Introduction to the focused section on new trends in modelling and simulation for intelligent robotics

Advanced functional materials, drives and transmissions, sensors and mechanisms provide solid foundations for developing intelligent robots, for which modelling and simulation tools have contributed greatly to these developments, and facilitated deployments and applications of intelligent robots. Motivated by rapid developments of sensor fusion, intelligent control and machine learning tools and their widely availability at low cost, this special issue aims at disseminating new modelling and simulation methods for developing intelligent robotic systems and their applications. With the emerging applications to robotics, this focused section competitively selects the 10 research papers covering a spectrum of modeling of novel single robots, human-robot interactive systems, and even robotic automation process, which includes modeling of biped and wearable robots, parallel mechanisms, autonomous robots, and robot-environment interaction, as well as modeling with robot visions.

Automated summary

The article discusses how advanced functional materials, drives, sensors, and mechanisms have laid the foundation for the development of intelligent robots, with modeling and simulation tools playing a key role in driving these advancements. It also highlights the importance of new modeling and simulation methods in developing intelligent robotic systems and applications.