Biomimetic Robotic Artificial Muscles presents a comprehensive up- to-date overview of several types of electroactive materials with a view of using them as biomimetic artificial muscles. The purpose of the book is to provide a focused, in-depth, yet self-contained treatment of recent advances made in several promising EAP materials. In particular, ionic polymer-metal composites, conjugated polymers, and dielectric elastomers are considered. Manufacturing, physical characterization, modeling, and control of the materials are presented. Namely, the book adopts a systems perspective to integrate recent developments in material processing, actuator design, control-oriented modeling, and device and robotic applications. While the main focus is on the new developments in these subjects, an effort has been made throughout the book to provide the reader with general, basic information about the materials before going into more advanced topics. As a result, the book is very much self-contained and expected to be accessible for a reader who does not have background in EAPs. Based on the good fundamental knowledge and the versatility of the materials, several promising biomimetic and robotic applications such robotic fish propelled by an IPMC tail, an IPMC energy harvester, an IPMC-based valveless pump, a conjugated polymer petal-driven micropump, and a synthetic elastomer actuator-enabled robotic finger are demonstrated.

Foreword.- List of Contributors.- Part 1: Agile and Turbulence-Suitable Processes for Knowledge and Technology Intensive Organizations.- Part 2: Next-Generation Teaching and Learning Concepts for Universities and the Economy.- Part 3: Cognitive IT-Supported Processes for Heterogeneous and Cooperative Systems.- Part 4: Target Group-Adapted User Models for Innovation and Technology Development Processes.- Part 5: Semantic Networks and Ontologies for Complex Value Chains and Virtual Environments.

This book presents cutting-edge emerging technologies and approaches in the areas of service-oriented architectures, intelligent devices and cloud-based cyber-physical systems. It provides a clear view on their applicability to the management and automation of manufacturing and process industries. It offers a holistic view of future industrial cyber-physical systems and their industrial usage and also depicts technologies and architectures as well as a migration approach and engineering tools based on these.

By providing a careful balance between the theory and the practical aspects, this book has been authored by several experts from academia and industry, thereby offering a valuable understanding of the vision, the domain, the processes and the results of the research. It has several illustrations and tables to clearly exemplify the concepts and results examined in the text and these are supported by four real-life case-studies.

We are witnessing rapid advances in the industrial automation, mainly driven by business needs towards agility and supported by new disruptive advances both on the software and hardware side, as well as the cross-fertilization of concepts and the amalgamation of information and communication technology-driven approaches in traditional industrial automation and control systems. This book is intended for technology managers, application designers, solution developers, engineers working in industry, as well as researchers, undergraduate and graduate students of industrial automation, industrial informatics and production engineering.

With the increasing applications of intelligent robotic systems in various ?elds, the - sign and control of these systems have increasingly attracted interest from researchers. This edited book entitled "Design and Control of Intelligent Robotic Systems" in the book series of "Studies in Computational Intelligence" is a collection of some advanced research on design and control of intelligent robots. The works presented range in scope from design methodologies to robot development. Various design approaches and al- rithms, such as evolutionary computation, neural networks, fuzzy logic, learning, etc. are included. We also would like to mention that most studies reported in this book have been implemented in physical systems. An overview on the applications of computational intelligence in bio-inspired robotics is given in Chapter 1 by M. Begum and F. Karray, with highlights of the recent progress in bio-inspired robotics research and a focus on the usage of computational intelligence tools to design human-like cognitive abilities in the robotic systems. In Chapter 2, Lisa L. Grant and Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy present greedy search, particle swarm optimization and fuzzy logic based strategies for navigating a swarm of robots for target search in a hazardous environment, with potential applications in high-risk tasks such as disaster recovery and hazardous material detection.

AI for Digital Warfare explores how the weaponising of artificial intelligence can and will change how warfare is being conducted, and what impact it will have on the corporate world. With artificial intelligence tools becoming increasingly advanced, and in many cases more humanlike, their potential in psychological warfare is being recognised, which means digital warfare can move beyond just shutting down IT systems into more all-encompassing hybrid war strategies.

