This book presents an intelligent, integrated, problem-independent method for multiresponse process optimization. In contrast to traditional approaches, the idea of this method is to provide a unique model for the optimization of various processes, without imposition of assumptions relating to the type of process, the type and number of process parameters and responses, or interdependences among them. The presented method for experimental design of processes with multiple correlated responses is composed of three modules: an expert system that selects the experimental plan based on the orthogonal arrays; the factor effects approach, which performs processing of experimental data based on Taguchi's quality loss function and multivariate statistical methods; and process modeling and optimization based on artificial neural networks and metaheuristic optimization algorithms. The implementation is demonstrated using four case studies relating to high-tech industries and advanced, non-conventional processes.

Societies survive in their environment and compete with each other depending on the technology they develop. Economic, military and political power are directly related to the available technology, while access to technology is key to the well-being of our societies at the individual, community and national level. The Robotics Divide analyzes how robotics will shape our societies in the twenty-first century; a time when industrial and service robotics, particularly for military and aerospace purposes, will become an essential technology. The book, written by experts in the field, focuses on the main technological trends in the field of robotics, and the impact that robotics will have on different facets of social life. By doing so, the authors aim to open the "black box" of a technology which, like any other, is designed, implemented and evaluated according to the economic and cultural patterns of a cosmopolitan society, as well as its relations of power. The Robotics Divide explores future developments in robotics technology and discusses the model of technological development and the implementation of robotics in this competitive market economy. Then the authors examine to what extent it is possible to determine the characteristic features of the robotic divide, namely in what ways the robotic divide differs from the digital divide, and how a model to integrate this technology can be developed without reproducing patterns of inequality and power that have characterized the advent of previous technologies. These issues - inequality, robotics and power - are of concern to robotics and advanced automation engineers, social scientists, economists and science policy experts alike.

An autonomous sailboat robot is a boat that only uses the wind on its sail as propelling force, without remote control or human assistance to achieve its mission. This involves autonomy in energy (using batteries, solar panels, turbines...), sensor data processing (compass, GPS, wind sensor...), actuators control (rudder and sail angle control...) and decision making (embedded computer with adequate algorithms). Although robotic sailing is a relatively new field of research, several applications exist for this type of robots: oceanographic and hydrographic research, maritime environment monitoring, meteorology, harbor safety, assistance and rescue in dangerous areas... Over the last decade, several events such as the Microtransat challenge, the WRSC/IRSC and SailBot have been set up to stimulate research and development around robotic sailing. These proceedings cover the current and future academic and technology challenges raised by the development of autonomous sailboat robots presented at the WRSC/IRSC (World Robotic Sailing Championship/International Robotic Sailing Conference) 2013, in Brest, France, 2-6 September 2013.

Parallel Kinematics- Type, Kinematics, and Optimal Design presents the results of 15 year's research on parallel mechanisms and parallel kinematics machines. This book covers the systematic classification of parallel mechanisms (PMs) as well as providing a large number of mechanical architectures of PMs available for use in practical applications. It focuses on the kinematic design of parallel robots. One successful application of parallel mechanisms in the field of machine tools, which is also called parallel kinematics machines, has been the emerging trend in advanced machine tools. The book describes not only the main aspects and important topics in parallel kinematics, but also references novel concepts and approaches, i.e. type synthesis based on evolution, performance evaluation and optimization based on screw theory, singularity model taking into account motion and force transmissibility, and others. This book is intended for researchers, scientists, engineers and postgraduates or above with interests in robotics and advanced machine tools technology such as parallel kinematics machines (PKMs). Xinjun Liu and Jinsong Wang, professors, work at The Institute of Manufacturing Engineering, Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Tsinghua University.

