Purpose – This paper aims to provide a review of the role of robots for monitoring the environment. Design/methodology/approach – Following a short introduction, this paper discusses developments in aquatic, terrestrial and airborne robots for monitoring the environment. Brief conclusions...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how mobile robots are addressing a variety of hospital logistic needs. Design/methodology/approach – The paper includes in‐depth interviews with developers of the Aethon hospital mobile robot logistics system. Findings – Robotics can greatly...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review new robots and applications in the food‐related industry through the exhibits at the Food Machinery and Technology Exhibition, Japan. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on interviews, exhibitions and press releases. Findings...

Purpose – The industrial robot has high repeatability but low accuracy. With the industrial robot being widely used in complicated tasks, e.g. arc welding, offline programming and surgery, accuracy of the robot is more and more important. Robot calibration is an efficient way to improve the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to make powered‐wheelchair driving easier using simple expert systems to interpret joystick and ultrasonic sensor data. The expert systems interpret shaky joystick movement and identify potentially hazardous situations and then...

Purpose – Wheel‐terrain interaction has hardly been taken into consideration in the process of conventional mobile robot design, but its importance has been reflected increasingly towards these categories of mobile robots in rough sandy terrain or obstacle‐dense ground, as the first...

Purpose – Moving production lines are widely used in many manufacturing factories, such as automotive and general industries. However, industrial robots are hardly used to perform any tasks on the moving production lines. One of the main reasons is that it is difficult for conventional...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of shaped metal deposition (SMD). SMD is an additive manufacturing process which uses a robotic cell to create fully dense, near‐net shape, metallic parts directly from computer‐aided design files. Design/methodology/approach...