This book reports the results of exhaustive research work on modeling and control of vertical oil well drilling systems. It is focused on the analysis of the system-dynamic response and the elimination of the most damaging drill string vibration modes affecting overall perforation performance: stick-slip (torsional vibration) and bit-bounce (axial vibration). The text is organized in three parts. The first part, Modeling, presents lumped- and distributed-parameter models that allow the dynamic behavior of the drill string to be characterized; a comprehensive mathematical model taking into account mechanical and electric components of the overall drilling system is also provided. The distributed nature of the system is accommodated by considering a system of wave equations subject to nonlinear boundary conditions; this model is transformed into a pair of neutral-type time-delay equations which can overcome the complexity involved in the analysis and simulation of the partial differential equation model. The second part, Analysis, is devoted to the study of the response of the system described by the time-delay model; important properties useful for analyzing system stability are investigated and frequency- and time-domain techniques are reviewed. Part III, Control, concerns the design of stabilizing control laws aimed at eliminating undesirable drilling vibrations; diverse control techniques based on infinite--dimensional system representations are designed and evaluated. The control proposals are shown to be effective in suppressing stick-slip and bit-bounce so that a considerable improvement of the overall drilling performance can be achieved. This self-contained book provides operational guidelines to avoid drilling vibrations. Furthermore, since the modeling and control techniques presented here can be generalized to treat diverse engineering problems, it constitutes a useful resource to researchers working on control and its engineering application in oil well drilling.

The Fifth International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2000) dealt with new strategies to realize complex, modular, robust, and fault-tolerant robotic systems. Technologies, algorithms, and system architectures for distributed autonomous robotic systems were presented and discussed during the meeting. DARS 2000 was truly an international event, with participants represent ing eleven countries from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. All of the papers in this volume were presented at DARS 2000, and were selected on the basis of peer re views to ensure quality and relevance. These papers have the common goal of con tributing solutions to realize robust and intelligent multirobot systems. The topics of the symposium address a wide range of issues that are important in the development of decentralized robotic systems. These topics include architec tures, communication, biological inspirations, reconfigurable robots, localization, exploration and mapping, distributed sensing, multi robot motion coordination, tar get assignment and tracking, multirobot learning, and cooperative object transport. DARS clearly requires a broad area of interdisciplinary technologies related not only to robotics and computer engineering, but also to biology and psychology. The DARS symposium is the leading established conference on distributed au tonomous systems. The First, Second, and Third International Symposia on Distrib uted Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS '92, DARS '94, and DARS '96) were held at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Saitama, Japan."

This book presents recent research in the field of interaction between computational intelligence and mathematics. In the current technological age, we face the challenges of tackling very complex problems - in the usual sense, but also in the mathematical and theoretical computer science sense. However, even the most up-to-date results in mathematics, are unable to provide exact solutions of such problems, and no further technical advances will ever make it possible to find general and exact solutions. Constantly developing technologies (including social technologies) necessitate handling very complex problems. This has led to a search for acceptably "good" or precise solutions, which can be achieved by the combination of traditional mathematical techniques and computational intelligence tools, in order to solve the various problems emerging in many different areas to a satisfactory degree. Important funding programs, such as the European Commission's current framework programme for research and innovation - Horizon 2020 - are devoted to the development of new instruments to deal with the current challenges. Without doubt, research topics associated with the interactions between computational intelligence and traditional mathematics play a key role. Presenting contributions from engineers, scientists and mathematicians, this book offers a series of novel solutions for meaningful and real-world problems that connect those research areas.

This book highlights electromagnetic actuation (EMA) and sensing systems for a broad range of applications including targeted drug delivery, drug-release-rate control, catheterization, intravitreal needleless injections, wireless magnetic capsule endoscopy, and micromanipulations. It also reviews the state-of-the-art magnetic actuation and sensing technologies with remotely controlled targets used in biomedicine.

This book gathers authoritative contributions in the field of Soft Computing. Based on selected papers presented at the 7th World Conference on Soft Computing, which was held on May 29-31, 2018, in Baku, Azerbaijan, it describes new theoretical advances, as well as cutting-edge methods and applications. New theories and algorithms in fuzzy logic, cognitive modeling, graph theory and metaheuristics are discussed, and applications in data mining, social networks, control and robotics, geoscience, biomedicine and industrial management are described. This book offers a timely, broad snapshot of recent developments, including thought-provoking trends and challenges that are yielding new research directions in the diverse areas of Soft Computing.