Innovative examination of augmentation technologies in terms of technical, social, and ethical considerations Usable as a supplemental text for a variety of courses, and also of interest to researchers and professionals in fields including: technical communication, digital communication, UX design, information technology, informatics, human factors, artificial intelligence, ethics, philosophy of technology, and sociology of technology First major work to combine technological, ethical, social, and rhetorical perspectives on human augmentation Additional cases and research material available at the authors' Fabric of Digital Life research database at https://fabricofdigitallife.com/

a short and accessible introduction on AI and Cars written by leading experts

This book includes high impact papers presented at the International Conference on Communication, Computing and Electronics Systems 2019, held at the PPG Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India, on 15-16 November, 2019. Discussing recent trends in cloud computing, mobile computing, and advancements of electronics systems, the book covers topics such as automation, VLSI, embedded systems, integrated device technology, satellite communication, optical communication, RF communication, microwave engineering, artificial intelligence, deep learning, pattern recognition, Internet of Things, precision models, bioinformatics, and healthcare informatics.

"Nonholonomic Motion Planning" grew out of the Workshop on Nonholonomic Motion Planning that took place at the 1991 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. It consists of contributed chapters representing new developments in this area. Contributors to the book include robotics engineers, nonlinear control experts, differential geometres and applied mathematics. The book is arranged around three chapter groups: controllability - one of the key mathematical tools needed to study nonholonomic motion; motion planning for mobile robots - focusing on problems with nonholonomic velocity constraints as well as constraints on the generalized co-ordinates; and falling cats, space robots and gauge theory. There are numerous connections to be made between symplectic geometry techniques for the study of holonomies in mechanics, gauge theory and control. In this section these connections are discussed using the backdrop of examples drawn from space robots and falling cats reorienting themselves. "Nonholonomic Motion Planning" can be used either as a reference for researchers working in the areas of robotics, nonlinear control and differential geometry, or as a textbook for a graduate level robotics or nonlinear control course.

The great majority of books on artificial intelligence are written by AI experts who understandably focus on its achievements and potential transformative effects on society. In contrast, AI vs Humans is written by two psychologists (Michael and Christine Eysenck) whose perspective on AI (including robotics) is based on their knowledge and understanding of human cognition. This book evaluates the strengths and limitations of people and AI. The authors' expertise equips them well to consider this by seeing how well (or badly) AI compares to human intelligence. They accept that AI matches or exceeds human ability in many spheres such as mathematical calculations, complex games (e.g., chess, Go, and poker), diagnosis from medical images, and robotic surgery. However, the human tendency to anthropomorphise has led many people to claim mistakenly that AI systems can think, infer, reason, and understand while engaging in information processing. In fact, such systems lack all those cognitive skills and are also deficient in the quintessentially human abilities of flexibility of thinking and general intelligence. At a time when human commitment to AI appears unstoppable, this up-to-date book advocates a symbiotic and co-operative relationship between humans and AI. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in AI and human cognition.

Robots are becoming more human, but could they also become sentient and have human-like consciousness?What is consciousness, exactly?It is a fact that our thoughts and consciousness are based on the neural activity of the brain. It is also a fact that we do not perceive our brain activity as it really is - patterns of neural firings. Instead, we perceive our sensations and thoughts apparently as they are. What kind of condition would transform the neural activity into this kind of internal appearance? This is the basic problem of consciousness.The author proposes an explanation that also provides preconditions for true conscious cognition - the requirement of a direct perceptive system with inherent sub-symbolic and symbolic information processing. Associative neural information processing with distributed signal representations is introduced as a method that satisfies these requirements.Conscious robot cognition also calls for information integration and sensorimotor integration. This requirement is satisfied by the Haikonen Cognitive Architecture (HCA).This book demystifies both the enigmatic philosophical issues of consciousness and the practical engineering issues of conscious robots by presenting them in an easy-to-understand manner for the benefit of students, researchers, philosophers and engineers in the field.

Human-Robot Interaction in Social Robotics explores important issues in designing a robot system that works with people in everyday environments. Edited by leading figures in the field of social robotics, it draws on contributions by researchers working on the Robovie project at the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, a world leader in humanoid interactive robotics. The book brings together, in one volume, technical and empirical research that was previously scattered throughout the literature. Taking a networked robot approach, the book examines how robots work in cooperation with ubiquitous sensors and people over telecommunication networks. It considers the use of social robots in daily life, grounding the work in field studies conducted at a school, train station, shopping mall, and science museum. Critical in the development of network robots, these usability studies allow researchers to discover real issues that need to be solved and to understand what kinds of services are possible. The book tackles key areas where development is needed, namely, in sensor networks for tracking humans and robots, humanoids that can work in everyday environments, and functions for interacting with people. It introduces a sensor network developed by the authors and discusses innovations in the Robovie humanoid, including several interactive behaviors and design policies. Exploring how humans interact with robots in daily life settings, this book offers valuable insight into how robots may be used in the future. The combination of engineering, empirical, and field studies provides readers with rich information to guide in developing practical interactive robots.

