Mobile robotics moves forward on standardisation

Over the last decade considerable effort has gone into developing generic or application-specific approaches for characterisation, control and design of mobile robotic systems. The research efforts have accordingly concentrated on locomotion techniques and component-level and system architectures with conventional and new approaches. While conventional approaches allow the system to perform to some degree of satisfaction, they are best suited for relatively simple systems and applications where performance demands are not high. With complex systems and where performance demands are high, researchers have investigated the development of new and novel approaches taking account of accuracy requirements, computational efficiency and practical realisation. Such efforts have opened up a whole range of application areas for mobile robotics in industry, public and domestic sectors. The time has now come that robots are making their way out of the factory environment and benefiting the public and domestic sectors of society.