Robotics and Industrial Automation
Robotics and automation now play a fundamental role not only in modern industrial activities but also in the tertiary, civil, medical-biological, and services in general, sectors. These disciplines are propaedeutic and enabling the digital transformation imposed by the paradigm "Industry 4.0", which is changing the industrial production landscape and with it the world of work. The profound transformation that is still underway means that the issues concerning robotics and industrial automation are intrinsically transversal and heterogeneous, also in not strictly technical areas such as the legal and regulatory ones.
The Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, thanks to its strong multidisciplinarity and integration among research groups, is active on many fields, with a particular preference for the development of applications for industry, aimed at both micro and small enterprises, often characterized by semi-artisan processes, and medium and large companies where robotics and automation are already present, but technologies are required at the limits of scientific research.
In the field of robotics, the research carried out at the Department deals with both service and industrial robotics, including collaborative robotics, with particular reference to: a) mobile robotics, characterised for example by the development of drones for inspections in hostile or difficult to access environments both on land and in water, and drones for aerial monitoring and similar; b) the medical and industrial sector, which includes the development of applications with commercial industrial manipulators for the solution of particular problems related to the production of goods, or the development of algorithms and methodologies for the planning of trajectories in order to avoid collisions with the surrounding environment also in a dynamic way.
The Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering is also active in the development of robotic systems for special applications, both serial and parallel kinematic and mobile manipulators, through the synergy between its various engineering cores, mechanical, electrical, computer and control.
Broadening the focus to the industrial automation sector more generally, the Department is particularly active on the topics of control and modeling of complex systems using the latest techniques based on optimal control or machine learning and artificial intelligence. The same applies to the issues of vision for industrial applications and the use of laser systems, also in relation to regulatory and safety aspects, including aspects of monitoring and predictive diagnostics of automatic systems and machines. Of particular importance is the activity dedicated to additive manufacturing for which the Department not only has the latest additive manufacturing technologies but also develops solutions that combine robotics with 3D printing in order to overcome the limits of current solutions available on the market.
The numerous ongoing collaborations on the topics of robotics and industrial automation allow the DIII to represent a safe reference for companies in a territorial area now significantly extended.
Reference laboratories
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