Cloud robotics is an emerging field of robotics rooted in cloud computing, cloud storage, and other Internet technologies centered around the benefits of converged infrastructure and shared services. It allows robots to benefit from the powerful computational, storage, and communications resources of modern data centers. In addition, it removes overheads for maintenance and updates, and reduces dependence on custom middleware.

Cloud robotics allows robots to take advantage of the rapid increase in data transfer rates to offload tasks without hard real time requirements. This is of particular interest for mobile robots, where on-board computation entails additional power requirements which may reduce operating duration and constrain robot mobility as well as increase costs.

Driven by advances in mobile communication technologies, more and more robotics applications can be executed in the cloud.

Broader definitions of Cloud Robotics may also include other Internet-related aspects of robotics, such as trends towards the online sharing of open source hardware and software, crowd-sourcing of robotics funding, telepresence, and human-based computation. Other definitions stress the links between robotics and related emerging fields such as the Internet of Things, Web of Things, robot app stores, sensor networks, Big data, and others.