Machine Intelligence

In 1981 Robotics Bibliography was published containing over 1,800 references on industrial robot research and development, culled from the scientific literature over the previous 12 years. It was felt that sensors for use with industrial robots merited a section and accordingly just over 200 papers were included. It is a sign of the increased research into sensors in production engineering that this bibliography on both the contact and non-contact forms has appeared less than three years after that first comprehensive collection of references appeared. In a reviell''; in 1975 Professor Warnecke of IPA, Stuttgart drew attention to the lack of sensors for touch and vision. Since then research workers in various companies, universities and national laboratories in the USA, the UK, Italy, Germany and Japan have concentrated on improving sensor capabilities, particularly utilising vision, artificial intelligence and pattern recognition principles. As a result many research projects are on the brink of commercial exploitation and development. This biblio­ graphy brings together the documentation on that research and development, highlighting the advances made in vision systems, but not neglecting the development of tactile sensors of various types. No bibliography can ever be comprehensive, but significant contributions from research workers and production engineers from the major industrialised countries over the last 12 years have been included.