A Tokyo‐based construction company, Fujita Corporation, has developed the unmanned “Tele‐Earthwork System”. It features a remotely controlled robot which manipulates conventional construction machines (such as backhoes and bulldozers) in the same way as a human operator. The robot can be...

Automatic target recognition in agricultural harvesting robots is characterized by low detection rates and high false alarm rates due to the unstructured nature of both the environment and the objects. To improve detection human‐robot collaboration levels were defined and implemented. The...

This paper presents the design and validation of a universal 6D seam tracking system that reduces the need of accurate robot trajectory programming and geometrical databases in robotic laser scanning. The 6D seam tracking system was developed in the flexible unified simulation environment,...

This paper presents the concept and design of a strain gauge sensor, which is a part of a pipe crawling robot and can be used for the purpose of detecting the shape of a collapsed pipe or tunnels like voids within rubble. The paper illustrates the sensor's working principle. The sensor uses a...

New haptic robot arms with powerful force feedback could help product design engineers check out complex assembly problems in a virtual reality environment. Companies in the automotive and aerospace industries are likely to be the first to take advantage of the technology. They could be applying...

Building construction is a great area for automation, but the incorporation of robots in the construction industry is a very slow affair because of the intrinsic difficulties. New requirements, however, now call for material‐handling manipulators to be used to help operators move and position...

This paper describes the technical principles of a high‐performance force controlled robot, called the HapticMaster. It is designed as a generic platform for applications with human interaction. Therefore, it differs significantly from most industrial robots on the one hand, whereas it also...