The 6th International Asia Conference on Industrial Engineering and Management Innovation is sponsored by the Chinese Industrial Engineering Institution and organized by Tianjin University. The conference aims to share and disseminate information on the most recent and relevant researches, theories and practices in industrial and system engineering to promote their development and application in university and enterprises.

This book is an introduction to the fundamental concepts and tools needed for solving problems of a geometric nature using a computer. It attempts to fill the gap between standard geometry books, which are primarily theoretical, and applied books on computer graphics, computer vision, robotics, or machine learning.

This book covers the following topics: affine geometry, projective geometry, Euclidean geometry, convex sets, SVD and principal component analysis, manifolds and Lie groups, quadratic optimization, basics of differential geometry, and a glimpse of computational geometry (Voronoi diagrams and Delaunay triangulations). Some practical applications of the concepts presented in this book include computer vision, more specifically contour grouping, motion interpolation, and robot kinematics.

In this extensively updated second edition, more material on convex sets, Farkas's lemma, quadratic optimization and the Schur complement have been added. The chapter on SVD has been greatly expanded and now includes a presentation of PCA.

The book is well illustrated and has chapter summaries and a large number of exercises throughout. It will be of interest to a wide audience including computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.

Reviews of first edition:

"Gallier's book will be a useful source for anyone interested in applications of geometrical methods to solve problems that arise in various branches of engineering. It may help to develop the sophisticated concepts from the more advanced parts of geometry into useful tools for applications." (Mathematical Reviews, 2001)

..".it will be useful as a reference book for postgraduates wishing to find the connection between their current problem and the underlying geometry." (The Australian Mathematical Society, 2001)"

* Provides an overall understanding of all aspects of AC electrical drives, from the motor and converter to the implemented control algorithm, with minimum mathematics needed * Demonstrates how to implement and debug electrical drive systems using a set of dedicated hardware platforms, motor setup and software tools in VisSim (TM) and PLECS (TM) * No expert programming skills required, allowing the reader to concentrate on drive development * Enables the reader to undertake real-time control of a safe (low voltage) and low cost experimental drive This book puts the fundamental and advanced concepts behind electric drives into practice. Avoiding involved mathematics whenever practical, this book shows the reader how to implement a range of modern day electrical drive concepts, without requiring in depth programming skills. It allows the user to build and run a series of AC drive concepts, ranging from very basic drives to sophisticated sensorless drives. Hence the book is the only modern resource available that bridges the gap between simulation and the actual experimental environment. Engineers who need to implement an electrical drive, or transition from sensored to sensorless drives, as well as students who need to understand the practical aspects of working with electrical drives, will greatly benefit from this unique reference.

This book reports on an outstanding thesis that has significantly advanced the state-of-the-art in the area of automated negotiation. It gives new practical and theoretical insights into the design and evaluation of automated negotiators. It describes an innovative negotiating agent framework that enables systematic exploration of the space of possible negotiation strategies by recombining different agent components. Using this framework, new and effective ways are formulated for an agent to learn, bid, and accept during a negotiation. The findings have been evaluated in four annual instantiations of the International Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC), the results of which are also outlined here. The book also describes several methodologies for evaluating and comparing negotiation strategies and components, with a special emphasis on performance and accuracy measures.

This edited book introduces readers to new analytical techniques and controller design schemes used to solve the emerging "hottest" problems in dynamic control systems and networks. In recent years, the study of dynamic systems and networks has faced major changes and challenges with the rapid advancement of IT technology, accompanied by the 4th Industrial Revolution. Many new factors that now have to be considered, and which haven't been addressed from control engineering perspectives to date, are naturally emerging as the systems become more complex and networked. The general scope of this book includes the modeling of the system itself and uncertainty elements, examining stability under various criteria, and controller design techniques to achieve specific control objectives in various dynamic systems and networks. In terms of traditional stability matters, this includes the following special issues: finite-time stability and stabilization, consensus/synchronization, fault-tolerant control, event-triggered control, and sampled-data control for classical linear/nonlinear systems, interconnected systems, fractional-order systems, switched systems, neural networks, and complex networks. In terms of introducing graduate students and professional researchers studying control engineering and applied mathematics to the latest research trends in the areas mentioned above, this book offers an excellent guide.

