The goal of the EURON Key-Area 'Industrial Links' is to establish a dialog between robotic industry and robotic research to reduce the discrepancy between the state-of-the-art in robotics research versus actual utilized technology in industrial and service robotics.

To this end a Technology Transfer Award was created in order to improve the quality of robotics research and to raise the profile of technology transfer between science and industry.

The ambition of the European Technology Platform in Robotics (EUROP) initiative is to reinforce the European position as a leading player in the design, integration and delivery of robotic systems for manufacturing and service applications. New companies and supply networks will be developed to meet the new technological needs.

The IFR statistics website collects together various statistics, market analyses, forecasts, case studies and information about the profitability of robot investment.

Their annual publication "World Robotics : Statistics, Market Analysis, Forecasts, Case Studies and Profitability of Robot Investment" contains comparable international statistics on industrial robotics, as well as on service robots. Detailed statistics are given for 40 countries, broken down by application areas, industrial branches, types of robots and by other techno-economic variables, as well as data on production, exports and imports for selected countries, and trends in robot densities.

The 2006 version of "World Robotics, published by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and International Federation of Robotics (IFR), analyses developments during 2005 and gives forecasts up to 2009. It contains a number of case studies, showing actual robot installations and their effect on costs, production, employment structure and overall profitability. An 8-page executive summary is available to download.

IFR's quarterly Newsletter is available free of charge to those interested in industrial or service robotics.

A list of industrial members of EURON can be found through the Members pages.

The LeRoS-F project involves the design and development of an innovative modular joint system for dexterous lightweight robots with flexible fluidic actuators. The idea is that such robots can operate safely around humans. [ Technical details. ]

A novel and particularly safe inherently compliant fluidic actuator is being developed: the "Rotary Elastic Chambers" actuator. This actuator is of revolute type and thus suitable for compact robotic modules of different sizes and power.

The modules comprise a small number of fully integrated components with matched mechanical and electrical interfaces: fluidic vane motor, sensors, control elements, as well as electronic unit and control algorithms.

LeRoS-F was developed by the Institute of Automation of EURON member 60, the University of Bremen, in close collaboration with the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Institute (FWBI), Bremen, Germany.