In order to suitably develop also in Europe the robotic technology, which constitutes a key factor in the development of new production techniques in industry as well as of advanced solutions in non traditional areas such as space, agriculture, underwater, operation in dangerous environments, large efforts are required from both a technological and a methodological point of view, with a particular emphasis on integration concepts of different disciplines (electronics, mechanics, control theory, mathematics, computer science).
In this general scenario the idea of the European Community to strengthen the direct links between European laboratories by financing the exchange of researchers is especially adequate for the area of Robotics. Therefore, the European laboratories participating to this action are engaged in creating, in a structured and coordinated way, a European network, called ERNET (European Robotics NETwork), in order to establish cooperation by exchanging post-docs and researchers working on their dissertations.
The network collects 28 laboratories from 10 European countries, as follows: Belgium (1), France (5), Germany (4), Italy (9), Netherlands
(1), Portugal (1), Spain (2), UK (2), Austria (1), Switzerland (2). These laboratories are organized as one Coordinator, 8 Contractors and the remaining laboratories as Associate Contractors.