The 4th edition includes updated and additional examples and exercises on the core fundamental concepts of mechanics, robots, and kinematics of serial robots. New images of CAD models and physical robots help to motivate concepts being introduced. Each chapter of the book can be read independently of others as it addresses a seperate issue in robotics.

This book provides readers with extensive information on path planning optimization for both single and multiple Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs), and discusses practical issues involved in advanced industrial applications of AGVs. After discussing previously published research in the field and highlighting the current gaps, it introduces new models developed by the authors with the goal of reducing costs and increasing productivity and effectiveness in the manufacturing industry. The new models address the increasing complexity of manufacturing networks, due for example to the adoption of flexible manufacturing systems that involve automated material handling systems, robots, numerically controlled machine tools, and automated inspection stations, while also considering the uncertainty and stochastic nature of automated equipment such as AGVs. The book discusses and provides solutions to important issues concerning the use of AGVs in the manufacturing industry, including material flow optimization with AGVs, programming manufacturing systems equipped with AGVs, reliability models, the reliability of AGVs, routing under uncertainty, and risks involved in AGV-based transportation. The clear style and straightforward descriptions of problems and their solutions make the book an excellent resource for graduate students. Moreover, thanks to its practice-oriented approach, the novelty of the findings and the contemporary topic it reports on, the book offers new stimulus for researchers and practitioners in the broad field of production engineering.

The term "nonconventional machining" refers a group of processes that removes material by various methods involving thermal, electrical, chemical and mechanical energy. Nonconventional machining is required when workpieces are extremely hard, too flexible or have complex geometries. Most recent methods and applications are described by acknowledged experts in the field to provide a useful reference for academics, researchers and decision takers.

The last two decades have witnessed considerable progress in the study of underactuated robotic systems (URSs). "C""ontrol"" Design and Analysis ""for ""U""nderactuated ""R""obotic ""S""yste""ms" presents a unified treatment of control design and analysis for a class of URSs, which include systems with multiple-degree-of-freedom and/or with underactuation degree two. It presents novel notions, features, design techniques and strictly global motion analysis results for these systems. These new materials are shown to be vital in studying the control design and stability analysis of URSs.

"Control Design and Analysis for Underactuated Robotic Systems" includes the modelling, control design and analysis presented in a systematic way particularly for the following examples:

l directly and remotely driven Acrobots

l Pendubot

l rotational pendulum

l counter-weighted Acrobot

2-link underactuated robot with flexible elbow joint

l variable-length pendulum

l 3-link gymnastic robot with passive first joint

l n-link planar robot with passive first joint

l n-link planar robot with passive single joint

double, or two parallel pendulums on a cart

l 3-link planar robots with underactuation degree two

2-link free flying robot

The theoretical developments are validated by experimental results for the remotely driven Acrobot and the rotational pendulum.

"C""ontrol"" Design and Analysis ""for ""U""nderactuated ""R""obotic ""S""yste""ms" is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in the area of control systems, mechanical and robotics systems, nonlinear systems and oscillation. This text will not only enable the reader to gain a better understanding of the power and fundamental limitations of linear and nonlinear control theory for the control design and analysis for these URSs, but also inspire the reader to address the challenges of more complex URSs."

Following the successful 1st CEAS (Council of European Aerospace Societies) Specialist Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control (CEAS EuroGNC) held in Munich, Germany in 2011, Delft University of Technology happily accepted the invitation of organizing the 2nd CEAS EuroGNC in Delft, The Netherlands in 2013. The goal of the conference is to promote new advances in aerospace GNC theory and technologies for enhancing safety, survivability, efficiency, performance, autonomy and intelligence of aerospace systems using on-board sensing, computing and systems. A great push for new developments in GNC are the ever higher safety and sustainability requirements in aviation. Impressive progress was made in new research fields such as sensor and actuator fault detection and diagnosis, reconfigurable and fault tolerant flight control, online safe flight envelop prediction and protection, online global aerodynamic model identification, online global optimization and flight upset recovery. All of these challenges depend on new online solutions from on-board computing systems. Scientists and engineers in GNC have been developing model based, sensor based as well as knowledge based approaches aiming for highly robust, adaptive, nonlinear, intelligent and autonomous GNC systems. Although the papers presented at the conference and selected in this book could not possibly cover all of the present challenges in the GNC field, many of them have indeed been addressed and a wealth of new ideas, solutions and results were proposed and presented.

