Guest editorial: technologies for practical robot applications

Abstract

Robotics is on the verge of becoming the next disruptive technology to impact our society. Research volume, as well as technology development by the robotics industry, has grown exponentially in recent years. There are many market forecasts predicting a significant increase in the deployment of robotic systems in the next decade. Much of the increase of the robotics volume is expected to be in applications where robots act in direct support of humans, including health care, small-scale manufacturing, leisure and entertainment, the service sector and defense. In response to this growth, governments around the world have launched initiatives to support research and technology development in these areas. The main objective of the IEEE International Conference onTechnologies for Practical RobotApplications (TePRA) is to provide researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and robotics professionals with a balanced forum in robotics science, engineering and technology. With an emphasis on practical applications and industry participation, TePRA technical programs featured more than 200 technical paper and poster presentations, robot demonstrations, student competitions, panel sessions and exhibits since 2009. The conference tracks covered application domains ranging from medical to defense, from educational to industrial robots, as well as new technologies in sensing, actuation and computation for enabling practical robot applications. This special issue of the Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics is a compilation of extended manuscripts selected from the 2013 TePRA technical program. The special issue