Imaging technology opens up new robotic applications

Purpose – This paper aims to review the use of imaging technologies in robotics, with an emphasis on inspection applications and the control of autonomous robots. Design/methodology/approach – Following a brief introduction, this paper first considers vision‐based robotic inspection systems and highlights a selection of recent applications. Second, it considers the use of vision in autonomous robot navigation and discusses some of the challenges and recent developments. Findings – This shows that developments in machine vision have led to vision systems being used in a diversity of component‐level and in‐service robotic inspection tasks. It also illustrates that vision systems have a key role to play in the emerging generation of autonomous, mobile robots. Originality/value – This paper provides a review of recent developments in vision‐based robotic inspection and autonomous, mobile robot navigation.