Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of finishing robot technology and its applications. Design/methodology/approach – The paper initially considers the development of automated finishing technologies and then discusses robotic systems. The uses of robotic finishing are...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the 2008 AUVSI Conference and Show held in San Diego, California with emphasis on unmanned vehicles or service robots, their application on the ground, in the air and in the water. Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of...

Purpose – Shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) is a typical manual process with many important but dangerous applications for the welder. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology developed for execution time trajectory generation for robotic SMAW which offers greater safety and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel error‐ranking methodology and two compensation strategies for hybrid parallel kinematic machines (HPKMs). Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines an error analysis methodology developed for HPKMs and applies the technique...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a distributed multiple mobile robot system that provides a collaborative control and simulation environment. Design/methodology/approach – A CORBA‐based cooperative system is designed to implement a robotic layered cooperative mechanism....

Purpose – Paint path planning for industrial robots is critical for uniform paint distribution, process cycle time and material waste, etc. However, paint path planning is still a costly and time‐consuming process. Currently paint path planning has always caused a bottle‐neck for...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a mobile robot with an olfactory capability for hazardous site survey. Possible applications include detection of gas leaks and dangerous substances along predefined paths, inspection of pipes in factories, and mine sweeping....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a surgical robot for spinal fusion and its control framework that provides higher operation accuracy, greater flexibility of robot position control, and improved ergonomics. Design/methodology/approach – A human‐guided robot for the spinal...