For the 2nd CEAS Specialist Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control the International Program Committee conducted a formal review process. Each paper was reviewed in compliance with good journal practice by at least two independent and anonymous reviewers. The papers published in this book were selected from the conference proceedingsbased on the results and recommendations from the reviewers.

This monograph presents an updated source of information on the state of the art in advanced control of articulated and mobile robots. It includes relevant selected problems dealing with enhanced actuation, motion planning and control functions for articulated robots, as well as of sensory and autonomous decision capabilities for mobile robots. The basic idea behind the book is to provide a larger community of robotic researchers and developers with a reliable source of information and innovative applications in the field of control of cooperating and mobile robots. This book is the outcome of the research project MISTRAL (Methodologies and Integration of Subsystems and Technologies for Anthropic Robotics and Locomotion) funded in 2001-2002 by the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research. The thorough discussion, rigorous treatment, and wide span of the presented work reveal the significant advances in the theoretical foundation and technology basis of the robotics field worldwide.

Self-organizing approaches inspired from biological systems, such as social insects, genetic, molecular and cellular systems under morphogenesis, and human mental development, has enjoyed great success in advanced robotic systems that need to work in dynamic and changing environments. Compared with classical control methods for robotic systems, the major advantages of bio-inspired self-organizing robotic systems include robustness, self-repair and self-healing in the presence of system failures and/or malfunctions, high adaptability to environmental changes, and autonomous self-organization and self-reconfiguration without a centralized control. "Bio-inspired Self-organizing Robotic Systems" provides a valuable reference for scientists, practitioners and research students working on developing control algorithms for self-organizing engineered collective systems, such as swarm robotic systems, self-reconfigurable modular robots, smart material based robotic devices, unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellite constellations.

This book presents improved and extended versions of selected papers from EUROGEN 2019, a conference with interest on developing or applying evolutionary and deterministic methods in optimization of design and emphasizing on industrial and societal applications.

Written by leading researchers, this book collects a number of articles considering the problems of finite-precision computing in digital controllers and filters. Topics range from analysis of fragility and finite-precision effects to the design of low-complexity digital controllers.

This book comprises selected peer-reviewed papers from the International Conference on VLSI, Signal Processing, Power Systems, Illumination and Lighting Control, Communication and Embedded Systems (VSPICE-2019). The contents are divided into five broad topics - VLSI and embedded systems, signal processing, power systems, illumination and control, and communication and networking. The book focuses on the latest innovations, trends, and challenges encountered in the different areas of electronics and communication, and electrical engineering. It also offers potential solutions and provides an insight into various emerging areas such as image fusion, bio-sensors, and underwater sensor networks. This book can prove to be useful for academics and professionals interested in the various sub-fields of electronics and communication engineering.

This Proceedings Volume documents recent cutting-edge developments in multi-robot systems research and is the result of the Second International Workshop on Multi-Robot Systems that was held in March 2003 at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. This Workshop brought together top researchers working in areas relevant to designing teams of autonomous vehicles, including robots and unmanned ground, air, surface, and undersea vehicles. The workshop focused on the challenging issues of team architectures, vehicle learning and adaptation, heterogeneous group control and cooperation, task selection, dynamic autonomy, mixed initiative, and human and robot team interaction. A broad range of applications of this technology are presented in this volume, including UCAVS (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles), micro-air vehicles, UUVs (Unmanned Underwater Vehicles), UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles), planetary exploration, assembly in space, clean-up, and urban search and rescue.

This Proceedings Volume represents the contributions of the top researchers in this field and serves as a valuable tool for professionals in this interdisciplinary field.

