Robots are moving out of industrial environments, which are structured and controlled, towards looser and less predictable professional and personal services environments in which they must perform a variety of tasks. But programming the same robot for different tasks is complex and expensive. As an alternative, researchers are looking at new programming methods based on concepts and ideas taken from the study of how human beings themselves learn.
The city of Barcelona has been selected to develop a pilot project for the robotic inspection of underground drainage and sewerage systems, as part of the innovation program of the European Union ECHORD++. This project, which began in 2014 and will end in 2018, is a response to a challenge that every urban settlement in the world has to face.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML), a German research center, has presented its InventAIRy project, an innovative solution for the automatic location of products and the inventorying of warehouse stocks with the help of flying robots.