This book provides state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of mobile robotics and associated support technologies. The book contains peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2012 conference. Robots are no longer confined to industrial manufacturing environments. A great deal of interest is invested in the use of robots outside the factory environment. The CLAWAR conference series, established as a high profile international event, acts as a platform for dissemination of research and development findings and supports such a trend to address the current interest in mobile robotics to meet the needs of mankind in various sectors of the society. These include personal care, public health, services in the domestic, public and industrial environments. The editors of the book have extensive research experience and publications in the area of robotics in general and in mobile robotics specifically, and their experience is reflected in editing the contents of the book.

This book deals with the growing challenges of using assistive robots in our everyday activities along with providing intelligent assistive services. The presented applications concern mainly healthcare and wellness such as helping elderly people, assisting dependent persons, habitat monitoring in smart environments, well-being, security, etc. These applications reveal also new challenges regarding control theory, mechanical design, mechatronics, portability, acceptability, scalability, security, etc.

The first compendium on robotic art of its kind, this book explores the integration of robots into human society and our attitudes, fears and hopes in a world shared with autonomous machines. It raises questions about the benefits, risks and ethics of the transformative changes to society that are the consequence of robots taking on new roles alongside humans. It takes the reader on a journey into the world of the strange, the beautiful, the uncanny and the daring - and into the minds and works of some of the world's most prolific creators of robotic art. Offering an in-depth look at robotic art from the viewpoints of artists, engineers and scientists, it presents outstanding works of contemporary robotic art and brings together for the first time some of the most influential artists in this area in the last three decades. Starting from a historical review, this transdisciplinary work explores the nexus between robotic research and the arts and examines the diversity of robotic art, the encounter with robotic otherness, machine embodiment and human-robot interaction. Stories of difficulties, pitfalls and successes are recalled, characterising the multifaceted collaborations across the diverse disciplines required to create robotic art. Although the book is primarily targeted towards researchers, artists and students in robotics, computer science and the arts, its accessible style appeals to anyone intrigued by robots and the arts.

This fascinating book charts toy robot design of the last half of the 20th century and explores Japanese aesthetics in tinplate toys, especially robots. Over 200 photographs and original conceptual drawings illustrate this captivating history, from the wind-up walking mechanism of the "Diamond Planet Robot" to the sophisticated "Answer Game Machine," the first robot computer capable of doing mathematical problems. Tomy, Horikawa, Waco, and Sony are just a few of the manufacturers whose robotic designs are featured here. The captions provide much relevant information, including date, size, manufacturer, and current values. This important book is of compelling interest to historians, collectors, designers, and students of Japanese studies and popular culture in the golden age of toy production.

Would you want to be cared for by a robot? Michael C. Brannigan's Caregiving, Carebots, and Contagion explores caring robots' lifesaving benefits, particularly during contagion, while probing the threat they pose to interpersonal engagement and genuine human caregiving. As our COVID-19 purgatory lingers on, caring robots will join our nursing and healthcare frontlines. Carebots can perform lifesaving tasks to minimize infection, safeguard vulnerable persons, and relieve caregivers of certain burdens. They also spark profound moral and existential questions: What is caring? How will we relate with each other? What does it mean to be human? Underscoring carebots' hands-on benefits, Brannigan also warns us of perils. They can be a dangerous lure in a culture that settles for substitutes and venerates the screen. Alerting us to the threatening prospect of carebots becoming our surrogate for interpersonal connection, he maintains they are not the culprits. The challenge lies in how we relate to them. While they beneficially complement our caregiving, carebots cannot replace human caring. Caring is a fundamentally human act and lies at the heart of ethics. As humans, we have a binding moral responsibility to care for the Other, and genuine caring demands our embodied, human-to-human presence.

