Purpose – Aims to determine how robotics is used in white goods manufacture. Design/methodology/approach – Interviews production specialists at BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausgerate about the application of robots to dishwasher manufacture at the company's Dillingen plant in Germany, and reviews...

Purpose – Aims to determine how robotics is used in white goods manufacture. Design/methodology/approach – Assesses robot applications at several white goods manufacturers, examining the challenges posed and the achievements made. Findings – The white goods sector offers diverse...

Purpose – Aims to discuss how impedance‐controlled parallel robots can effectively perform industrial assembly tasks. Design/methodology/approach – A new purely translational parallel robot has been designed to fulfil the requirements of industrial assembly tasks. The kinematic and dynamic...

Purpose – The paper aims to advance methodologies to optimize fuzzy logic controller parameters via neural network and use the neuro‐fuzzy scheme to control two cooperating robots. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a special neural network architecture that can be converted...

Purpose – Describes a dual‐arm mobile manipulator that can autonomously scan natural terrain using a typical handheld landmine detector in a manner similar to a human operator. Design/methodology/approach – Presents a terrain‐scanning robot that consists of two articulated arms mounted...

Purpose – Aim for efficient motion planning of industrial robot with high degree of freedoms in both static and dynamic environments. Design/methodology/approach – A multi‐agent based general path planner for serial manipulator is proposed in this work. A hierarchical structure developed...

Purpose – This paper presents an evolutionary algorithm (EA) for Sony legged robots to learn good walking behaviours with little or no interaction with the designers. Once the learning method is put into place, the module can learn through its interaction with the real world....

Purpose – Reviews the benefits and potential application of tactile sensors for use with robots. Design/methodology/approach – Includes the most recent advances in both the design/manufacturing of various tactile sensors and their applications in different industries. Although these types of...

Purpose – A review of safety‐technology, applicable safety‐related standards and the impact on the use of robots in industrial environments. Design/methodology/approach – Technological developments are presented in safety‐related control technology, including programmable safety...

Purpose – Describes how BMW is investing in new body‐in‐white capital equipment to make a new version of the Mini due out in 2007. Design/methodology/approach – Describes the major production line technologies that are under close scrutiny to manufacture the body shell of the next...