing tasks. The integration and application of these technologies have made the pension robot gradually move from concept to reality and become a practical pension tool.
The market prospect of pension robots is very broad. According to data from market research institutions, the global pension robot market size will be about $5 billion in 2025, and this figure is expected to exceed $20 billion by 2035, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 15%. In China, the pension robot market also shows a strong growth trend. With the improvement of residents' income level and the improvement of the quality of pension, more and more families are willing to buy pension robot products for the elderly. It is estimated that the size of China's elderly care robot market will reach 10 billion yuan in 2025 and is expected to exceed 30 billion yuan by 2030.
From the perspective of application scenarios, the family will become the main consumer market for elderly care robots. With the popularization of smart homes, elderly care robots can be interconnected with other smart devices to create an intelligent and convenient home care environment for the elderly. In elderly care institutions, elderly care robots can also play an important role in assisting nursing staff to complete daily nursing work and improve service efficiency and quality. At the same time, with the continuous maturity of technology and the reduction of costs, elderly care robots will gradually expand to community elderly care, medical rehabilitation and other fields, and the application scenarios will be more diverse.
The rise of elderly care robots is an inevitable choice to cope with the challenge of population aging, and it is also the inevitable result of the development of science and technology. With the continuous innovation of technology and the continuous expansion of the market, elderly care robots are expected to become an important pillar of the elderly care industry, bringing more comfortable, convenient and safe life to the elderly around the world. It is believed that in the near future, pension robots will enter thousands of households, become the right-hand man and intimate partner of the elderly, and contribute to the construction of a better intelligent pension society.
