Human Friendly Robotics

Dear Colleagues,

The growing demand to automate daily tasks using new robotic technologies is driving the development of human-friendly robots, i.e., safe and dependable machines, operating in the close vicinity to humans or directly interacting with them in a wide range of domains. The technological shift from classical industrial robots restricted in cages to collaborative robots that are interacting closely with humans, is facing major challenges that need to be addressed.

To this end, we organize the 11th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR 2018) on 13–14 November, 2018, in Shenzhen, China. The objective of the workshop is to create a focused single-track workshop and to bring together researchers for sharing knowledge in design, control, safety and ethical issues, concerning the application of robots in everyday life. This Special Issue will collect selected papers from the workshop. Potential contributors to this Special Issue are also encouraged to submit and present in the HFR2018 (more information can be found here: HFR2018.org).

List of Topics

Fundamentals of human-friendly robots: mechatronic design, control, analysis (safety measurements, performance metrics, impedance estimation, etc.)

Applications of human-friendly robots: physical interaction (medical and rehabilitation devices, prostheses and orthoses, telerobotics, etc.), cognitive interaction (robot assisted therapy, personal and entertainment robots, robot learning, etc.),

Social and ethical issues

Dr. Fei Chen
Dr. Yan Wu
Dr. Alessandro Di Nuovo
Dr. Dimitri Ognibene
Guest Editors

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