This book tries to address the following questions: How should the uncertainty and incompleteness inherent to sensing the environment be represented and modelled in a way that will increase the autonomy of a robot? How should a robotic system perceive, infer, decide and act efficiently? These are two of the challenging questions robotics community and robotic researchers have been facing. The development of robotic domain by the 1980s spurred the convergence of automation to autonomy, and the field of robotics has consequently converged towards the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Since the end of that decade, the general public's imagination has been stimulated by high expectations on autonomy, where AI and robotics try to solve difficult cognitive problems through algorithms developed from either philosophical and anthropological conjectures or incomplete notions of cognitive reasoning. Many of these developments do not unveil even a few of the processes through which biological organisms solve these same problems with little energy and computing resources. The tangible results of this research tendency were many robotic devices demonstrating good performance, but only under well-defined and constrained environments. The adaptability to different and more complex scenarios was very limited. In this book, the application of Bayesian models and approaches are described in order to develop artificial cognitive systems that carry out complex tasks in real world environments, spurring the design of autonomous, intelligent and adaptive artificial systems, inherently dealing with uncertainty and the "irreducible incompleteness of models".

This book comprises four chapters that address some of the latest research in clouds robotics and sensor clouds. The first part of the book includes two chapters on cloud robotics. The first chapter introduces a novel resource allocation framework for cloud robotics and proposes a Stackelberg game model and the corresponding task oriented pricing mechanism for resource allocation. In the second chapter, the authors apply Cloud Computing for building a Cloud-Based 3D Point Cloud extractor for stereo images. Their objective is to have a dynamically scalable and applicable to near real-time scenarios.

This book reports on the latest technological and clinical advances in the field of neurorehabilitation. It is, however, much more than a conventional survey of the state-of-the-art in neurorehabilitation technologies and therapies. It was formed on the basis of a week of lively discussions between curious PhD students and leading research experts during the summer school on neurorehabilitation (SSNR2012), September 16-21 in Nuevalos, Zaragoza (Spain). Its unconventional format makes it a perfect guide for all PhD students, researchers and professionals interested in gaining a multidisciplinary perspective on current and future neurorehabilitation scenarios. The book covers various aspects of neurorehabilitation research and practice, organized into different parts. The first part discusses a selection of common impairments affecting brain function, such as stroke, cerebral palsy and Parkinson's disease; the second deals with both spinal cord and brain plasticity. The third part covers the most recent rehabilitation and diagnostics technologies, including robotics, neuroprostheses, brain-machine interfaces and electromyography systems. Practical examples and case studies related to the application of some of the latest techniques in realistic clinical scenarios are covered in the fourth part.

This book presents the cutting edge developments within a broad field related to robotic sailing. The contributions were presented during the 8th International Robotic Sailing Conference, which has taken place as a part of the 2015 World Robotic Sailing Championships in Mariehamn, Aland (Finland), August 31st - September 4th 2015. Since more than a decade, a series of competitions such as the World Robotic Sailing Championship have stimulated a variety of groups to work on research and development around autonomous sailing robots, which involves boat designers, naval architects, electrical engineers and computer scientists. While many of the challenges in building a truly autonomous sailboat are still unsolved, the books presents the state of the art of research and development within platform optimization, route and stability planning, collision avoidance, power management and boat control.

This volume includes the Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region, RAAD 2015, which was held in Bucharest, Romania, on May 27-29, 2015. The Conference brought together academic and industry researchers in robotics from the 11 countries affiliated to the Alpe-Adria-Danube space: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia, and their worldwide partners. According to its tradition, RAAD 2015 covered all important areas of research, development and innovation in robotics, including new trends such as: bio-inspired and cognitive robots, visual servoing of robot motion, human-robot interaction, and personal robots for ambient assisted living. The accepted papers have been grouped in nine sessions: Robot integration in industrial applications; Grasping analysis, dexterous grippers and component design; Advanced robot motion control; Robot vision and sensory control; Human-robot interaction and collaboration; Modelling and design of novel mechanisms and robotic structures; Robots in medicine and rehabilitation; Tracking systems and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; Autonomous task learning, motion planning and scheduling.

