Assisting and empowering humans in daily activities is urgently required in all application areas (industry, rehabilitation, etc.). Collaborative robots and exoskeletons are becoming intensively adopted, and there is a need to refine both design and control methodologies in order to achieve high performance and improve usability, to finally effectively apply such solutions in real applications. Advanced solutions are nowadays available for actuation, design solutions, and control algorithms, but many challenges are still present in such device development. This Special Issue aims to cover the current developments in the field, with a specific focus on actuation, mechanical/electrical design, and advanced control. Contributions from different application fields are welcome.
Keywords: Collaborative robots design; Exoskeletons design; Compliant actuation design; Collaborative robot control; Exoskeletons control; Compliant actuation control; Human-robot collaboration; Human-robot sharing control; Industry 4.0; Assistive robotics; Empowering humans; Human-centered robotics.