New frontiers of parallel robotics (second edition)

During the last 30 years, rigid-link fixed-base parallel robots have been studied in depth, thus leading to a large quantity of research results that helped their development for many applications (e.g. pick-and-place manipulation, machine-tools, simulators, etc). Several scientific issues on these robots were solved, thus leading to a decrease in their scientific interest. Over the past years, new types of parallel robotic devices appeared, like soft/continuum robots, flying robots, cable-driven robots, underactuated robots, multi-finger hands, etc. These innovative closed-chain mechanisms, with no rigid links or no fixed base or no traditional end-effector, brought several new scientific issues to be solved related to design, modelling and control. Most scientific problems are unsolved, and prevent these new robots to pass from academia to industry or society. This workshop aims at (1) bringing together researchers working in several distinct communities (e.g. soft/continuum robotics, compliant mechanisms, aerial robotics, cable-driven robotics, tensegrity structures, dexterous manipulation and physical interactions), but who have a similar object of investigation in common, i.e. a closed-chain robotic device, so that they can share their experiences, tools, issues; (2) fostering researchers to investigate the new issues arising from the development of new types of robots.