The proceedings provide state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of mobile robotics and assistive technologies. The proceedings collected together peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2013 conference. It contains a strong showing of articles on legged locomotion with numbers of legs from two onwards. There is also a good collection of articles on systems that walls climbing, poles balancing, and other more complex structures following the traditional of CLAWAR themes. In addition, the proceedings also cover the subject of robot-human interaction, which focus on a more "human" way of communicating with humanoid robots. As for human assistive devices, proceedings also cover exoskeletal and prosthetic devices, robots for personal and nursing cares to address the issues of ageing population in our society. Finally, the issue of the deployment of robots in society, it social and ethically consideration are also addressed in the proceedings.

This book systematically introduces the bionic nature of force sensing and control, the biomechanical principle on mechanism of force generation and control of skeletal muscle, and related applications in robotic exoskeleton. The book focuses on three main aspects: muscle force generation principle and biomechanical model, exoskeleton robot technology based on skeletal muscle biomechanical model, and SMA-based bionic skeletal muscle technology. This comprehensive and in-depth book presents the author's research experience and achievements of many years to readers in an effort to promote academic exchanges in this field. About the Author Yuehong Yin received his B.E. , M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, in 1990, 1995 and 1997, respectively, all in mechanical engineering. From December 1997 to December 1999, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, where he became an Associate Professor in July 1999. Since December 1999, he has been with the Robotics Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, where he became a Professor and a Tenure Professor in December 2005 and January 2016, respectively. His research interests include robotics, force control, exoskeleton robot, molecular motor, artificial limb, robotic assembly, reconfigurable assembly system, and augmented reality. Dr. Yin is a fellow of the International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP).

An exponentially growing industry, human robot interaction (HRI) research has drawn predominantly upon psychologists' descriptions of mechanisms of face-to-face dyadic interactions. This book considers how social robotics is beginning unwittingly to confront an impasse that has been a perennial dilemma for psychology, associated with the historical 'science vs. art' debate. Raya Jones examines these paradigmatic tensions, and, in tandem, considers ways in which the technology-centred discourse both reflects and impacts upon understanding our relational nature. Chapters in the book explore not only how the technology-centred discourse constructs machines as us, but also how humans feature in this discourse. Focusing on how the social interaction is conceptualised when the human-robot interaction is discussed, this book addresses issues such as the long-term impact on persons and society, authenticity of relationships, and challenges to notions of personhood. By leaving aside terminological issues, Jones attempts to transcend ritual of pitching theories against each other in order to comprehensively analyse terms such as subjectivity, self and personhood and their fluid interplay in the world that we inhabit. Personhood and Social Robotics will be a key text for postgraduate students, researchers and scholars interested in the connection between technology and human psychology, including psychologists, science and technology studies scholars, media studies scholars and humanists. The book will also be of interest to roboticists and HRI researchers, as well as those studying or working in areas of artificial intelligence and interactive technologies more generally.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel are some of the most highly trained people in the military, with a job description that spans defusing unexploded ordnance to protecting VIP's and state dignitaries. EOD are also one of the first military groups to work with robots every day. These robots have become an increasingly important tool in EOD work, enabling people to work at safer distances in many dangerous situations. Based on exploratory research investigating interactions between EOD personnel and the robots they use, this study richly describes the nuances of these reciprocal influences, especially those related to operator emotion associated with the robots. In particular, this book examines the activities, processes and contexts that influence or constrain everyday EOD human-robot interactions, what human factors are shaping the (robotic) technology and how people and culture are being changed by using it. The findings from this research have implications for future personnel training, and the refinement of robot design considerations for many fields that rely on critical small group communication and decision-making skills.

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/

Social robotics is a cutting edge research area gathering researchers and stakeholders from various disciplines and organizations. The transformational potential that these machines, in the form of, for example, caregiving, entertainment or partner robots, pose to our societies and to us as individuals seems to be limited by our technical limitations and phantasy alone. This collection contributes to the field of social robotics by exploring its boundaries from a philosophically informed standpoint. It constructively outlines central potentials and challenges and thereby also provides a stable fundament for further research of empirical, qualitative or methodological nature.