This book provides readers with a solid set of diversified and essential tools for the theoretical modeling and control of complex robotic systems, as well as for digital human modeling and realistic motion generation. Following a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of robotic kinematics, dynamics and control systems design, the author extends robotic modeling procedures and motion algorithms to a much higher-dimensional, larger scale and more sophisticated research area, namely digital human modeling. Most of the methods are illustrated by MATLAB (TM) codes and sample graphical visualizations, offering a unique closed loop between conceptual understanding and visualization. Readers are guided through practicing and creating 3D graphics for robot arms as well as digital human models in MATLAB (TM), and through driving them for real-time animation. This work is intended to serve as a robotics textbook with an extension to digital human modeling for senior undergraduate and graduate engineering students. At the same time, it represents a comprehensive reference guide for all researchers, scientists and professionals eager to learn the fundamentals of robotic systems as well as the basic methods of digital human modeling and motion generation.

This book provides readers with alternative robust approaches to control design for an important class of systems characteristically associated with ocean-going vessels and structures. These systems, which include crane vessels, on-board cranes, radar gimbals and a conductivity temperature and depth winch, are modelled as manipulators with oscillating bases. One design approach is based on the H-infinity control framework exploiting an effective combination of PD control, an extended matrix polytope and a robust stability analysis method with a state-dependent coefficient form. The other is based on sliding-mode control using some novel nonlinear sliding surfaces. The model demonstrates how successful motion control can be achieved by suppressing base oscillations and in the presence of uncertainties. This is important not only for ocean engineering systems in which the problems addressed here originate but more generally as a benchmark platform for robust motion control with disturbance rejection. Researchers interested in the robust control of mechanical systems operating on unstable bases will find this monograph valuable. MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) programs are available for download to make the methods described in the text easier to understand and to allow readers to experience practical procedures at first hand.

This monograph provides comprehensive guidelines on the current and future trends of innovative simulation systems. In particular, their important components, such as augmented reality and unmanned vehicles are presented. The book consists of three parts. Each part presents good practices, new methods, concepts of systems and new algorithms. Presented challenges and solutions are the results of research and conducted by the contributing authors. The book describes and evaluates the current state of knowledge in the field of innovative simulation systems. Throughout the chapters there are presented current issues and concepts of systems, technology, equipment, tools, research challenges and current, past and future applications of simulation systems. The book is addressed to a wide audience: academic staff, representatives of research institutions, employees of companies and government agencies as well as students and graduates of technical universities in the country and abroad. The book can be a valuable source of information for constructors and developers of innovative simulation systems and their components. Scientists and researchers involved in mechanics, control algorithms, image processing, computer vision or data fusion can find many valuable suggestions and solutions.

The primary aim of this volume is to provide researchers and engineers from both academic and industry with up-to-date coverage of new results in the field of robotic welding, intelligent systems and automation. The book is mainly based on papers selected from the 2014 International Conference on Robotic Welding, Intelligence and Automation (RWIA'2014), held Oct. 25-27, 2014, at Shanghai, China. The articles show that the intelligentized welding manufacturing (IWM) is becoming an inevitable trend with the intelligentized robotic welding as the key technology. The volume is divided into four logical parts: Intelligent Techniques for Robotic Welding, Sensing of Arc Welding Processing, Modeling and Intelligent Control of Welding Processing, as well as Intelligent Control and its Applications in Engineering.

This book presents interdisciplinary research that pursues the mutual enrichment of neuroscience and robotics. Building on experimental work, and on the wealth of literature regarding the two cortical pathways of visual processing - the dorsal and ventral streams - we define and implement, computationally and on a real robot, a functional model of the brain areas involved in vision-based grasping actions. Grasping in robotics is largely an unsolved problem, and we show how the bio-inspired approach is successful in dealing with some fundamental issues of the task. Our robotic system can safely perform grasping actions on different unmodeled objects, denoting especially reliable visual and visuomotor skills. The computational model and the robotic experiments help in validating theories on the mechanisms employed by the brain areas more directly involved in grasping actions. This book offers new insights and research hypotheses regarding such mechanisms, especially for what concerns the interaction between the dorsal and ventral streams. Moreover, it helps in establishing a common research framework for neuroscientists and roboticists regarding research on brain functions.