This book presents few novel Discrete-time Sliding Mode (DSM) protocols for leader-following consensus of Discrete Multi-Agent Systems (DMASs). The protocols intend to achieve the consensus in finite time steps and also tackle the corresponding uncertainties. Based on the communication graph topology of multi-agent systems, the protocols are divided into two groups, namely (i) Fixed graph topology and (ii) Switching graph topology. The coverage begins with the design of Discrete-time Sliding Mode (DSM) protocols using Gao's reaching law and power rate reaching law for the synchronization of linear DMASs by using the exchange of information between the agents and the leader to achieve a common goal. Then, in a subsequent chapter, analysis for no. of fixed-time steps required for the leader-following consensus is presented. The book also includes chapters on the design of Discrete-time Higher-order Sliding Mode (DHSM) protocols, Event-triggered DSM protocols for the leader-following consensus of DMASs. A chapter is also included on the design of DHSM protocols for leader-following consensus of heterogeneous DMASs. Special emphasis is given to the practical implementation of each proposed DSM protocol for achieving leader-following consensus of helicopter systems, flexible joint robotic arms, and rigid joint robotic arms. This book offers a ready reference guide for graduate students and researchers working in the areas of control, automation, and communication engineering, and in particular the cooperative control of multi-agent systems. It will also benefit professional engineers working to design and implement robust controllers for power systems, autonomous vehicles, military surveillance, smartgrids/microgrids, vehicle traffic management, robotic teams, and aerial robots.

New technologies that allow us to investigate mechanisms and functions of the brain have shown considerable promise in treating brain disease and injury. These emerging technologies also provide a means to assess and manipulate human consciousness, cognitions, emotions, and behaviors, bringing with them the potential to transform society. Neurotechnology: Premises, Potential, and Problems explores the technical, moral, legal, and sociopolitical issues that arise in and from today s applications of neuroscience and technology and discusses their implications for the future.

Some of the issues raised in this thought-provoking volume include:

• Neurotechnology in education: an enablement, a treatment, or an enhancement?
• The potential and limitations of neuroimaging technology in determining patient prognoses
• Tissue implantation technology as a way of engendering personalized medicine
• Neuroprostheses: restoration of functions of the disabled vs. enhancement to transhuman capabilities
• Deep brain stimulation and its use in restoring, preserving, or changing patients personal identity
• The benefit and risk of cognitive performance tools
• Cyborg technology and its potential to change our vision of humanity
• Methodologies for reducing the risk of neurotechnology s impact on ethical, legal, and social issues

With contributions from an international group of experts working on the cutting edge of neurotechnology, this volume lays the groundwork to appreciate the ethical, legal, and social aspects of the science in ways that keep pace with this rapidly progressing field.

This book is intended to meet the needs of those who seek to develop control systems for ROVs when there is no model available during the initial design stage. The modeling, simulation and application of marine vehicles like underwater robotic vehicles (URVs) are multidisciplinary, and combine mathematical aspects from various engineering disciplines. URVs such as remotely operated vehicle (ROVs) are used for a wide range of applications such as exploring the extreme depths of our ocean, where a hard-wired link is still required. Most ROVs operate in extreme environments with uncertainties in the model prior to control system design. However, the method involved extensive testing before the system model could be used for any control actions. It has been found that the range of error can be extensive and uncertain in actual, continuously varying conditions. Hence, it is important to address the problem of reliance on model testing using different modeling approaches. In this book, approaches such as WAMIT, ANSYS-CFX, STAR CCM+, MATLAB and Simulink are used to model parameters for ROVs. A few benchmark models are provided, allowing researchers and students to explore and test different control schemes. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable reference guide for postgraduate and undergraduate students engaged in modeling and simulation for ROV control.

In this monograph the authors develop a theory for the robust control of discrete-time stochastic systems, subjected to both independent random perturbations and to Markov chains. Such systems are widely used to provide mathematical models for real processes in fields such as aerospace engineering, communications, manufacturing, finance and economy. The theory is a continuation of the authors work presented in their previous book entitled "Mathematical Methods in Robust Control of Linear Stochastic Systems" published by Springer in 2006.

Key features:

- Provides a common unifying framework for discrete-time stochastic systems corrupted with both independent random perturbations and with Markovian jumps which are usually treated separately in the control literature;

- Covers preliminary material on probability theory, independent random variables, conditional expectation and Markov chains;

- Proposes new numerical algorithms to solve coupled matrix algebraic Riccati equations;

- Leads the reader in a natural way to the original results through a systematic presentation;

- Presents new theoretical results with detailed numerical examples.

The monograph is geared to researchers and graduate students in advanced control engineering, applied mathematics, mathematical systems theory and finance. It is also accessible to undergraduate students with a fundamental knowledge in the theory of stochastic systems."

