Mobile robots, as the "feet" of composite robots, are an important component of composite robots. According to navigation methods, there are mainly magnetic stripe navigation, QR code navigation, laser SLAM navigation, and visual navigation. At present, laser SLAM guided mobile robots have become the main choice for most composite robots due to their advantages such as stable navigation, strong environmental adaptability, and autonomous movement.

The autonomous mobile robot composite robot based on laser SLAM navigation does not require any auxiliary signs or modifications to the factory environment. It can autonomously avoid obstacles and detour when encountering people and goods. It is uniformly deployed by a mobile robot scheduling system to achieve flexible intelligent production. Composite robots are beneficial for improving the automation level of raw material part transportation, workpiece loading and unloading, and machine assembly. Thus improving labor productivity, reducing production costs, and accelerating the pace of industrial production mechanization and automation.

Composite robots can partially or completely replace humans to safely complete dangerous operations in harsh environments, greatly improving the working conditions of workers. Meanwhile, some simple but tedious handling tasks can be replaced by composite robots, avoiding losses caused by operator fatigue or negligence. After completing one process, the composite robot can move on to the next process with high flexibility. In addition, multiple composite robots are used to form mobile assembly and processing stations, which can create highly flexible production lines.

At present, composite robots are increasingly widely used in component assembly in manufacturing industries such as 3C electronics, medical, daily chemical, and mechanical processing. Composite robots can be used for grasping, assembling, transporting, loading, and unloading processed workpieces. In addition, composite robots can be quickly deployed in many scenarios, such as automated factories, warehouse sorting, automated commodity supermarkets, etc. Provide automated and flexible operational support for the automatic handling, loading and unloading, and sorting of materials, enabling the factory's logistics to truly achieve "unmanned handling".

With the continuous deepening of Industry 4.0, industrial robots have transitioned from the third stage to the fourth stage, solving the problem of flexible production. Returning to the reality of China's manufacturing industry, the current development strategy is to strive for overtaking, automation, informatization, and intelligence. The "Made in China 2025" clearly states that intelligent manufacturing is the main line to accelerate the integration of the two industries. In this context, it is not difficult to predict that composite robots will have great application space and development prospects.

At the 2019 Tokyo Robot Show, a significant difference from previous exhibitions was that major robot exhibitors showcased composite robots in different scenarios, seemingly confirming the development trend of composite robots. In the future, there will surely be more cooperation between robot manufacturers and mobile robot manufacturers to jointly solve problems such as low load, inability to touch the ground, faster communication speed, and product/industry standards of composite robots, and to achieve faster productization, rapid development, and large-scale application of composite robots.