Purpose – This paper aims to present a deflection model to improve positional accuracy of industrial robots. Earlier studies have demonstrated the lack of accuracy of heavy-duty robots when exposed to high external forces. One application where the robot is pushed to its limits in terms of...

Purpose – To report on new robot technologies and applications exhibited at Automatica trade fair held in Munich. Design/methodology/approach – Visited exhibits of key manufacturers and reviewed their latest developments. Findings – Clear trend is emerging for safe robots that permit...

Purpose – Seeks to review how a relatively new technology, in mold labelling of injection moulded items, can be achieved in a cost‐effective way with robots. Design/methodology/approach – A custom‐designed robot combined with a custom‐designed end‐of‐arm unit, both applies labels...

Purpose – To report on the design and development of a robotic order‐building system that both depalletizes pails of paint and then repalletizes them by customer order instructions. Design/methodology/approach – A paint products manufacturer called in a custom material‐handling robot...

Purpose – The authors of this paper aim to describe the design of distributed architectures for the remote control of multirobot systems. A very good example of remote robot programming in order to validate these architectures is in fact the remote visual servoing control. It uses sequences of...

Purpose – The goal of this research has been to design and field test a multi‐use planetary rover vehicle. SCOUT has been developed to test advanced rover hardware and software technologies and to enable the development and demonstration of mission operations concepts applicable to future...

Purpose – Aims to demonstrate how an automated robot program generation method can be developed and implemented. Design/methodology/approach – A visual and force servoing method to automatically generate robot paths and robot programs, based on position, force and vision sensor fusion, was...

Purpose – Aims to develop a robotic platform to autonomously track a moving object Design/methodology/approach – This robotic platform, based on a modular system known as SafeBot, uses two sensors: a visual CCD camera and a laser‐based range sensor. The rigidly mounted camera tracks an...

Purpose – The objective of this work was to demonstrate a novel approach to human machine interaction that seamlessly uses teleoperation and automation in a complex environment. Design/methodology/approach – This work leverages developments in the area of operational software Operational...