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Prof. Carlos Balaguer is with the RoboticsLab of the University Carlos III of Madrid , Spain . He leaded several climbing and walking robots projects like ROMA 1 & 2 (for inspection of metallic and concrete based 3D infrastructures), Leroy and Rh0 (bipedal full size robots), and MATS, EU projects in the field of disabled people assistive robot. He is also the coordinator of the Spanish robotic network. |
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Prof. Gurvinder Virk leads the Intelligent Systems Group of the School of Mechanical Engineering of University of Leeds (UK). He is the co-coordinator of the European Networks of Excellence CLAWAR (Climbing and walking robots) since 1998. He participates in several projects to develop innovative CLAWAR machines such as Robug III, Robovolc, as well as other climbing machines in close collaboration with industrial partners. |
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Dr. Manuel Armada is head of the Department of Automatic Control of the Spanish Research Council's Institute of Industrial Automation (IAI-CSIC). He participates in numerous international projected related with climbing robots in shipbuilding, construction and de mining applications. He is also the national representative in the IARP (International Advanced Robotics Program). |
Unlike the wheeled and legged robots, which move in ground environment, the climbing robots move in complex 3D environment and need to be self-supported taking in mind gravity force. The climbing robots perform variety of inspection, maintenance, assembly, personal care, etc. tasks that are manually performed nowadays. Novel solutions for complex and very diverse application fields have been anticipated by means of a large progress in this area of robotics. Moreover, the amalgamation of original ideas and related innovations, the search for new potential applications and the use of state of the art supporting technologies permit to foresee an important step forward a significant socio-economic impact of climbing robot technology in the forthcoming years.
The scope of this special issue is to give an overview of the applied research works performed all over the world in the field of climbing robots. Authors are invited to submit papers that meet, among others, the following topics: Simulation and design of climbing robots, Control of climbing robots, Locomotion algorithms, Innovative actuators, sensors and power supply, Design modularity and system architecture, Autonomous and teleoperated climbing robots, Human-Machine Interfaces, Industrial a pplications and Service applications.