Robotic developments : Working towards a new breed of robot

Purpose – While building robots with anything akin to human cognition and intelligence remains a far off vision, making them more autonomous and responsive will allow them to be used in a greater variety of sophisticated tasks in the manufacturing and service sectors. With this aim, various groups of European researchers are making important progress on developing the technologies and bringing them together in a new generation of machines that are more aware of their environment and better able to interact with humans. This paper aims to look at this issue. Design/methodology/approach – This paper looks at how various groups of European researchers are making progress in developing a new generation of machines that are more aware of their environment and better able to interact with humans. Findings – The paper finds that replicating human‐like intelligence and awareness is still a long way of – if indeed possible but researchers foresee robots akin to those they have developed becoming an everyday sight over the coming years in what are described as “gofer scenarios” Originality/value – The paper provides useful information on developments in robtics.