We've already discussed how the Microsoft Kinect can be used in robotic mobile manipulation. See the following video showing what is to my knowledge, one of the first commercial integrations of the Kinect with an industrial robot. Signal from standard webcams is also used. Software from Universal Robotics crunches the data to obtain a 3D representation of the scene. The application shown is the palletizing of randomly placed boxes with Motoman robots.
Seeing consumer priced sensors entering into the industrial arena is very exciting, as long as the integration can prove to be robust enough. Imagine that this application is used with a cheaper robot, it creates a robotic cell that is ridiculously low priced. To get further information on innovative projects, click on the big colored button below!