Closing the Gap is an accessible overview of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the impact it is set to have on various sectors in South Africa and Africa. It explores the previous industrial revolutions that have led up to this point and outlines South Africa’s position been through each one.

With a focus on artificial intelligence as a core concept in understanding the 4IR, this book uses familiar concepts to explain artificial intelligence, how it works and how it can be used in banking, mining, medicine and many other fields.

Written from an African perspective, Closing the Gap addresses the challenges and fears around the 4IR by pointing to the opportunities presented by new technologies and outlining some of the challenges and successes to date

Mechatronic Components: Roadmap to Design explains the practical application of mechatronics, including sections on adaptive structures, robotics and other areas where mechanics and electronics converge. Professional engineers in a variety of areas will find this textbook to be extremely helpful with its in-depth use of flow diagrams and schemes that help readers understand the logic behind the design of such systems. Using approximately 130 different components with diagrams and flowcharts that help engineers from different fields understand the general properties and selection criteria of a component, this book presents a comprehensive resource on mechatronic components.

Microbiorobotics: Biologically Inspired Microscale Robotic Systems, Second Edition presents information on a new engineering discipline that takes a multidisciplinary approach to accomplish precise manipulation of microscale spaces. Microorganisms have evolved various mechanisms to thrive in microscale environments and are therefore a useful tool for use in many applications, ranging from micromanufacturing techniques, to cellular manipulation. In the context of microrobotics, biological microrobots can directly harness the microorganisms for propulsive and sensing power and synthetic microrobots can mimic the microorganisms' motions for effective locomotion. This second edition covers new advances and insights that have emerged in recent years. Several new chapters have been added on important new research areas, with existing chapters thoroughly revised. In particular, increased coverage is given to fluid dynamics of microswimmers in nature.

A Generalized Framework of Linear Multivariable Control proposes a number of generalized models by using the generalized inverse of matrix, while the usual linear multivariable control theory relies on some regular models. The book supports that in H-infinity control, the linear fractional transformation formulation is relying on the inverse of the block matrix. If the block matrix is not regular, the H-infinity control does not apply any more in the normal framework. Therefore, it is very important to relax those restrictions to generalize the classical notions and models to include some non-regular cases. This book is ideal for scholars, academics, professional engineer and students who are interested in control system theory.

This book is a simple and didactic account of the developments and practical applications of predictive, adaptive predictive, and optimized adaptive control from a perspective of stability, including the latest methodology of adaptive predictive expert (ADEX) control. ADEX Optimized Adaptive Control Systems is divided into six parts, with exercises and real-time simulations provided for the reader as appropriate. The text begins with the conceptual and intuitive knowledge of the technology and derives the stability conditions to be verified by the driver block and the adaptive mechanism of the optimized adaptive controller to guaranty the desired control performance. The second and third parts present strategic considerations of predictive control and related adaptive systems necessary for the proper design of driver block and adaptive mechanism and thence their technical realization. The authors then proceed to detail the stability theory that supports predictive, adaptive predictive and optimized adaptive control methodologies. Benchmark applications of these methodologies (distillation column and pulp-factory bleaching plant) are treated next with a focus on practical implementation issues. The final part of the book describes ADEX platforms and illustrates their use in the design and implementation of optimized adaptive control systems to three different challenging-to-control industrial processes: * waste-water treatment;* sulfur recovery; and* temperature control of superheated steam in coal-fired power generation. The presentation is completed by a number of appendices containing technical background associated with the main text including a manual for the ADEX COP platform developed by the first author to exploit the capabilities of adaptive predictive control in real plants. ADEX Optimized Adaptive Control Systems provides practicing process control engineers with a multivariable optimal control solution which is adaptive and resistant to perturbation and the effects of noise. Its pedagogical features also facilitate its use as a teaching tool for formal university and Internet-based open-education-type graduate courses in practical optimal adaptive control and for self-study.

The implementation of robotics and automation in the food sector offers great potential for improved safety, quality and profitability by optimising process monitoring and control. Robotics and automation in the food industry provides a comprehensive overview of current and emerging technologies and their applications in different industry sectors.
Part one introduces key technologies and significant areas of development, including automatic process control and robotics in the food industry, sensors for automated quality and safety control, and the development of machine vision systems. Optical sensors and online spectroscopy, gripper technologies, wireless sensor networks (WSN) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are discussed, with consideration of intelligent quality control systems based on fuzzy logic. Part two goes on to investigate robotics and automation in particular unit operations and industry sectors. The automation of bulk sorting and control of food chilling and freezing is considered, followed by chapters on the use of robotics and automation in the processing and packaging of meat, seafood, fresh produce and confectionery. Automatic control of batch thermal processing of canned foods is explored, before a final discussion on automation for a sustainable food industry.
With its distinguished editor and international team of expert contributors, Robotics and automation in the food industry is an indispensable guide for engineering professionals in the food industry, and a key introduction for professionals and academics interested in food production, robotics and automation.
Provides a comprehensive overview of current and emerging robotics and automation technologies and their applications in different industry sectorsChapters in part one cover key technologies and significant areas of development, including automatic process control and robotics in the food industry and sensors for automated quality and safety controlPart two investigates robotics and automation in particular unit operations and industry sectors, including the automation of bulk sorting and the use of robotics and automation in the processing and packaging of meat, seafood, fresh produce and confectionery

