Editorial note: The key elements of the future smart cities

One of the key elements of the future smart cities is automation and utilisation of robotic system technology. It is believed that not in the far future that home automation, healthcare, telecare, digitised technology and assisted living technology will make a real impact in our quality of life, especially for older adults with long term condition. Older adults to live independently and have a good quality of life is quite a challenge, since the majorly of them have long term health condition diseases. Health services providers across EU and overall the world, informal and formal carer plays major roles in providing the necessary services and support. Diseases on older adults society are one of the leading causes of death, from which thousands of people die every year. Many of the non-communicable diseases can be prevented by tackling associated risk factors. The cost of treatment of such diseases in the EU only is estimated to be over 70% of the Health Service budget. Treatment includes home-care, medication, consultation and many other relevant services. However, these services are still not adequate, due to the lack of implemented automation and robotic systems technology that enable the older adults to manage their daily life activities independently, taking medications, receive the necessary health services on time, which, in many cases leads to loss of lives and waste of NHS resources. Daily life activities management and telehealth remote monitoring system is one of the potential innovative approaches, to improve the older adult’s quality of life, help live independently, improve NHS services, sustain its economic growth and improve social development. It is a rapidly developing concept where daily life activities, health condition, medical information is transferred through interactive data, and audio visual media and shared between services provider, informal and formal carer. In this 4th issue and 2nd issues the journal a selection of some of these technological challenges facing the automation industry are presented and some of the inventive researcher pioneering solutions and findings are introduced

Editorial note: Robotics and industrial automation technology

There is no doubt that robotics and industrial automation technology is evolving quiet fast. However, the end user expectation of the technology realisation is still far from what expected. This is due to the limited development of intelligence, typical human brain cells, 3-Dimensional (3D) visual, audible and dynamic movement systems that have the same abilities and self-learning as human, to help in decision making in various environment. There are number of applied research programmes underdevelopment around the world that addresses some of these aforementioned developments. Vision is one of the most important sense and the future robot/autonomous systems proficiency will significantly depend on the ability to see, recognise, distinguish objects and estimate distances. Most jobs depend on the talent of visual perception and it must acknowledge that today's manufacture technologies and applications more and more often broaden well beyond the limits of human visual capacities. This is where robot and autonomous machine vision technology comes in. It is one of the constantly growing areas of applied research that dealing with processing and analysing of visual digital data capture. It plays a key role in the development of intellectual systems and empowers decision making for some of the future robot, autonomous systems, industrial process and manufacturing

Editorial note: Innovation is the only pathway for manufacturer, visionary and scholars, to improve the quality of human beings daily life

Innovation is the only pathway for manufacturer, visionary and scholars, to improve the quality of human beings daily life. This is where robotics and mechatronics engineering has been adopted since 1984, as one of the most pioneering solutions to many of our industrial challenges. The distinction about such resolution is its flexibility to meet the well-known innovation platforms, i.e. empowering, sustainable and efficient innovation. It’s the creatively of applied research to implement some superintendent roles rather than creation ones. Industrial market has become very challenging to secure businesses, maintain products development, and sustain its growth, since it is not any more about knowledge and existing know-how. It is nowadays about what industrialist can embed into their evolving products using cutting edge emerging technology and how they manufacture it. This is where the International Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics (IJRM) will play a vital role, through the exchange of the innovative ongoing research and development in this area of intelligence and automation across the world

Innovation in micro actuators and Big Data technology transform visually impaired daily life activities and Improve their access to information technology resources

It is indeed very alarming when we learn that every five seconds one person in the world goes blind. 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision, 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries. This blind and visually impaired community Tactile and Braille is the most efficient possible way to read, write and interact with latest information technology resources. There are many outstanding efforts have been done on previous decades to improve this community quality of life. This paper presents the current state of the art of the current micro actuators technology and its latest development for visually impaired information technology access application. It is also presents innovative tactile graphical display using electro rheological fluid micro actuators for the visually impaired people information technology (IT) access application. The display consists of 124x4 dots. Each dot is a micro electro rheological fluid actuator. The micro-actuator is designed based on linear vertical movement principles. An advanced software tools and embedded system based on voltage matrix manipulation are developed, to provide the graphical display near real time control. The actuator design and development process and software control tools is presented in this paper. Prototype size 124x4 dots, on a matrix form, of 2.54mm pitch, was manufactured. The experimental tests carried out into the prototype showed a close agreement with the standard criteria of Tactile Braille applications. The stroke and dynamic time response test showed the practicability of the developed graphical tactile display, for visually impaired IT access applications

Piezoelectric ultrasonic servo control feed drive renovate electro-discharge machining system industrial applications and transfer the technology into a new era

This paper presents the state of art of the latest development in Electro-Discharge Machining (EDM) system technology. It covers the current and recent development using the electromagentic and piezoelectric ultrasonic servo control feed drive technology. The paper also demonstrates how the ultrasonic technology renovates the system and transfers its industrial applications into a new era. EDM process is one of the most common processes in automotive and aerospace industry. It is mainly used to machine and process alloys and very hard materials for key manufacturing components, such as film cooling holes for Turbine Blades, engine strip sheets, steel sheets for automotive industry, outer vehicle body, … etc. The EDM system that uses electromagnetic servo control feed drive has a number of teething issues and this indicated the necessity to employ a new technology that could overcome these issues and enhance the system level of precision, dynamic time response, machining stability, arcing phenomena and product surface profile. The research undertaken to evaluate both systems showed that the system recently developed using ultrasonic servo control feed drive has a clear improvement in system dynamic time response, stability, a notable reduction in arcing and short-circuiting teething phenomena. This has been verified through the inter-electrode gap voltage variation. The electron microscopic examinations into the machined samples using the ultrasonic system have also indicated a clear improvement in the surface profile of the machined samples

Editorial note: why we fail to ignite and sustain innovation in the majority of our business organisations?

