New robot applications in manufacturing

Apart from typical robot applications like welding, assembling or coating, since the 80s robots are used for many new applications within the industrial production sector. These applications refer to "new" industries (ship manufacturing, food, beverages, textil, clothing etc.), special environmental conditions (cleanroom, vacuum, space technology), new kinds of tasks (recycling, disassembly) or workplaces with difficult handling characteristics (limp, hot, frozen, damage-sensitive). Outside the industrial production sector the service sector becomes more and more important. Therefore robots executing service tasks as maintenance, repair, cleaning, rescueing etc. within subsectors like hotel, gastronomy, household, healthcare or agriculture will probably play an important role in the future.