Working through this student-centred text readers will be brought up to speed with the modelling of control systems using Laplace, and given a solid grounding of the pivotal role of control systems across the spectrum of modern engineering. A clear, readable text is supported by numerous worked example and problems.
* Key concepts and techniques introduced through applications
* Introduces mathematical techniques without assuming prior knowledge
* Written for the latest vocational and undergraduate courses

Mechatronics, a synergistic combination of mechanical, electronic and computing engineering technologies, is a truly multidisciplinary approach to engineering. New products based on mechatronic principles are demonstrating reduced mechanical complexity, increased performance and often previously impossible capabilities. This book contains the papers presented at the UK Mechatronics Forum's 6th International Conference, held in Skovde, Sweden, in September 1998. Many of these high-quality papers illustrate the tremendous influence of mechatronics on such areas as manufacturing machinery, automotive engineering, textiles manufacture, robotics, and real-time control and vision systems. There are also papers describing developments in sensors, actuators, control and data processing techniques, such as fuzzy logic and neural networks, all of which have practical application to mechatronic systems.

This volume on implementation techniques in digital signal processing systems clearly reveals the significance and power of the techniques that are available, and with further development, the essential role they will play as applied to a wide variety of areas. The authors are all to highly commended for their splendid contributors to this volume, which will provide a significant and unique international reference source for students, research workers, practicing engineers, and others for years to come.

An accessible overview of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the impact it is set to have on various sectors in South Africa and Africa. It explores the previous industrial revolutions that have led up to this point and outlines what South Africa’s position has been through each one.

With a focus on artificial intelligence as a core concept in understanding the 4IR, this book uses familiar concepts to explain artificial intelligence, how it works and how it can be used in banking, mining, medicine and many other fields.

Written from an African perspective, Closing the Gap addresses the challenges and fears around the 4IR by pointing to the opportunities presented by new technologies and outlining some of the challenges and successes to date.

This text is designed for the junior/senior level (3rd/4th year) control systems courses taught in departments of electrical and mechanical engineering. This new edition incorporates comprehensive keying of this text to MATLAB. There are now sections of "Computer Aided Learning" in which each student can learn how the MATLAB® platform can be used to verify all figures and tables included in the text. The text can be divided into six areas that represent the building blocks of constructing a course. All revisions are made to bring this book up-to-date with modern analytical software use, mainly MATLAB®.

The Future of Creative Work provides a unique overview of the changing nature of creative work, examining how digital developments and the rise of intangible capital are causing an upheaval in the social institutions of work. It offers a profound insight into how this technological and social evolution will affect creative professions. Expert international contributors explore how robotics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, global digital platforms and autonomous systems will shape the design, production and consumption of culture. Taking a multidisciplinary approach incorporating creative industries studies, business, education and economics, the book analyses the technological drivers of disruption in the world of creative work. Chapters reveal how these changes will create new axes of power and inequality in the global sphere of creative work, predicting that conventional creative professions will be challenged and different species of creative work will evolve as a result. By charting the impact of digital and technological developments, The Future of Creative Work challenges traditional views of creative work, careers and education. This book will be a valuable resource for students and researchers undertaking creative industries studies. Its discussion of the application of creative careers across the economy will also be beneficial for scholars and practitioners interested in business, economics, and advertising and marketing studies.

Tourism and hospitality are increasingly becoming more complex, having grown exponentially over the last decade. As the industry becomes more complex, new demands arise regarding its overall organization and operations, which call for not only more experienced and specialized staff, but also advanced technological solutions that support new paradigms and expectations. The Handbook of Research on Innovation, Differentiation, and New Technologies in Tourism, Hotels, and Food Service discusses the current changes and challenges in tourism and hospitality. Covering key topics such as entrepreneurship, local development, and technology, this major reference work is ideal for managers, entrepreneurs, business owners, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Written by a team of experts, Advances in Flowmeter Technology surveys the full range of modern flowmeters for product managers, strategic planners, engineers, distributors, and students. The origins, principles of operation,controls and instrumentation, and the relative advantages of each major flowmeter type are thoroughly explained. Extensive coverage of new types that employ cutting-edge technologies - such as coriolis, magnetic, ultrasonic, vortex, thermal flowmeters - is provided. The text includes comparative examples, placing these new types of meters in the context of more traditional ones, such as differential pressure, turbine, and positive displacement flowmeters.

