The range of potential applications for mobile robots is enormous. It includes agricultural robotics applications, routine material transport in factories, warehouses, office buildings and hospitals, indoor and outdoor security patrols, inventory verification, hazardous material handling, hazardous site cleanup, inspection of hazardous waste storage sites, and numerous military applications.

Currently, programming mobile robots even in structured environments requires highly trained engineers. Many new application areas for mobile robots will open up and current applications will be more successful when it is easy for end users to assign mobile robots to new tasks.