In a unified form, this monograph presents fundamental results on the approximation of centralized and decentralized stochastic control problems, with uncountable state, measurement, and action spaces. It demonstrates how quantization provides a system-independent and constructive method for the reduction of a system with Borel spaces to one with finite state, measurement, and action spaces. In addition to this constructive view, the book considers both the information transmission approach for discretization of actions, and the computational approach for discretization of states and actions. Part I of the text discusses Markov decision processes and their finite-state or finite-action approximations, while Part II builds from there to finite approximations in decentralized stochastic control problems. This volume is perfect for researchers and graduate students interested in stochastic controls. With the tools presented, readers will be able to establish the convergence of approximation models to original models and the methods are general enough that researchers can build corresponding approximation results, typically with no additional assumptions.

In the last decade, signi?cant changes have occurred in the ?eld of vehicle motion planning, and for UAVs in particular. UAV motion planning is especially dif?cult due to several complexities not considered by earlier planning strategies: the - creased importance of differential constraints, atmospheric turbulence which makes it impossible to follow a pre-computed plan precisely, uncertainty in the vehicle state, and limited knowledge about the environment due to limited sensor capabilities. These differences have motivated the increased use of feedback and other control engineering techniques for motion planning. The lack of exact algorithms for these problems and dif?culty inherent in characterizing approximation algorithms makes it impractical to determine algorithm time complexity, completeness, and even soundness. This gap has not yet been addressed by statistical characterization of experimental performance of algorithms and benchmarking. Because of this overall lack of knowledge, it is dif?cult to design a guidance system, let alone choose the algorithm. Throughout this paper we keep in mind some of the general characteristics and requirements pertaining to UAVs. A UAV is typically modeled as having velocity and acceleration constraints (and potentially the higher-order differential constraints associated with the equations of motion), and the objective is to guide the vehicle towards a goal through an obstacle ?eld. A UAV guidance problem is typically characterized by a three-dimensional problem space, limited information about the environment, on-board sensors with limited range, speed and acceleration constraints, and uncertainty in vehicle state and sensor data.

Except from the Foreword
The stated aim of the book series "Capturing Intelligence" is to publish books on research from all disciplines dealing with and affecting the issue of understanding and reproducing intelligence artificial systems. Of course, much of the work done in the past decades in this area has been of a highly technical nature, varying from hardware design for robots, software design for intelligent agents, and formal logic for reasoning.
It is therefore very refreshing to see Information Flow and Knowledge Sharing. This is a courageous book indeed. It is not afraid to tackle the Big Issues: notions such as information, knowledge, information system, information flow, collaborative problem solving, and ontological reasoning. All of these notions are crucial to our understanding of intelligence and our building of intelligent artificial systems, but all too often, these Big Issues are hidden behind the curtains while the technical topics take center stage.
AI has a rich history of philosophical books that have chosen a non-standard structure and narrative. It is nice to see that the authors have succeeded into combining a non-standard approach to deep questions with a non-standard format, resulting in a highly interesting volume.
"Frank van Harmelen, Series Editor"
Excerpt from the Introduction
Our interest is to promote, through a better and deeper understanding of the notions of information and knowledge, a better and deeper critical understanding of information technology as situated in the full range of human activities, assuming as a principle that this range of activities cannot be properly appreciated when it is reduced to the simplifiedmeans-end schema proposed by Technology. We invite the reader to build his/her own points of view about these notions, considering our propositions as a starting point for a critical analysis and discussion of these points. With that, we believe we are contributing to a better understanding of the impact of technology - and particularly of Information Technology - in everyday life.
"Flavio Soares Correa da Silva, Jaume Agusti-Cullell"
*Bridges the gap between the technological and philosophical aspects of information technology
*Gives both professionals and academics a philosophical foundation of IT so they can better understand their own discliplines
*Sheds light on a part of IT which is often overshadowed by its technical counterparts

This book provides basic theories and implementations using SCILAB open-source software for digital images. The book simplifies image processing theories and well as implementation of image processing algorithms, making it accessible to those with basic knowledge of image processing. This book includes many SCILAB programs at the end of each theory, which help in understanding concepts. The book includes more than sixty SCILAB programs of the image processing theory. In the appendix, readers will find a deeper glimpse into the research areas in the image processing.