Development of robotic solutions for oil/gas, aluminum and manufacturing industry

Future robotics solutions will allow for larger degree of autonomy, easy re-programming and build on sensor based control. Current state-of-the-art technologies in the field of robotics are not sufficient for automating a number of today´s manual manipulation tasks. The objective of this paper is to describe the main approach of the project Next Generation Robotics for Norwegian Industry (NextGenRob), contributions and preliminary results developed so far to face the current challenges imposed to the industrial project partners whom represent oil/gas, aluminum and manufacturing industry. The project is a joint effort between industry and academia to develop enabling robotic technology and solutions. A number of demonstrators have been developed and are shortly presented in this paper.