New Advances in Robotically Enabled Sensing

Dear Colleagues,

Humans have an immediate perception of the geometry of parts and surroundings, through their senses and their cognitive capabilities. This innate human ability enables the manual inspection of objects in everyday life and in manufacturing environments. Trained inspectors combine their senses and handling skills with bespoke instrumentation. However, manual inspection can be slow for large and complex geometries, and is prone to human error (e.g., tiredness, boredom, and distraction). Robotic sensing has emerged in many sectors to improve the inspection of parts and materials, enhancing data acquisition speed, part coverage, and inspection reliability. Several automated or semi-automated solutions have been proposed to enable the automated deployment of specific types of sensors. Additionally, robots are able to reach inspection positions not easily accessible to human operators, removing humans from potentially dangerous environments.

However, the perceived complexity and high costs of robot sensing have limited the adoption of automation. As a result, the full potential derived from the seamless integration of robotic platforms with sensors, actuators, and software has not been fully explored; sufficient research could revolutionise how automated sensing is performed and conceived. Recent advancements in electronics, robotics, sensor technology and software pave the way for new developments in automated and data-driven robotic inspections in several sectors. These developments can help face the current societal challenges in this field. Robotic sensing must develop in parallel with new arising tools, e.g., autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, cybersecurity, virtual-twin simulations, augmented reality, and big data.

We invite the research community to submit contributions to this Special Issue. Manuscripts introducing novel developments in one or more of the following aspects are welcome:

• Robotic sensing;
• Robotic non-destructive testing;
• Novel integrations of robotic systems for hybrid manufacturing and inspection tasks;
• Transition from automated to autonomous robotics;
• Modelling of robotic approaches, remote inspections, and data interpretation;
• Real-time data monitoring and robot control;
• Processing, management, compression and archiving of robotically collected data;
• Machine learning, artificial intelligence, image recognition and data mining;
• Novel data visualization and analysis approaches;
• Human–robot interaction/communication in the operation of robotic inspection systems.

The goal of this Special Issue is to identify how robotic sensing is evolving to address the issues raised by challenging new frontiers in civil and medical fields and by Industry 4.0, which is the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices using modern smart technology.

Dr. Carmelo Mineo
Dr. Yashar Javadi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• robotic non-destructive testing
• robotic sensing
• remote inspection
• adaptive inspection
• data interpretation
• real-time monitoring
• data-driven autonomous inspection
• data management, processing, compression, and storage
• machine learning, artificial intelligence, image recognition
• human–robot interaction