Making Sense of Robotics for Smart Cities

How should robots be defined in a policy and regulatory context to support their integration into the built environment?

Robotics is a fascinating subject. There have been many memorable moments in robotics this year, but if I had to choose a single highlight, it would undoubtedly be Atlas, showcased by Boston Dynamics at CES 2026. Watching Atlas twist its torso, rotate its joints through a full 360 degrees, and recover its balance with extraordinary precision felt less like observing a machine and more like witnessing a glimpse of the future.

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The interests of smart city practitioners extend far beyond celebrating technological breakthroughs. Our focus extends beyond technological innovation to understanding how emerging technologies can be meaningfully integrated into urban life and the built environment. How should cities accommodate robots? What infrastructure, regulations, and social norms will be required for humans and robots to coexist safely and productively?

Addressing these questions is one of the most exciting aspects of smart city research and practice. It is also one of the reasons I remain passionate about the field. Ultimately, the future of cities will be shaped not only by technological advances, but by how effectively we embed them into the physical, institutional, and social fabric of urban life.

The First Barrier: Defining Robots

The history of robotics spans less than a century. The term “robot” was first introduced by Czech playwright Karel Čapek in his 1920 play R.U.R., while the first industrial robotics company, Unimation, was founded in 1956. Over the decades, milestones such as Sony’s AIBO (1999), Honda’s ASIMO (2000), and SoftBank’s Pepper (2014) captured public attention, yet the industry struggled to achieve widespread adoption.

Expectations shifted dramatically when Elon Musk unveiled the Optimus humanoid robot concept in 2021. Nearly five years later, many experts view robotics as being on the cusp of a mainstream breakthrough, much like smartphones and electric vehicles before their rapid adoption.

It may still be early, but among smart city experts, policymakers, and decision-makers, an important question is beginning to emerge:

How should cities prepare for a future in which robots become a common part of the built environment?

Last year, I had the opportunity to contribute to a Korean government R&D project on robot-friendly buildings led by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT). What surprised me most was that one of the biggest challenges was not technological, but conceptual. A considerable amount of time was spent debating a seemingly simple question:

What exactly is a robot from a policy and governance perspective?

This ambiguity became the first obstacle before any meaningful discussion about robot-friendly buildings or cities could begin.

The term “robotics” immediately evokes very different images. Some think of delivery robots navigating sidewalks. Others imagine humanoid robots such as Optimus or Atlas. Less common in public discourse, but equally relevant, are animal-inspired robots resembling dogs, spiders, or snakes.

As these diverse forms are considered together, policymakers and planners often find themselves unsure of where to begin. This confusion suggests that defining and classifying robots through a governance lens may be the first prerequisite for developing effective robot-friendly policies, buildings, and cities.

Why Existing Classifications Are Not Enough

Existing classification systems are not without value. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) commonly classify robots into two broad categories: industrial robots and service robots. Service robots are further divided into personal-use robots, designed for individual consumers, and professional-use robots, intended for commercial, institutional, or public-sector applications. In addition to this primary classification, robots are often categorized according to their functional roles — such as cleaning, delivery, inspection, security, and medical services — as well as their locomotion mechanisms, including wheeled, legged, aerial, and aquatic platforms. These frameworks are useful for technical standardization, market analysis, and industrial statistics.

However, after spending nearly a year thinking about the issue, I became increasingly convinced that these classifications are insufficient for policy and governance purposes.

From the perspective of urban planners, architects, policymakers, and smart city practitioners, the critical question is often not what a robot does, but where it operates, who governs it, and which physical, regulatory, and institutional systems it interacts with.

A robotic arm inside a factory, a delivery robot navigating a commercial building, and a humanoid robot moving through public streets may all be classified as robots, yet they raise fundamentally different questions regarding safety, liability, infrastructure, accessibility, public acceptance, and regulatory oversight.

Reframing Robotics Classification: A Governance-Based Approach

After wrestling with this problem, I arrived at a simple classification framework for robotics that I have found useful. It is not exhaustive, nor is it intended to replace existing standards. Rather, it offers a practical lens for discussing regulation, urban design, and industrial policy.

Instead of focusing primarily on function or morphology, I propose distinguishing robots according to the environments in which they operate and the governance systems that oversee them.

From this perspective, robots can be broadly understood in three categories:

• Industrial Robotics
• Building Robotics
• Urban Robotics

The rationale for this distinction is straightforward. Each category operates within a different spatial environment, interacts with different stakeholders, relies on different digital infrastructures, and is governed by different regulatory and institutional frameworks.

As a result, each requires a distinct approach to planning, infrastructure, standards, and governance.