It is the big question that every small to medium and large enterprise industrialist face every day, why we fail to ignite and sustain innovation in the majority of our business organisations? It is indeed the fact that culture of innovation it does not happen by accident. It must be created, adopted and rewarded. Changing the way our organisations do business requires imagination and creativity. An innovative organisation is run by, employees who can see all new opportunities, risks, technological challenges and are willing to accept and respond to every challenges in a professional conduct. The International Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics is the gate and online access data base for these organisations, to share, exchange knowledge and finding the possible innovative solutions for these challenges

Design optimisation of passive humidification device for intensive care medical applications

This paper presents the design optimisation of passive heat and moisture exchange (HME) humidification device for intensive care medical applications. Investigation into the state of the art of the technology in use concludes that there are two main artificial HME humidification devices: active and passive device. The passive HME device is the preferred one, due to the ease of use and low cost. However it is not suitable for more than 24 hour use. This is due to a number of challenges such as: device cavity design, limitations of HME materials performance and overall efficiency. This paper presents the outcomes of the research work carried out to overcome these teething issues and presents an optimised cavity design that could improve the HME material, airflow structure and patterns and HME device overall efficiency

Deployment of assisted living technology using intelligent body sensors platform for elderly people health monitoring

Many of the Ambient Assisted Living Technologies (AALT) available to the end-users as off- shelf products have no common inter-operational protocol (Language). Each product has its own communication protocols, different interfaces and interoperation which limits their solution efficiency for long term health condition monitoring systems. This paper presents assisted living technology (ALT) solution for elderly people based on wireless sensors networking technology. The system includes biofeedback monitoring body sensors, such as: blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature. Each sensor has been integrated with the necessary real time embedded protocol and system to work in ad-hoc bases. The data will be send wirelessly and shared though cloud network. The collected data will be processed and relevant algorithms will be deployed to take certain actions when any changes occur or health warnings arise. These will be treated with high confidentiality to ensure end-users integrity and dignity have been maintained. The proposed solution system will provide the flexibility to analyse most of the health conditions based on near real time monitoring technology. It will also enable the population of elderly to manage their daily life activities within multiple environments i.e. from their comfort home, care centers and hospitals

Deployment of assisted living technology solution platform using smart body sensors for elderly people health monitoring.

Many of the Ambient Assisted Living Technologies (AALT) available in the market to the end-users with long term health condition have no common inter-operational protocol. Each product has its own communication protocols, different interfaces and interoperation which limits their solution reliability, flexibility and efficiency. This paper presents assisted living platform solution for elderly people with long term health condition based on wireless sensors networking technology. The system includes multi feedback sensor arrangements for monitoring, such as: blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature. Each sensor has been integrated with the necessary near real time embedded and wireless protocols that allow data collection, transfer and interoperate in ad-hoc bases. The data will be communicated wirelessly to central data base system and shared though cloud network. The collected data will be processed and relevant intelligent algorithms will be deployed to ensure certain actions taken place when health condition warnings arise. These warnings to be communicated to relevant carer, General Practitioner (GP) and health authority to take the necessary action and steps to handle such end user health condition warnings. The proposed solution system will provide the flexibility to analyse most of the health conditions based on near real time monitoring technology. It will enable the population of elderly with long term health condition to manage their daily life activities within multiple environments i.e. from their comfort home, care centres and hospitals. The data and information will be treated with high confidentiality to ensure end-users integrity and dignity have been maintained.N/

An intelligent medical care solution for elderly people with long term health condition based on wireless sensors network technology

Older Adults are facing serious difficulties, on a regular basis, to manage their own daily life activities. To live independently and have a good quality of life is quite a challenge, since the majorly of them have long term health condition diseases. Health services providers across EU, informal and formal carer plays major roles in providing the necessary services and support. Diseases on this society are one of the leading causes of death, from which thousands of people die every year. Many of the non-communicable diseases can be prevented by tackling associated risk factors. The cost of treatment of such diseases in the EU is estimated to be over 70% of the Health Service budget. Treatment includes home-care, medication, consultation and many other relevant services. However, these services are still not adequate, due to the lack of implemented technology that enable the older adults to manage their daily life activities independently, taking medications, receive the necessary health services on time, which, in many cases leads to loss of lives and waste of NHS resources. Daily life activities management and telehealth remote monitoring system is one of the potential innovative approaches, to improve the older adult’s quality of life, help live independently, improve NHS services, sustain its economic growth and improve social development. It is a rapidly developing concept where daily life activities, health condition, medical information is transferred through interactive data, and audiovisual media and shared between services provider, informal and formal carer. This paper presents the initial outcomes of the ongoing research program that is planned to develop an Integrated Assisted Living Technology (ALT) multi-functional case driven wireless ad-hoc management system of the daily life activities of older adults using smart sensors and actuators, 3d-video, audio, radio frequency identification and wireless technology, combined with secure cloud and semantic data engineering