The Robotics Group, of the Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics Department, University of Patras, exhibits a wide range of expertise in the development of innovative open-architecture robots, intelligent robot-systems control based on Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic and Genetic Algorithms, as well as automatic generation of assembly strategies and intelligent control for manufacturing processes. Furthermore, knowledge-based methods for handling of non-rigid materials have been developed; and now the Robotics Group through a national project aims to the development of an intelligent system for robot handling of fabrics in separation, seam operation and quality control. This expertise can contribute to the next generation of flexible assembly automation and agile, clean and re-configurable manufacturing systems.

The Robotics Group has a considerable research experience in the theoretical foundation of mechanical and systematic mechatronic design and has developed design indices for the monitoring of the mechatronic approach during the design process. A CAD system for shoe design has been developed and efforts to incorporate qualitative knowledge into CAD systems as well as intelligence into Robot simulators are attempted. These research efforts are aimed to the next generation of intelligent CAD systems for designing devices - machines and intelligent robot simulators for performing knowledge-based design and optimisation for the virtual factory of the future.