Dear Colleagues,

The increasing advancements in robotic technologies enable new applications and new fields of interest. At the same time, the role of robotic devices is evolving in traditional application fields, such as industry. In the robotization era, human–robot interactions (HRIs) push the limit toward optimal and synergistic paradigms for the execution of tasks.

As a consequence of the closer human–robot interactions, the current challenges in robotic implementation go beyond the technological issues, including safety and ergonomics as fundamental boundaries. Safety-related considerations apply to the whole development, implementation and lifecycle of applications, requiring specific approaches for assessment and validation, control strategies, and other equipment. Furthermore, ergonomics (both physical and cognitive) is fundamental for implementing safe, fluent and efficient collaborative applications. These aspects are even more significant in the context of the Industry 5.0 worker-centric paradigm, where a worker’s well-being plays a large role.

This Special Issue focuses on the research efforts dealing with the latest safety and ergonomic challenges arising in the assessment, validation and improvement of collaborative robotic applications, while also considering integrated design methodologies, ranging from industry and smart factories to novel application fields. Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Design and application of human-centered applications;
• Novel approaches for risk assessment and mitigation;
• Safety-oriented application design;
• Human–robot contact and collision: modeling and validation;
• Improvement of a system’s physical and cognitive ergonomics;
• Advanced architectures and equipment for safe and ergonomic interactions;
• Validation approaches and techniques.

Dr. Marcello Valori
Dr. Luca Gualtieri
Dr. José Saenz
Dr. Irene Fassi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Machines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• human–robot interaction
• human–robot collaboration
• safety
• ergonomics
• risk assessment
• safety validation
• collaborative robots