This paper collection is the second volume of the LNMOB series on Road Vehicle Automation. The book contains a comprehensive review of current technical, socio-economic, and legal perspectives written by experts coming from public authorities, companies and universities in the U.S., Europe and Japan. It originates from the Automated Vehicle Symposium 2014, which was jointly organized by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Burlingame, CA, in July 2014. The contributions discuss the challenges arising from the integration of highly automated and self-driving vehicles into the transportation system, with a focus on human factors and different deployment scenarios. This book is an indispensable source of information for academic researchers, industrial engineers, and policy makers interested in the topic of road vehicle automation.

This book starts with a short recapitulation on basic concepts, common to any types of robots (serial, tree structure, parallel, etc.), that are also necessary for computation of the dynamic models of parallel robots. Then, as dynamics requires the use of geometry and kinematics, the general equations of geometric and kinematic models of parallel robots are given. After, it is explained that parallel robot dynamic models can be obtained by decomposing the real robot into two virtual systems: a tree-structure robot (equivalent to the robot legs for which all joints would be actuated) plus a free body corresponding to the platform. Thus, the dynamics of rigid tree-structure robots is analyzed and algorithms to obtain their dynamic models in the most compact form are given. The dynamic model of the real rigid parallel robot is obtained by closing the loops through the use of the Lagrange multipliers. The problem of the dynamic model degeneracy near singularities is treated and optimal trajectory planning for crossing singularities is proposed. Lastly, the approach is extended to flexible parallel robots and the algorithms for computing their symbolic model in the most compact form are given. All theoretical developments are validated through experiments.

This book contains papers on a wide range of topics in the area of kinematics, mechanisms, robotics, and design, addressing new research advances and innovations in design education. The content is divided into five main categories headed 'Historical Perspectives', 'Kinematics and Mechanisms', 'Robotic Systems', 'Legged Locomotion', and 'Design Engineering Education'. Contributions take the form of survey articles, historical perspectives, commentaries on trends on education or research, original research contributions, and papers on design education. This volume celebrates the achievements of Professor Kenneth Waldron who has made innumerable and invaluable contributions to these fields in the last fifty years. His leadership and his pioneering work have influenced thousands of people in this discipline.

The book written by Dr. Radu B. Rusu presents a detailed description of 3D Semantic Mapping in the context of mobile robot manipulation. As autonomous robotic platforms get more sophisticated manipulation capabilities, they also need more expressive and comprehensive environment models that include the objects present in the world, together with their position, form, and other semantic aspects, as well as interpretations of these objects with respect to the robot tasks. The book proposes novel 3D feature representations called Point Feature Histograms (PFH), as well as a frameworks for the acquisition and processing of Semantic 3D Object Maps with contributions to robust registration, fast segmentation into regions, and reliable object detection, categorization, and reconstruction. These contributions have been fully implemented and empirically evaluated on different robotic systems, and have been the original kernel to the widely successful open-source project the Point Cloud Library (PCL) -- see http://pointclouds.org.

This book presents an Intelligent Control Architecture (ICA) to enable multiple collaborating marine vehicles to autonomously carry out underwater intervention missions. The presented ICA is generic in nature but aimed at a case study where a marine surface craft and an underwater vehicle are required to work cooperatively. It is shown that they are capable of cooperating autonomously towards the execution of complex activities since they have different but complementary capabilities. The ICA implementation is verified in simulation, and validated in trials by means of a team of autonomous marine robots. This book also presents architectural details and evaluation scenarios of the ICA, results of simulations and trials from different maritime operations, and future research directions.