This book introduces several observer-based methods, including: * the sliding-mode observer * the adaptive observer * the unknown-input observer and * the descriptor observer method for the problem of fault detection, isolation and estimation, allowing readers to compare and contrast the different approaches. The authors present basic material on Lyapunov stability theory, HY control theory, sliding-mode control theory and linear matrix inequality problems in a self-contained and step-by-step manner. Detailed and rigorous mathematical proofs are provided for all the results developed in the text so that readers can quickly gain a good understanding of the material. MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) codes for all the examples, which can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com, enable students to follow the methods and illustrative examples easily. The systems used in the examples make the book highly relevant to real-world problems in industrial control engineering and include a seventh-order aircraft model, a single-link flexible joint robot arm and a satellite controller. To help readers quickly find the information they need and to improve readability, the individual chapters are written so as to be semi-independent of each other. Robust Oberserver-Based Fault Diagnosis for Nonlinear Systems Using MATLAB (R) is of interest to process, aerospace, robotics and control engineers, engineering students and researchers with a control engineering background.

As robots are used more and more to perform a variety of tasks in a range of fields, it is imperative to make the robots as reliable and safe as possible. Yet no book currently covers robot reliability and safety within one framework. Robot System Reliability and Safety: A Modern Approach presents up-to-date information on robot reliability, safety, and related areas in a single volume, eliminating the need to consult diverse sources. After introducing historical, mathematical, and introductory aspects, the book presents methods for analyzing robot system reliability and safety. It next focuses on topics related to robot reliability, including classifications of robot failures and their causes and hydraulic and electric robots' reliability analysis. The book then explains the analysis of robot-related safety and accidents, covers key elements of robot maintenance and robotics applications in maintenance and repair, and addresses human factors and safety considerations in robotics workplaces. The book concludes with chapters on robot testing, costing, and failure data as well as six mathematical models for reliability and safety analysis. Written by a well-known expert in reliability engineering, this book will be useful to system, design, reliability, and safety engineers along with other engineering professionals working in the area of robotics. It can also be used in courses on system engineering, reliability engineering, and safety engineering.

This volume of the SPAR series brings the proceedings of the fourteen edition of the DARS symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems, whose proceedings have been published within SPAR since the past edition. This symposium took place in Boulder, CO from October 15th to 17th, 2018. The volume edited by Nikolaus Correll and Mac Schwager contains 36 scientific contributions cutting across planning, control, design, perception, networking, and optimization, all united through the common thread of distributed robotic systems.

Design of Observer-based Compensators facilitates and adds transparency to design in the frequency domain which is not as well-established among control engineers as time domain design. The presentation of the design procedures starts with a review of the time domain results; therefore, the book also provides quick access to state space methods for control system design.

Frequency domain design of observer-based compensators of all orders is covered. The design of decoupling and disturbance rejecting controllers is presented, and solutions are given to the linear quadratic and the model matching problems. The pole assignment design is facilitated by a new parametric approach in the frequency domain. Anti-windup control is also investigated in the framework of the polynomial approach. The discrete-time results for disturbance rejection and linear quadratic control are also presented.

The book contains worked examples that can easily be reproduced by the reader, and the results are illustrated by simulations.

Interested in cutting costs and improving the quality of your manufacturing processes to stay competitive?

Unsure about what others have done, what s possible or how best to integrate robots into what you do?

Worried about making costly errors in trying to implement new technology?

Based on the author s wide-ranging experience as a robot user, supplier and consultant, Implementation of Robot Systems will enable you to approach the use of robots in your plant or facility armed with the right base knowledge and awareness of critical factors to take into account.

Written to assist engineers and managers across various industries in applying robot solutions to real-world manufacturing problems, the book starts with the basics of typical applications and robot capabilities before covering all stages of successful robot integration. Potential problems and pitfalls are flagged and worked through so that you can learn from others mistakes and plan proactively with possible issues in mind.

Taking in content from the author s graduate level teaching of automation and robotics for engineering in business and his consultancy as part of a UK Government program to help companies advance their technologies and practices in the area, Implementation of Robot Systems blends technical information with critical financial and business considerations to help you stay ahead of the competition.
Introduces the key technologies in use and their benefits, focusing on the knowledge needed to enable application to your manufacturing problems

Includes case studies of typical robot capabilities and use across a range of industries, with real-world installation examples and problems encountered

Provides step-by-step coverage of the various stages required to achieve successful implementation, including system design, financial justification, working with suppliers and project management

Offers no-nonsense advice on the pitfalls and issues to anticipate, along with guidance on how to avoid or resolve them for a cost- and time-effective solution "

