Robots have come a long way thanks to advances in sensing and computer vision technologies and can be found today in healthcare, medicine and industry. Researchers have been looking at providing them with senses such as the ability to see, smell, hear and perceive touch in order to mimic and interact with humans and their surrounding environments. Topics covered in this edited book include various types of sensors used in robotics, sensing schemes (e-skin, tactile skin, e-nose, neuromorphic vision and touch), sensing technologies and their applications including healthcare, prosthetics, robotics and wearables. This book will appeal to researchers, scientists, engineers, and graduate and advanced students working in robotics, sensor technologies and electronics, and their applications in robotics, haptics, prosthetics, wearable and interactive systems, cognitive engineering, neuro-engineering, computational neuroscience, medicine and healthcare technologies.

Estimation and Control of Large Scale Networked Systems is the first book that systematically summarizes results on large-scale networked systems. In addition, the book also summarizes the most recent results on structure identification of a networked system, attack identification and prevention. Readers will find the necessary mathematical knowledge for studying large-scale networked systems, as well as a systematic description of the current status of this field, the features of these systems, difficulties in dealing with state estimation and controller design, and major achievements. Numerical examples in chapters provide strong application backgrounds and/or are abstracted from actual engineering problems, such as gene regulation networks and electricity power systems. This book is an ideal resource for researchers in the field of systems and control engineering.

Biomimetic research is an emerging field that aims to draw inspiration and substances from natural sources and create biological systems in structure, mechanism, and function through robotics. The products have a wide array of application including surgical robots, prosthetics, neurosurgery, and biomedical image analysis. The Handbook of Research on Biomimetics and Biomedical Robotics provides emerging research on robotics, mechatronics, and the application of biomimetric design. While highlighting mechatronical challenges in today's society, readers will find new opportunities and innovations in design capabilities in intelligent robotics and interdisciplinary biomedical products. This publication is a vital resource for senior and graduate students, researchers, and scientists in engineering seeking current research on best ways to globally expand online higher education.

This book presents recent advances in fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control of dynamic processes. Its impetus derives from the need for an overview of the challenges of the fault diagnosis technique and sustainable control, especially for those demanding systems that require reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety to ensure efficient operations. Moreover, the need for a high degree of tolerance with respect to possible faults represents a further key point, primarily for complex systems, as modeling and control are inherently challenging, and maintenance is both expensive and safety-critical. Diagnosis and Fault-tolerant Control 2 also presents and compares different fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant schemes, using well established, innovative strategies for modeling the behavior of the dynamic process under investigation. An updated treatise of diagnosis and fault-tolerant control is addressed with the use of essential and advanced methods including signal-based, model-based and data-driven techniques. Another key feature is the application of these methods for dealing with robustness and reliability.

This book presents recent advances in fault diagnosis strategies for complex dynamic systems. Its impetus derives from the need for an overview of the challenges of the fault diagnosis technique, especially for those demanding systems that require reliability, availability, maintainability and safety to ensure efficient operations. Moreover, the need for a high degree of tolerance with respect to possible faults represents a further key point, primarily for complex systems, as modeling and control are inherently challenging, and maintenance is both expensive and safety-critical. Diagnosis and Fault-tolerant Control 1 also presents and compares different diagnosis schemes using established case studies that are widely used in related literature. The main features of this book regard the analysis, design and implementation of proper solutions for the problems of fault diagnosis in safety critical systems. The design of the considered solutions involves robust data-driven, model-based approaches.

Path Planning for Vehicles Operating in Uncertain 2D-environments presents a survey that includes several path planning methods developed using fuzzy logic, grapho-analytical search, neural networks, and neural-like structures, procedures of genetic search, and unstable motion modes.

Cellular Actuators: Modularity and Variability in Muscle-Inspired Actuation describes the roles actuators play in robotics and their insufficiency in emerging new robotic applications, such as wearable devices and human co-working robots where compactness and compliance are important. Piezoelectric actuators, the topic of this book, provide advantages like displacement scale, force, reliability, and compactness, and rely on material properties to provide displacement and force as reactions to electric stimulation. The authors, renowned researchers in the area, present the fundamentals of muscle-like movement and a system-wide study that includes the design, analysis, and control of biologically inspired actuators. This book is the perfect guide for researchers and practitioners who would like to deploy this technology into their research and products.

Autonomic networking aims to solve the mounting problems created by increasingly complex networks, by enabling devices and service-providers to decide, preferably without human intervention, what to do at any given moment, and ultimately to create self-managing networks that can interface with each other, adapting their behavior to provide the best service to the end-user in all situations. This book gives both an understanding and an assessment of the principles, methods and architectures in autonomous network management, as well as lessons learned from, the ongoing initiatives in the field. It includes contributions from industry groups at Orange Labs, Motorola, Ericsson, the ANA EU Project and leading universities. These groups all provide chapters examining the international research projects to which they are contributing, such as the EU Autonomic Network Architecture Project and Ambient Networks EU Project, reviewing current developments and demonstrating how autonomic management principles are used to define new architectures, models, protocols, and mechanisms for future network equipment.

Power Electronics and Motor Drive Systems is designed to aid electrical engineers, researchers, and students to analyze and address common problems in state-of-the-art power electronics technologies. Author Stefanos Manias supplies a detailed discussion of the theory of power electronics circuits and electronic power conversion technology systems, with common problems and methods of analysis to critically evaluate results. These theories are reinforced by simulation examples using well-known and widely available software programs, including SPICE, PSIM, and MATLAB/SIMULINK. Manias expertly analyzes power electronic circuits with basic power semiconductor devices, as well as the new power electronic converters. He also clearly and comprehensively provides an analysis of modulation and output voltage, current control techniques, passive and active filtering, and the characteristics and gating circuits of different power semiconductor switches, such as BJTs, IGBTs, MOSFETs, IGCTs, MCTs and GTOs.