This book establishes the foundations needed to realize the ultimate goals for artificial intelligence, such as autonomy and trustworthiness. Aimed at scientists, researchers, technologists, practitioners, and students, it brings together contributions offering the basics, the challenges and the state-of-the-art on trusted autonomous systems in a single volume. The book is structured in three parts, with chapters written by eminent researchers and outstanding practitioners and users in the field. The first part covers foundational artificial intelligence technologies, while the second part covers philosophical, practical and technological perspectives on trust. Lastly, the third part presents advanced topics necessary to create future trusted autonomous systems. The book augments theory with real-world applications including cyber security, defence and space.

This book comprises the select proceedings of the International Conference on Materials, Design and Manufacturing for Sustainable Environment (ICMDMSE 2020). The primary focus is on emerging materials and cutting-edge manufacturing technologies for sustainable environment. The book covers a wide range of topics such as advanced materials, vibration, tribology, finite element method (FEM), heat transfer, fluid mechanics, energy engineering, additive manufacturing, robotics and automation, automobile engineering, industry 4.0, MEMS and nanotechnology, optimization techniques, condition monitoring, and new paradigms in technology management. Contents of this book will be useful to students, researchers, and practitioners alike.

Robotic engineering inspired by biology-biomimetics-has many potential applications: robot snakes can be used for rescue operations in disasters, snake-like endoscopes can be used in medical diagnosis, and artificial muscles can replace damaged muscles to recover the motor functions of human limbs. Conversely, the application of robotics technology to our understanding of biological systems and behaviors-biorobotic modeling and analysis-provides unique research opportunities: robotic manipulation technology with optical tweezers can be used to study the cell mechanics of human red blood cells, a surface electromyography sensing system can help us identify the relation between muscle forces and hand movements, and mathematical models of brain circuitry may help us understand how the cerebellum achieves movement control. Biologically Inspired Robotics contains cutting-edge material-considerably expanded and with additional analysis-from the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO). These 16 chapters cover both biomimetics and biorobotic modeling/analysis, taking readers through an exploration of biologically inspired robot design and control, micro/nano bio-robotic systems, biological measurement and actuation, and applications of robotics technology to biological problems. Contributors examine a wide range of topics, including: A method for controlling the motion of a robotic snake The design of a bionic fitness cycle inspired by the jaguar The use of autonomous robotic fish to detect pollution A noninvasive brain-activity scanning method using a hybrid sensor A rehabilitation system for recovering motor function in human hands after injury Human-like robotic eye and head movements in human-machine interactions A state-of-the-art resource for graduate students and researchers.

In the not so distant future, we can expect a world where humans and robots coexist and interact with each other. For this to occur, we need to understand human traits, such as seeing, hearing, thinking, speaking, etc., and institute these traits in robots. The most essential feature necessary for robots to achieve is that of integrative multimedia understanding (IMU) which occurs naturally in humans. It allows us to assimilate pieces of information expressed through different modes such as speech, pictures, gestures, etc. The book describes how robots acquire traits like natural language understanding (NLU) as the central part of IMU. Mental image directed semantic theory (MIDST) is its core, and is based on the hypothesis that NLU is essentially the processing of mental image associated with natural language expressions, namely, mental-image based understanding (MBU). MIDST is intended to model omnisensory mental image in human and to afford a knowledge representation system in order for integrative management of knowledge subjective to cognitive mechanisms of intelligent entities such as humans and robots based on a mental image model visualized as 'Loci in Attribute Spaces' and its description language Lmd (mental image description language) to be employed for predicate logic with a systematic scheme for symbol-grounding. This language works as an interlingua among various kinds of information media, and has been applied to several versions of the intelligent system interlingual understanding model aiming at general system (IMAGES). Its latest version, i.e. conversation management system (CMS) simulates MBU and comprehends the user's intention through dialogue to find and solve problems, and finally, provides a response in text or animation. The book is aimed at researchers and students interested in artificial intelligence, robotics, and cognitive science. Based on philosophical considerations, the methodology will also have an appeal in linguistics, psychology, ontology, geography, and cartography. Key Features: Describes the methodology to provide robots with human-like capability of natural language understanding (NLU) as the central part of IMU Uses methodology that also relates to linguistics, psychology, ontology, geography, and cartography Examines current trends in machine translation