Advances in Collaborative Robotics for Service, Industrial and Green Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Today’s advances in robotics promise to deliver autonomous systems that can work safely along with humans and improve humans’ overall working conditions. In this context, collaborative robotics is booming and is playing a crucial role in improving the quality of lives of individuals. At the same time, robot and mechatronics applications have rapidly expanded from the industrial environment to human assistance in rehabilitation and functional improvements. Furthermore, there are many open challenges and opportunities to integrate engineering concepts into green applications.

This motivates researchers to study, design, and develop novel enabling robotics technologies and methods. In the near future, the development of many collaborative applications will play an essential part in the smart industry and smart cities. Specifically, the challenge is to transfer the research results and new knowledge to stakeholders, creating a general awareness of the importance of engineering in service, rehabilitation, and green applications.

Considering the dynamic nature of collaborative robotics, there are a series of challenges, including robot task efficiency, safety and security, decision decentralization, machine learning, risk and confidence management, and energy consumption.

The scope of this Special Issue is to collect high-quality research that reports on recent advances and developments in designing sustainable collaborative robotics focusing on innovative systems, mechatronic devices, and technologies for service robots, industrial processes, and rehabilitative and smart city applications, also highlighting the economic and social implications.

Dr. Nicola Pellegrini
Guest Editor

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