Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the AUVSI Conference and Show held in Orlando, FL with emphasis on unmanned vehicles or service robots, their application on the ground, in the air and in the water. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on in‐depth...

Purpose – To review the capabilities of a new method of welding aluminium sheets for car body construction. Design/methodology/approach – Describes the friction spot joining technique, and how it differs from friction stir welding. Describes the tests carried out at the University of Warwick...

Purpose – Offers an example of mobile robot networking and sensors. Design/methodology/approach – Displays an example of a prototype mobile robot called M‐Tran III. Findings – Teams of simple, modular robots can assume a wide variety of shapes to allow movement and cooperative behavior....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how BMW in the UK has put together a production “triangle” that brings together three of its four manufacturing plants in Britain to produce the latest version of the Mini passenger car. Design/methodology/approach – Describes the major...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a low cost fully automatic computer controlled oxy‐fuel cutting system for tubular members. Operation of the system should be easy even for unskilled technicians. Design/methodology/approach – The robot consists of one...

Purpose – To develop an in‐pipe robot to be used for inspecting pipes that are laid underneath a waste disposal site and for sampling sewage water leaking from holes around the pipe. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a compact design of the robot's mechanical and electronic...

Purpose – To present an open architecture for real‐time sensory feedback control of a dual‐arm industrial robotic cell. The setup is composed of two industrial robot manipulators equipped with force/torque sensors and pneumatic grippers, a vision system and a belt conveyor....

Purpose – Stereo vision is an attractive perception technique for mobile robots navigation. Stereo matching is a crucial part of stereo vision and its precision dominates the precision of reconstruction. Based on a geometry constraint applicable to natural terrain, the purpose of this paper is...