6G Empowering Future Robotics: A Vision for Next-Generation Autonomous Systems

The convergence of robotics and next-generation communication is a critical driver of technological advancement. As the world transitions from 5G to 6G, the foundational capabilities of wireless networks are evolving to support increasingly complex and autonomous robotic systems. This paper examines the transformative impact of 6G on enhancing key robotics functionalities. It provides a systematic mapping of IMT-2030 key performance indicators to robotic functional blocks including sensing, perception, cognition, actuation and self-learning. Building upon this mapping, we propose a high-level architectural framework integrating robotic, intelligent, and network service planes, underscoring the need for a holistic approach. As an example use case, we present a real-time, dynamic safety framework enabled by IMT-2030 capabilities for safe and efficient human-robot collaboration in shared spaces.

Task Allocation in Mobile Robot Fleets: A review

Mobile robot fleets are currently used in different scenarios such as medical environments or logistics. The management of these systems provides different challenges that vary from the control of the movement of each robot to the allocation of tasks to be performed. Task Allocation (TA) problem is a key topic for the proper management of mobile robot fleets to ensure the minimization of energy consumption and quantity of necessary robots. Solutions on this aspect are essential to reach economic and environmental sustainability of robot fleets, mainly in industry applications such as warehouse logistics. The minimization of energy consumption introduces TA problem as an optimization issue which has been treated in recent studies. This work focuses on the analysis of current trends in solving TA of mobile robot fleets. Main TA optimization algorithms are presented, including novel methods based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Additionally, this work showcases most important results extracted from simulations, including frameworks utilized for the development of the simulations. Finally, some conclusions are obtained from the analysis to target on gaps that must be treated in the future.