This monograph by Florian Röhrbein, Germano Veiga and Ciro Natale is an edited collection of 15 authoritative contributions in the area of robot technology transfer between academia and industry. It comprises three parts on Future Industrial Robotics, Robotic Grasping as well as Human-Centered Robots. The book chapters cover almost all the topics nowadays considered ‘hot’ within the robotics community, from reliable object recognition to dexterous grasping, from speech recognition to intuitive robot programming, from mobile robot navigation to aerial robotics, from safe physical human-robot interaction to body extenders. All contributions stem from the results of ECHORD – the European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development, a large-scale integrating project funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme from 2009 to 2013. ECHORD’s two main pillars were the so-called experiments, 52 small-sized industry-driven research projects, and the structured dialog, a powerful interaction instrument between the stakeholders. The results described in this volume are expected to shed new light on innovation and technology transfer from academia to industry in the field of robotics.

In this book Part I presents first an overview of the ECHORD++ project, with its mission and vision together with a detailed structure of its functionalities and instruments: Experiments, Robotic Innovation Facilities and Public end-user Driven Technology Innovation PDTI. Chapter 1 explains how the project is born, the partners, the different instruments and the new concept of cascade funding projects. This novelty made ECHORD++ a special project along the huge number of research groups and consortia involved in the whole project. So far, it is the European funded project with more research team and partners involved in the robotic field. In Chapter 2, one of the instruments in ECHORD++ is explained in detail: RIF. Robotic innovation facilities are a set of laboratories across Europe funded with the project with the goal of hosting consortia involved in any experiment that have special needs when testing their robotic research. In the chapter the three different and specific RIFs will be described and analyzed. Chapter 3 explains an important instrument in ECHORD++: the Experiments. In this part, a big number of research groups have been involve in short time funded research projects. The chapter explains the management of such Experiments, from the call for participation, the candidate’s selection, the monitoring, reviews and funding for each of the 36 experiments funded for Echord. Chapter 4 is very special because it presents the innovation of funding public end-user driven technology, in particular, robotic technology. The robotic challenge is the key of such an instruments together with the management of the different consortia that participated competitively in the success of the robotic challenge proposed by a public entity, selected also with a very special and innovative process.

The book reports on cutting-edge theories and methods aimed at the control and coordination of agents acting and moving in a dynamic environment. It covers a wide range of systems, including multiagent systems, domotic agents, robotic manipulators, soccer robots, autonomous and semiautonomous robots, as well as systems for industrial applications. Advances in software agents, sensors, computer visions and other related areas are also thoroughly discussed and presented in detail. Based on the 19th edition of the International Workshop of Physical Agents (WAF 2018), held on November 22-23, 2018, in Madrid, Spain, this book offers a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in the field of physical agents, with a special emphasis on autonomous systems such as mobile robots, industrial process or other complex systems.

This book documents the state of the art in the field of ambient assisted living (AAL), highlighting the impressive potential of novel methodologies and technologies to enhance well-being and promote active ageing. The coverage is wide ranging, with sections on assistive devices, elderly people monitoring, home rehabilitation, ICT solutions for AAL, living with chronic conditions, robotic assistance for the elderly, sensing technologies for AAL, and smart housing. The book comprises a selection of the best papers presented at the Fifth Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living, which was held in Catania, Italy, in September 2014 and brought together end users, technology teams, and policy makers to develop a consensus on how to improve provision for elderly and impaired people. Readers will find that the expert contributions offer clear insights into the ways in which the most recent exciting advances may be expected to assist in addressing the needs of the elderly and those with chronic conditions.

The current perspectives of smart and sustainable manufacturing systems hold important implications for current practices and understanding these concepts for further implications. This comprehensive reference text discusses both centralized and decentralized production systems, using variety of new cutting-edge approaches to solve the problem. The text covers simulation-based approaches including social network-based approaches, discrete event-based approaches, and knowledge based for smart and sustainable systems. It further covers mathematical models such as single-objective, multi-objective, and many-objective. The text discusses important topics including energy efficiency, transportation constrains for efficient and effective production, meta-heuristic and hybrid algorithms, and real-time monitoring and analysis for smart and sustainable production. This book- • Presents approaches to improve the objectives of sustain-ability and smart production systems. • Discusses Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) concepts and its implementation for production systems. • Covers social network analysis method in distributed manufacturing systems. • Examines reckoning prognostics and diagnostics to monitor the health of the systems in perspective of distributed manufacturing. • Discusses aspects of Industry 4.0 in specific production systems. The text will be useful for graduate students and professional in the fields of mechanical engineering, production engineering, industrial engineering, and manufacturing.

The two-volume set LNAI 13817 and 13818 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2022, which took place in Florence, Italy, in December 2022. The 111 papers presented in the proceedings set were carefully reviewed and selected from 143 submissions. The contributions were organized in topical sections as follows: Social robot navigation and interaction capabilities (voice, tactile); Social robot perception and control capabilities; Investigating non verbal interaction with Social robots; Foster attention and engagement strategies in social robots; Special Session 1: Social Robotics Driven by Intelligent Perception and Endogenous Emotion-Motivation Core; Special Session 2: Adaptive behavioral models of robotic systems based on brain-inspired AI cognitive architectures; Advanced HRI capabilities for interacting with children; Social robots as advanced educational tool; Social robot applications in clinical and assistive scenarios; Collaborative social robots through dynamic game; Design and evaluate user’s robot perception and acceptance; Ethics, gender & trust in social robotics.

This authoritative Wiley Blackwell Handbook in Organizational Psychology focuses on individual and organizational applications of Internet-enabled technologies within the workplace. The editors have drawn on their collective experience in collating thematically structured material from leading writers based in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Coinciding with the growing international interest in the application of psychology to organizations, the work offers a unique depth of analysis from an explicitly psychological perspective. Each chapter includes a detailed literature review that offers academics, researchers, scientist-practitioners, and students an invaluable frame of reference. Coverage is built around competencies set forth by regulatory agencies including the APA and BPS, and includes E-Recruiting, E-Leadership, and E-Learning; virtual teams; cyberloafing; ergonomics of human-computer interaction at work; permanent accessibility and work-life balance; and trust in online environments.