Purpose – When designing hardware and algorithms for robotic manipulation and grasping, sensory information is typically needed to control the grasping process. This paper presents an overview of the major grasping and manipulation approaches and the more common hardware used to obtain the...

Purpose – Reviews the benefits and potential application of tactile sensors for use with robots. Design/methodology/approach – Includes the most recent advances in both the design/manufacturing of various tactile sensors and their applications in different industries. Although these types of...

Purpose – To report on the design and development of a robotic palletizing system that handles both pails of lubricant as well as cardboard cartons or cases. Design/methodology/approach – The customer selected a material‐handling expert to design and install the system after reviewing the...

Purpose – Aims to show how sensor networks can be used to effectively allow industrial robots to handle unpredicted movements within their workcells. Design/methodology/approach – Presents the concept of using sensor networks, using off‐the‐shelf technologies, to sense in real time...

Purpose – To report on the design and development of a robotic product carton packing system that handles both soft plastic pouches or bags and small individual serving boxes and places into shipping cartons. Design/methodology/approach – A food processing equipment OEM teamed with a control...

Purpose – Safety is an important issue when manipulators operate in an environment where humans are present, such as the agriculture industry. An intrinsically safe mechanical system guarantees human safety when electronics or controls fail. However, industry also demands a certain operating...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to develop a redundancy‐resolution (RR) algorithm to optimize the joint space trajectory of the six‐rotation‐axis industrial robot as performing arc‐welding tasks. Design/methodology/approach – The rotation of the tool around its symmetry axis is...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to describe how to make a co‐operative motion plan for a dual manipulator system to measure the radioactivity of wastes produced in decommissioning a nuclear power plant. Design/methodology/approach – The system consists of two tasks: the main task...

Purpose – The paper aims to describe the design and development of an automated guided vehicle (AGV) that incorporates artificial intelligence techniques to increase its autonomy and flexibility. The aim is developing a flexible AGV that operates as a flexible material handling system (MHS) in...

Purpose – This paper aims to introduce and identify a new 3D handling operation (bin picking) for natural discrete food products using food categorisation. Design/methodology/approach – The research shows a new food categorisation and the relation between food ordering processes and food...