Purpose – To study the advantages of a modular approach to packaging‐machine design. Design/methodology/approach – Introduces the modular approach of this German company, with particular emphasis on its packaging robots and vision system. Uses a selection of food and pharmaceutical...

Purpose – To report some successful applications of vision‐controlled robots in picking and packing of foodstuffs. Design/methodology/approach – The design and capabilities of ABB's two picking robots are explained, and the specialist software that integrates vision guidance and product...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the current application areas of shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators in intelligent robotic systems and devices. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses how actuation and sensing functions of the SMA actuator have been exploited and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the application of computational intelligence techniques to the field of industrial robot control. Design/methodology/approach – The core ideas behind using neural computation, evolutionary computation, and fuzzy logic techniques are...

Purpose – In order to replace the conventional human maintenance of cable‐stayed bridges, a robot is designed and constructed for tasks such as cleaning, painting and rust‐detecting. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting a modular approach, two kinds of climbing mechanisms, plus a...

Purpose – To demonstrate the theory and effectiveness of reliability‐improvement countermeasures for line equipment, specifically industrial robots for automotive production engineering. Design/methodology/approach – Suggests an efficient method of life‐cycle maintenance. The defects of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the vibration suppression of industrial track robot and propose a practical solution. Design/methodology/approach – Root‐cause analysis through dynamic modeling, and vibration suppression using the acceleration smoother. Findings –...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe development and application of an iterative learning control (ILC) scheme for a tracking problem. The control objective is to achieve accurate tracking of a desired trajectory which is the path taken by a laser beam....

Purpose – To describe a robot designed and built to operate in outdoor environments hostile to the human presence, such as debris resulting from the collapse of built structures, and targeted to the tele‐operated detection of potential survivors using a set of specific sensors whose...

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the topic of robot kinematics and provide a modern machine. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines, in brief, kinematics and robot kinematics, classes, constraints and chains to provide an introduction. An example shows how robot kinematics can...