There have been major recent advances in robotic systems that can replace humans in undertaking hazardous activities in demanding or dangerous environments. Published in association with the CLAWAR (Climbing and Walking Robots and Associated Technologies Association) (www.clawar.org), this important book reviews the development of robotic systems for de-mining and other risky activities such as fire-fighting. Part one provides an overview of the use of robots for humanitarian de-mining work. Part two discusses the development of sensors for mine detection whilst Part thee reviews developments in both teleoperated and autonomous robots. Building on the latter, Part four concentrates on robot autonomous navigation. The final part of the book reviews research on multi-agent-systems (MAS) and the multi-robotics-systems (MRS), promising tools that take into account modular design of mobile robots and the use of several robots in multi-task missions. With its distinguished editors and international team of contributors, Using robots in hazardous environments: landmine detection, de-mining and other applications is a standard reference for all those researching the use of robots in hazardous environments as well as government and other agencies wishing to use robots for dangerous tasks such as landmine detection and disposal.

With near-universal internet access and ever-advancing electronic devices, the ability to facilitate interactions between various hardware and software provides endless possibilities. Though internet of things (IoT) technology is becoming more popular among individual users and companies, more potential applications of this technology are being sought every day. There is a need for studies and reviews that discuss the methodologies, concepts, and possible problems of a technology that requires little or no human interaction between systems. The Handbook of Research on the Internet of Things Applications in Robotics and Automation is a pivotal reference source on the methods and uses of advancing IoT technology. While highlighting topics including traffic information systems, home security, and automatic parking, this book is ideally designed for network analysts, telecommunication system designers, engineers, academicians, technology specialists, practitioners, researchers, students, and software developers seeking current research on the trends and functions of this life-changing technology.

Microbiorobotics is a new engineering discipline that inherently involves a multidisciplinary approach (mechanical engineering, cellular biology, mathematical modeling, control systems, synthetic biology, etc). Building robotics system in the micro scale is an engineering task that has resulted in many important applications, ranging from micromanufacturing techniques to cellular manipulation. However, it is also a very challenging engineering task. One of the reasons is because many engineering ideas and principles that are used in larger scales do not scale well to the micro-scale. For example, locomotion principles in a fluid do not function in the same way, and the use of rotational motors is impractical because of the difficulty of building of the required components.

In the era of cyber-physical systems, the area of control of complex systems has grown to be one of the hardest in terms of algorithmic design techniques and analytical tools. The 23 chapters, written by international specialists in the field, cover a variety of interests within the broader field of learning, adaptation, optimization and networked control. The editors have grouped these into the following 5 sections: "Introduction and Background on Control Theory", "Adaptive Control and Neuroscience", "Adaptive Learning Algorithms", "Cyber-Physical Systems and Cooperative Control", "Applications". The diversity of the research presented gives the reader a unique opportunity to explore a comprehensive overview of a field of great interest to control and system theorists. This book is intended for researchers and control engineers in machine learning, adaptive control, optimization and automatic control systems, including Electrical Engineers, Computer Science Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Aerospace/Automotive Engineers, and Industrial Engineers. It could be used as a text or reference for advanced courses in complex control systems. * Collection of chapters from several well-known professors and researchers that will showcase their recent work * Presents different state-of-the-art control approaches and theory for complex systems * Gives algorithms that take into consideration the presence of modelling uncertainties, the unavailability of the model, the possibility of cooperative/non-cooperative goals and malicious attacks compromising the security of networked teams * Real system examples and figures throughout, make ideas concrete

Through expanded intelligence, the use of robotics has fundamentally transformed a variety of fields, including manufacturing, aerospace, medical, social services, and agriculture. Providing successful techniques in robotic design allows for increased autonomous mobility, which leads to a greater productivity level. Novel Design and Applications of Robotics Technologies provides innovative insights into the state-of-the-art technologies in the design and development of robotic technologies and their real-world applications. The content within this publication represents the work of interactive learning, microrobot swarms, and service robots. It is a vital reference source for computer engineers, robotic developers, IT professionals, academicians, and researchers seeking coverage on topics centered on the application of robotics to perform tasks in various disciplines.

On-Road Intelligent Vehicles: Motion Planning for Intelligent Transportation Systems deals with the technology of autonomous vehicles, with a special focus on the navigation and planning aspects, presenting the information in three parts. Part One deals with the use of different sensors to perceive the environment, thereafter mapping the multi-domain senses to make a map of the operational scenario, including topics such as proximity sensors which give distances to obstacles, vision cameras, and computer vision techniques that may be used to pre-process the image, extract relevant features, and use classification techniques like neural networks and support vector machines for the identification of roads, lanes, vehicles, obstacles, traffic lights, signs, and pedestrians. With a detailed insight into the technology behind the vehicle, Part Two of the book focuses on the problem of motion planning. Numerous planning techniques are discussed and adapted to work for multi-vehicle traffic scenarios, including the use of sampling based approaches comprised of Genetic Algorithm and Rapidly-exploring Random Trees and Graph search based approaches, including a hierarchical decomposition of the algorithm and heuristic selection of nodes for limited exploration, Reactive Planning based approaches, including Fuzzy based planning, Potential Field based planning, and Elastic Strip and logic based planning. Part Three of the book covers the macroscopic concepts related to Intelligent Transportation Systems with a discussion of various topics and concepts related to transportation systems, including a description of traffic flow, the basic theory behind transportation systems, and generation of shock waves.