Award winners in robot competitions held by the were named on 14 March 2018, during this year's European Robotics Forum (ERF), held in Tampere, Finland on 13–15 March. Awards for the ERL's 2017-18 season were presented at a Gala Dinner to winning teams that took part in all ERL competitions: Service Robots (ERL-SR), Industry Robots (ERL-IR) and Emergency Robots (ERL-ER). ERL-SR is for robots that could provide assistance in homes, particularly for people with reduced mobility. ERL-ER is for robots in simulated emergency situations and ERL-IR tackles automation in industry. Dozens of teams from around Europe took part in the 2017–18 ERL competitions, which stimulate innovation by and collaboration among robotics researchers by setting tasks in simulated real-life conditions, for completion against the clock.

This year is expected to be a great leap forward in automation and the development of artificial intelligence, as machine learning and neural networks mean that robots can learn and understand more than ever before. But with this rise in automation has come a fear that the robots will completely supplant humans in the workforce. A YouTube video called "Humans Need Not Apply" released in 2014 has argued that much of the human workforce could be supplanted by robots, and that robots could even take over creative jobs which was assumed could only be done by humans. To some degree, these fears are overblown. The more likely scenario is that humans and AI will work together, covering for each other's strength and weaknesses and improving the economy.

Just as ATMs changed banking and computers took over the home and workplace, robots and artificial intelligence are going to transform a bunch of industries over the next decade. By 2025, a machine may be putting together your driverless car in a factory with no human oversight. A robot maid could be cleaning up after you at home, and your financial advisor might be a computer investing for you automatically. And with at least 90 countries operating unmanned aerial vehicles, the wars of the future may increasingly be fought with "drone" aircraft. These are just some of the interesting -- and sometimes scary -- predictions to come from a 300-page report released by Merrill Lynch in November, which estimates the global market for robots and AI will grow from $28 billion to more than $150 billion just five years from now.

Just as ATMs changed banking and computers took over the home and workplace, robots and artificial intelligence are going to transform a bunch of industries over the next decade. By 2025, a machine may be putting together your driverless car in a factory with no human oversight. A robot maid could be cleaning up after you at home, and your financial advisor might be a computer investing for you automatically. And with at least 90 countries operating unmanned aerial vehicles, the wars of the future may increasingly be fought with "drone" aircraft. These are just some of the interesting -- and sometimes scary -- predictions to come from a 300-page report released by Merrill Lynch in November, which estimates the global market for robots and AI will grow from 28 billion to more than 150 billion just five years from now.