Autonomous Mobile Robots: Planning, Navigation, and Simulation presents detailed coverage of the domain of robotics in motion planning and associated topics in navigation. This book covers numerous base planning methods from diverse schools of learning, including deliberative planning methods, reactive planning methods, task planning methods, fusion of different methods, and cognitive architectures. It is a good resource for doing initial project work in robotics, providing an overview, methods and simulation software in one resource. For more advanced readers, it presents a variety of planning algorithms to choose from, presenting the tradeoffs between the algorithms to ascertain a good choice. Finally, the book presents fusion mechanisms to design hybrid algorithms.

Robotics for Cell Manipulation and Characterization provides fundamental principles underpinning robotic cell manipulation and characterization, state-of-the-art technical advances in micro/nano robotics, new discoveries of cell biology enabled by robotic systems, and their applications in clinical diagnosis and treatment. This book covers several areas, including robotics, control, computer vision, biomedical engineering and life sciences using understandable figures and tables to enhance readers' comprehension and pinpoint challenges and opportunities for biological and biomedical research.

Robotics plays a pivotal role in many domains such as industry and medicine. Robots allow for increased safety, production rates, accuracy, and quality; however, robots must be well designed and controlled to achieve the required performance. The design and control of robotics involve many varying disciplines, such as mechanical engineering, electronics, and automation, and must be further studied to ensure the technology is utilized appropriately. Design and Control Advances in Robotics considers the most recent applications and design advances in robotics and highlights the latest developments and applications within the field of robotics. Covering key topics such as deep learning, machine learning, programming, automation, and control advances, this reference work is ideal for engineers, computer scientists, industry professionals, academicians, practitioners, scholars, researchers, instructors, and students.

5G IoT and Edge Computing for Smart Healthcare addresses the importance of a 5G IoT and Edge-Cognitive-Computing-based system for the successful implementation and realization of a smart-healthcare system. The book provides insights on 5G technologies, along with intelligent processing algorithms/processors that have been adopted for processing the medical data that would assist in addressing the challenges in computer-aided diagnosis and clinical risk analysis on a real-time basis. Each chapter is self-sufficient, solving real-time problems through novel approaches that help the audience acquire the right knowledge. With the progressive development of medical and communication - computer technologies, the healthcare system has seen a tremendous opportunity to support the demand of today's new requirements.

Advanced Methods and Deep Learning in Computer Vision presents advanced computer vision methods, emphasizing machine and deep learning techniques that have emerged during the past 5-10 years. The book provides clear explanations of principles and algorithms supported with applications. Topics covered include machine learning, deep learning networks, generative adversarial networks, deep reinforcement learning, self-supervised learning, extraction of robust features, object detection, semantic segmentation, linguistic descriptions of images, visual search, visual tracking, 3D shape retrieval, image inpainting, novelty and anomaly detection. This book provides easy learning for researchers and practitioners of advanced computer vision methods, but it is also suitable as a textbook for a second course on computer vision and deep learning for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

The book comprises three parts. The first part provides the state-of-the-art of robots for endoscopy (endorobots), including devices already available in the market and those that are still at the R&D stage. The second part focusses on the engineering design; it includes the use of polymers for soft robotics, comparing their advantages and limitations with those of their more rigid counterparts. The third part includes the project management of a multidisciplinary team, the health cost of current technology, and how a cost-effective device can have a substantial impact on the market. It also includes information on data governance, ethical and legal frameworks, and all steps needed to make this new technology available.

In recent decades, there has been a groundbreaking evolution in technology. Every year, technology not only advances, but it also spreads throughout industries. Many fields such as law, education, business, engineering, and more have adopted these advanced technologies into their toolset. These technologies have a vastly different effect ranging from these different industries. The Handbook of Research on Applying Emerging Technologies Across Multiple Disciplines examines how technologies impact many different areas of knowledge. This book combines a solid theoretical approach with many practical applications of new technologies within many disciplines. Covering topics such as computer-supported collaborative learning, machine learning algorithms, and blockchain, this text is essential for technologists, IT specialists, programmers, computer scientists, engineers, managers, administrators, academicians, students, policymakers, and researchers.