This book explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI), by leading to an increase in the autonomy of machines and robots, is offering opportunities for an expanded but uncertain impact on society by humans, machines, and robots. To help readers better understand the relationships between AI, autonomy, humans and machines that will help society reduce human errors in the use of advanced technologies (e.g., airplanes, trains, cars), this edited volume presents a wide selection of the underlying theories, computational models, experimental methods, and field applications. While other literature deals with these topics individually, this book unifies the fields of autonomy and AI, framing them in the broader context of effective integration for human-autonomous machine and robotic systems. The contributions, written by world-class researchers and scientists, elaborate on key research topics at the heart of effective human-machine-robot-systems integration. These topics include, for example, computational support for intelligence analyses; the challenge of verifying today's and future autonomous systems; comparisons between today's machines and autism; implications of human information interaction on artificial intelligence and errors; systems that reason; the autonomy of machines, robots, buildings; and hybrid teams, where hybrid reflects arbitrary combinations of humans, machines and robots. The contributors span the field of autonomous systems research, ranging from industry and academia to government. Given the broad diversity of the research in this book, the editors strove to thoroughly examine the challenges and trends of systems that implement and exhibit AI; the social implications of present and future systems made autonomous with AI; systems with AI seeking to develop trusted relationships among humans, machines, and robots; and the effective human systems integration that must result for trust in these new systems and their applications to increase and to be sustained.

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.

- Written by world-leading subject specialist in both sport management and artificial intelligence - Includes interviews with elite sports managers and coaches - Examines the competitive advantages offered by AI to a wide-range of areas including Recruitment, Performance & Tactics, Health & Fitness, Pedagogy, Broadcasting, eSports, Gambling, and Stadium Design

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.

This book includes extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers from the Ninth International Conference on Informatics in Control Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2012), held in Rome, Italy, from 28 to 31 July 2012. The conference was organized in four simultaneous tracks: Intelligent Control Systems and Optimization, Robotics and Automation, Systems Modeling, Signal Processing and Control and Industrial Engineering, Production and Management. ICINCO 2012 received 360 paper submissions, from 58 countries in all continents. From these, after a blind review process, only 40 were accepted as full papers, of which 20 were selected for inclusion in this book, based on the classifications provided by the Program Committee. The selected papers reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as well as the logic equilibrium between the four abovementioned tracks. The diversity of topics is an important feature of this conference, enabling an overall perception of several important scientific and technological trends.

This book provides detailed fundamental theoretical reviews and preparations necessary for developing advanced dynamics modeling and control strategies for various types of robotic systems. This research book specifically addresses and discusses the uniqueness issue of representing orientation or rotation, and further proposes an innovative isometric embedding approach. The novel approach can not only reduce the dynamic formulation for robotic systems into a compact form, but it also offers a new way to realize the orientational trajectory-tracking control procedures. In addition, the book gives a comprehensive introduction to fundamentals of mathematics and physics that are required for modeling robot dynamics and developing effective control algorithms. Many computer simulations and realistic 3D animations to verify the new theories and algorithms are included in the book as well. It also presents and discusses the principle of duality involved in robot kinematics, statics, and dynamics. The duality principle can guide the dynamics modeling and analysis into a right direction for a variety of robotic systems in different types from open serial-chain to closed parallel-chain mechanisms. It intends to serve as a diversified research reference to a wide range of audience, including undergraduate juniors and seniors, graduate students, researchers, and engineers interested in the areas of robotics, control and applications.

2016 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Automation (EEA2016) was held in Hong Kong, China from June 24th-26th, 2016. EEA2016 has provided a platform for leading academic scientists, researchers, scholars and students around the world, to get together to compare notes, and share their results and findings, in areas of Electronics Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Materials and Mechanical Engineering, Control and Automation Modeling and Simulation, Testing and Imaging, Robotics, Actuating and Sensoring.The conference had received a total of 445 submissions. However, after peer review by the Technical Program Committee only 129 were selected to be included in this conference proceedings; based on their originality, ability to test ideas, and contribution to the understanding and advancement in Electronics and Electrical Engineering.

This book will offer ideas on how robots can be used as teachers' assistants to scaffold learning outcomes, where the robot is a learning agent in self-directed learning who can contribute to the development of key competences for today's world through targeted learning - such as engineering thinking, math, physics, computational thinking, etc. starting from pre-school and continuing to a higher education level. Robotization is speeding up at the moment in a variety of dimensions, both through the automation of work, by performing intellectual duties, and by providing support for people in everyday situations. There is increasing political attention, especially in Europe, on educational systems not being able to keep up with such emerging technologies, and efforts to rectify this. This edited volume responds to this attention, and seeks to explore which pedagogical and educational concepts should be included in the learning process so that the use of robots is meaningful from the point of view of knowledge construction, and so that it is safe from the technological and cybersecurity perspective.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."