About this Research Topic

Background

Safety is one of the most crucial aspects in collaborative robotics and autonomous systems. Recent developments in this field include advances in sensing modalities such as RGB-D cameras, ways of presenting the information using AR/VR, and related machine learning and AI technologies. Utilizing these advances effectively toward the purpose of achieving safety using control, design, and planning methods is an important challenge. Developments in robot safety can be applied to a variety of contexts including the industrial manufacturing setting, in which achieving human safety is crucial and ethical considerations must be made.

The goal of this Research Topic is to form a collection of high-quality articles in the areas of sensing, learning, planning, and control design aspects to achieve or improve upon the current practice of safety in collaborative robotics and autonomous systems. We aim to collect both original research and review articles covering theory and applications focusing on developments in this field, including novel vision systems and sensing modalities, machine learning, and artificial intelligence systems.

This Research Topic will include articles focusing on using sensing, learning, planning, and controller design to achieve or improve safety in the context of collaborative systems. Example topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Manufacturing robotics and automation
• Safe autonomous and semi-autonomous systems
• Robotics in hazardous environments
• Vision and sensor systems for robot safety
• AR/VR applications in robot safety
• Ethical considerations for collaborative systems

Image Credit: Christopher Gartland

Keywords: Perception-In-The-Loop Control, Reinforcement Learning, Planning Methods for Safety, Formal Methods, Fault Diagnosis, Fault Identification

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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