Foreword

The field of robotics has experienced a strong growth worldwide in 2011, with record sales in all areas. Over 166.000 industrial robots has been sold to a variety of industries to improve productivity as well as quality control, being able to operate in dangerous environments for human operators. Over 16.000 professional service robots were sold with defense (unmanned aerial vehicles), agriculture (milking), logistics and medicine (robotic assisted surgery and therapy) being the most relevant application areas. The area of personal domestic service robotics is also booming, with over 2.5 million robots being sold for the applications (e.g. vacuum and floor cleaning, lawn mowing, and entertainment).