Human–robot collaboration has demonstrated its potential to increase efficiency and productivity in industry. However, inherently safe collaborative robots offer limited payloads and are unsuitable for many heavy lifting and manipulation tasks that would benefit from collaboration. The use of high-payload robots in physical human–robot interaction poses significant safety and … [Read more...] about Safe and Effective Collaboration With a High-Payload Robot: A Framework Integrating Novel Hardware and Software Modules
Inspection
Opportunistic (Re)planning for Long-Term Deep-Ocean Inspection: An Autonomous Underwater Architecture
Robots are increasingly used in subsea environments because of their positive impact on human safety and operational capabilities in the deep ocean. However, achieving full autonomy remains challenging because of the extreme conditions they encounter. In this context, we propose an autonomous underwater architecture for long-term deep-ocean inspection that robustly plans … [Read more...] about Opportunistic (Re)planning for Long-Term Deep-Ocean Inspection: An Autonomous Underwater Architecture
Recent Developments of Subsurface Small-Leak Detection Techniques in Water Distribution Networks: A Review
The urban population grappling with water scarcity is projected to reach two billion people by 2050. Therefore, mitigating leaks in the water distribution networks (WDNs) becomes crucial for better future water security. This review article summarizes the present detection capabilities concerning small leaks (less than 1 L/s). The scope of the review encompasses experiments and … [Read more...] about Recent Developments of Subsurface Small-Leak Detection Techniques in Water Distribution Networks: A Review
A Continuum Robot for Remote Applications
The maintenance of critical industrial components is often hindered by limited access, tortuous passages, and complex geometries. In highly constrained environments, inspection tasks are currently performed with borescopes, but even skilled operators struggle with hard-to-reach targets, and the limited mobility prevents in situ repair when defects are identified. Thanks to an … [Read more...] about A Continuum Robot for Remote Applications
Toward Lifelong Learning for Industrial Defect Classification: A Proposed Framework
Automatic defect inspection is an important application for the development of smart factories in the era of Industry 4.0. It gathers data from production lines to train a model to automatically recognize certain types of defects. However, the defect types may vary in the production process, and it is difficult for the old model to adapt to new types of defects directly. … [Read more...] about Toward Lifelong Learning for Industrial Defect Classification: A Proposed Framework
