Robots are becoming ubiquitous and will be in the future an essential part of our everyday lives. Among the variety of robots, groups (swarms) of robots have attracted attention of researchers all over the world since they can be used in many important scenarios where a single robot may not. The application scenarios of swarm robots can be, e.g., searching people after earthquake, collecting pollution oil from ocean, assisting of human to handle nuclear leakage or deliver medicine in vivo.

However, mastering swarm robotic systems is still a challenge which evokes many research interests. On the one hand it is a challenge to those conventional methods due to many uncertainties and random effects from the missions performed by swarm robots. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to validate the proposed methods or strategies directly on real physical swarm robots. The reasons can be limitation of experimental environment, high time consumption for experiments organization, or maybe the physical robots are not even produced, etc.

On these accounts, it is very necessary to investigate the mentioned aspects of swarm robots and finally solve or alleviate the difficulties from practical applications.

In general, robotic manipulator systems include robot hands and manipulators. The specific manipulators usually appear in the form of space manipulator, industry used manipulator, and service used light weight manipulator. For robotic hands, it usually has industry-oriented and amputee-oriented types.

This laboratory focuses on modelling, mechanics analysis, structural and topological optimization, as well as vibration suppression of robotic manipulator systems. It emphasizes the application of methods and means from multibody dynamics to solve those occurred issues.

3D printing is a new technology which will change the way of manufacturing (constructing) dramatically. This laboratory performs interdisciplinary researches on 3D printing in combination of robotics and Industry-4.0. It focuses on special applications of 3D, such as 3D printing in architecture, in robotics and so on.