This book presents some of the latest applications of new theories based on the concept of paraconsistency and correlated topics in informatics, such as pattern recognition (bioinformatics), robotics, decision-making themes, and sample size. Each chapter is self-contained, and an introductory chapter covering the logic theoretical basis is also included. The aim of the text is twofold: to serve as an introductory text on the theories and applications of new logic, and as a textbook for undergraduate or graduate-level courses in AI. Today AI frequently has to cope with problems of vagueness, incomplete and conflicting (inconsistent) information. One of the most notable formal theories for addressing them is paraconsistent (paracomplete and non-alethic) logic.

Repetitive Motion Planning and Control of Redundant Robot Manipulators presents four typical motion planning schemes based on optimization techniques, including the fundamental RMP scheme and its extensions. These schemes are unified as quadratic programs (QPs), which are solved by neural networks or numerical algorithms. The RMP schemes are demonstrated effectively by the simulation results based on various robotic models; the experiments applying the fundamental RMP scheme to a physical robot manipulator are also presented. As the schemes and the corresponding solvers presented in the book have solved the non-repetitive motion problems existing in redundant robot manipulators, it is of particular use in applying theoretical research based on the quadratic program for redundant robot manipulators in industrial situations. This book will be a valuable reference work for engineers, researchers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students in robotics fields. Yunong Zhang is a professor at The School of Information Science and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China; Zhijun Zhang is a research fellow working at the same institute.

This book presents techniques that enable mobile manipulation robots to autonomously adapt to new situations. Covers kinematic modeling and learning; self-calibration; tactile sensing and object recognition; imitation learning and programming by demonstration.

There isn't a facet of human life that has not been touched and influenced by robots and automation. What makes robots and machines versatile is their computational intelligence. While modern intelligent sensors and powerful hardware capabilities have given a huge fillip to the growth of intelligent machines, the progress in the development of algorithms for smart interaction, collaboration and pro-activeness will result in the next quantum jump. This book deals with the recent advancements in design methodologies, algorithms and implementation techniques to incorporate intelligence in robots and automation systems. Several articles deal with navigation, localization and mapping of mobile robots, a problem that engineers and researchers are grappling with all the time. Fuzzy logic, neural networks and neuro-fuzzy based techniques for real world applications have been detailed in a few articles. This edited volume is targeted to present the latest state-of-the-art computational intelligence techniques in Robotics and Automation. It is a compilation of the extended versions of the very best papers selected from the many that were presented at the 5th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (ICARA 2011) which was held in Wellington, New Zealand from 6-8 December, 2011. Scientists and engineers who work with robots and automation systems will find this book very useful and stimulating.

Provides a comprehensive overview and introduction to the concepts, methodologies, analysis, design and applications of metasynthetic computing and engineering. The author: * Presents an overview of complex systems, especially open complex giant systems such as the Internet, complex behavioural and social problems, and actionable knowledge discovery and delivery in the big data era. * Discusses ubiquitous intelligence in complex systems, including human intelligence, domain intelligence, social intelligence, network intelligence, data intelligence and machine intelligence, and their synergy through metasynthetic engineering. * Explains the concept and methodology of human-centred, human-machine-cooperated qualitative-to-quantitative metasynthesis for understanding and managing open complex giant systems, and its computing approach: metasynthetic computing. * Introduces techniques and tools for analysing and designing problem-solving systems for open complex problems and systems. Metasynthetic Computing and Engineering uses the systematology methodology in addressing system complexities in open complex giant systems, for which it may not only be effective to apply reductionism or holism. The book aims to encourage and inspire discussions, design, implementation and reflection of effective methodologies and tools for computing and engineering open complex systems and problems. Researchers, research students and practitioners in complex systems, artificial intelligence, data science, computer science, and even system science, cognitive science, behaviour science, and social science, will find this book invaluable.

This book focuses on solving different types of time-varying problems. It presents various Zhang dynamics (ZD) models by defining various Zhang functions (ZFs) in real and complex domains. It then provides theoretical analyses of such ZD models and illustrates their results. It also uses simulations to substantiate their efficacy and show the feasibility of the presented ZD approach (i.e., different ZFs leading to different ZD models), which is further applied to the repetitive motion planning (RMP) of redundant robots, showing its application potential.