Robots in Industry. Past,present and future of a growing collaboration with humans

Robots have been part of automation systems for a very long time, and in public perception, they are often synonymous with automation and industrial revolution perse. Fueled by Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things (IoT) concepts as well as by new software technologies, the field of robotics in industry is currently undergoing a revolution on its own. This article gives an overview of the evolution of robotics from its beginnings to recent trends like collaborative robotics, autonomous robots, and human- robot interaction. Particular attention is devoted to the deep changes of the last decades, from the traditional industrial scenario based on isolated robotic cells up to the most recent coworking and collaborative robots. The role of robotics in the Industry 4.0 framework is analyzed, and the relationships with industrial communications and software technologies are also discussed. Some future directions for robotics are envisaged, focusing on the contributions coming from new materials, sensors, actuators, and technologies. Open issues are highlighted as well as the main barriers that currently limit the deployment of industrial robots in the small and medium enterprise (SME) world

Architecture and the Built Environment:

This publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment during the years 2010–2012. It is the first presentation of the joint research portfolio of the Faculty of Architecture and OTB Research Institute since their integration into the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. As such the portfolio holds a strong promise for the future. In a time when the economy seems to be finally picking up and in which such societal issues as energy, climate and ageing are more prominent than ever before, there are plenty of fields for us to explore in the next three years

BK 10-15:

Over the years 2010-2015 TU Delft's Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (in Dutch: Bouwkunde or BK) made good progress with its research by: merging the Architecture faculty and the Built Environment research institute; streamlining its PhD research by setting-up a graduate school for doctoral education; co-founding an institute for metropolitan solutions in Amsterdam together with MIT and Wageningen University (targeted yearly budget: 25 M€); implementing good research management; increasing the scientific output; managing a project portfolio with a yearly income of 1.5 M€ in research grants, 5 M€ in contract research and up to 2 M€ in other external funding; ranking 3rd in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2015 - Architecture / Built Environment. Presented in this book is an overview of research data and policies, together with a selection of our finest research results: activities, organisations, facilities/assets, output, including indications of their use and recognition. Now it is not the time to become complacent. Instead, we should look ahead to face new academic and societal challenges and opportunities, knowing we can always do better

Automation, Digitalization, and Changes in Occupational Structures in the Automobile Industry in Germany, the United States, and Japan: A Brief History from the Early 1990s Until 2018

In the current public discussion, it is considered certain that we are living in a time of rapidly advancing automation, which is driven in particular by the use of robots. Accordingly, many academic publications use robot density as the central indicator of automation. The present study challenges this perspective. It examines two central questions: First, what approaches to automation and digitalization have been pursued in the automotive industry in Germany, Japan and the USA? Second, how have employment and its occupational composition in the automotive industry developed in the three countries? The first part of the study focuses on the development of automation and digitalization approaches in the automotive industry from the early 1990s until today. It combines a qualitative analysis of press articles and a quantitative evaluation of the development of the stock of industrial robots from 1993 to 2018 based on the statistics of the International Federation of Robotics. The second part of the study focuses on the change in employment structures using occupational statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA), the Federal Employment Agency (Germany) and the Statistics Bureau of Japan. The study questions the perception of an automation-related threat to employment and especially to production employment. At the same time, it discusses developments in Germany, Japan and the USA in comparison and highlights differences in automation and digitalization approaches as well as different paths of change in employment structures

The concept of collaborative engineering: a systematic literature review

Collaborative engineering is not a new subject but it assumes a new importance in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0). There are other concepts frequently mismatched with collaboration. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to put forward a collaborative engineering concept, along its sub concepts, supported by an extensive systematic literature review. A critical analysis and discussion about the fundamental importance of learning, and the central human role in collaboration, in the I4.0, is presented, based on the main insights brought through the literature review. This study also enables to realize about the importance of collaboration in the current digitalization era, along with the importance of recent approaches and technology for enabling or promoting collaboration. Main current practices of human centered and autonomous machine-machine approaches and applications of collaboration in engineering, namely in manufacturing and management, are presented, along with main difficulties and further open research opportunities on collaboration.This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [UIDB/00319/2020, UIDB/50014/2020, and EXPL/EME-SIS/1224/2021]

Survey on 6G Frontiers: Trends, Applications, Requirements, Technologies and Future Research

Emerging applications such as Internet of Everything, Holographic Telepresence, collaborative robots, and space and deep-sea tourism are already highlighting the limitations of existing fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. These limitations are in terms of data-rate, latency, reliability, availability, processing, connection density and global coverage, spanning over ground, underwater and space. The sixth-generation (6G) of mobile networks are expected to burgeon in the coming decade to address these limitations. The development of 6G vision, applications, technologies and standards has already become a popular research theme in academia and the industry. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the current developments towards 6G. We highlight the societal and technological trends that initiate the drive towards 6G. Emerging applications to realize the demands raised by 6G driving trends are discussed subsequently. We also elaborate the requirements that are necessary to realize the 6G applications. Then we present the key enabling technologies in detail. We also outline current research projects and activities including standardization efforts towards the development of 6G. Finally, we summarize lessons learned from state-of-the-art research and discuss technical challenges that would shed a new light on future research directions towards 6G

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management