Industrial Robotics

Industrial Robotics refers to robotic systems designed to automate manufacturing, assembly, inspection, material handling, and logistics operations within industrial facilities.

These robots operate within highly controlled and predictable environments such as factories, warehouses, and logistics centers. Governance is primarily driven by industrial safety regulations, occupational health standards, machinery directives, and workplace risk management requirements.

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The primary objective is to maximize productivity and operational efficiency while ensuring worker safety.

The data generated by industrial robots is typically integrated into industrial IoT platforms and factory digital twins, creating a real-time representation of production activities that supports operational optimization and enterprise management. In many cases, robots function as components within larger industrial automation ecosystems.

Consequently, policy discussions surrounding Industrial Robotics tend to focus on workforce safety, automation strategies, labor displacement, industrial competitiveness, and supply-chain resilience — issues that generally fall outside the primary domain of urban planning and city governance.

Building Robotics

Building Robotics refers to robotic systems deployed within buildings to support facility operations, maintenance, security, inspection, cleaning, logistics, and occupant services.

These robots operate in semi-controlled environments such as offices, hospitals, airports, hotels, shopping malls, and residential complexes. Unlike industrial robots, they frequently interact with occupants and visitors.

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From a governance perspective, building robots are typically treated as assets to be managed rather than public actors to be regulated. Governance responsibilities are concentrated among building owners, facility managers, and property operators.

The primary objective is to improve building operations and service quality while ensuring safe and acceptable human-robot interaction.

The data generated by building robots is commonly integrated into Building Management Systems (BMS), facility operation platforms, security systems, and building digital twins.

A particularly important distinction is positioning technology. Building robots often rely on indoor navigation systems based on cloud-enabled SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), sensor fusion, and highly detailed building digital twins. Their operational performance is therefore closely linked to the quality of building infrastructure and digital building models.

As a result, Building Robotics sits at the intersection of architecture, facility management, and digital infrastructure. Key policy concerns include privacy protection, accessibility, human-robot interaction standards, facility liability, and the integration of robotics into building design and operations.

Urban Robotics

Urban Robotics refers to robotic systems deployed in public spaces and urban infrastructure to support mobility, logistics, public services, infrastructure management, environmental monitoring, and urban operations.

Examples include autonomous delivery robots, robotic patrol systems, infrastructure inspection robots, environmental monitoring platforms, and autonomous shuttles.

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At first glance, Building Robotics and Urban Robotics may appear remarkably similar. A delivery robot operating in a hotel lobby and another navigating a city sidewalk may even share nearly identical hardware.

From a governance perspective, however, they belong to fundamentally different categories.

Urban robots operate within public environments where governance responsibilities are distributed among municipalities, transportation authorities, regulators, infrastructure providers, private operators, and citizens. Consequently, they are often treated as subjects of public regulation rather than facility management.

Their positioning technologies also differ significantly. While building robots depend on indoor SLAM systems and building digital twins, urban robots rely heavily on satellite-based positioning systems such as GNSS and RTK, much like autonomous vehicles. They interact with city-scale digital twins, traffic management systems, geospatial platforms, and urban operating systems.

The primary objective of governance is to ensure that robotic systems contribute to public value, urban efficiency, safety, and quality of life while maintaining public trust.

Unlike industrial or building environments, cities are open, dynamic, and unpredictable. Urban robots must coexist with pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, changing weather conditions, and diverse social behaviors.

For this reason, the governance challenges associated with Urban Robotics are often closer to those of autonomous vehicles than to those of traditional service robots operating inside buildings.

Policy concerns therefore extend beyond safety to include public liability, mobility management, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, data governance, social acceptance, and long-term urban governance arrangements.

Conclusion

This framework is not intended to be exhaustive, nor does it replace existing technical standards developed by organizations such as ISO or IFR. Rather, it is an attempt to provide a practical governance lens for those who find themselves overwhelmed by the growing diversity of robotic technologies.

My hope is that this framework offers a simpler starting point for policymakers, planners, architects, and smart city practitioners who are asking where to begin.

As robots become increasingly embedded in factories, buildings, and cities, the most important question may not be what robots look like or even what tasks they perform. Instead, we may need to focus on where they operate, who governs them, what digital infrastructure they depend upon, and how they interact with the surrounding built environment.

Cities have spent the past two decades building digital infrastructure for the information age. The next challenge may be building governance frameworks for the robotic age.

If this simple distinction between Industrial Robotics, Building Robotics, and Urban Robotics helps make an increasingly complex topic a little easier to understand, then it has served its purpose.