This open access book reports on cutting-edge electrical engineering and microelectronics solutions to foster and support digitalization in the semiconductor industry. Based on the outcomes of the European project iDev40, which were presented at the two first conference editions of the European Advances in Digital Transformation Conference (EADCT 2018 and EADTC 2019), the book covers different, multidisciplinary aspects related to digital transformation, including technological and industrial developments, as well as human factors research and applications. Topics include modeling and simulation methods in semiconductor operations, supply chain management issues, employee training methods and workplaces optimization, as well as smart software and hardware solutions for semiconductor manufacturing. By highlighting industrially relevant developments and discussing open issues related to digital transformation, the book offers a timely, practice-oriented guide to graduate students, researchers and professionals interested in the digital transformation of manufacturing domains and work environments.

This book addresses the broad multi-disciplinary topic of robotics, and presents the basic techniques for motion and operation planning in robotics systems. Gathering contributions from experts in diverse and wide ranging fields, it offers an overview of the most recent and cutting-edge practical applications of these methodologies. It covers both theoretical and practical approaches, and elucidates the transition from theory to implementation. An extensive analysis is provided, including humanoids, manipulators, aerial robots and ground mobile robots. 'Motion and Operation Planning of Robotic Systems' addresses the following topics: *The theoretical background of robotics. *Application of motion planning techniques to manipulators, such as serial and parallel manipulators. *Mobile robots planning, including robotic applications related to aerial robots, large scale robots and traditional wheeled robots. *Motion planning for humanoid robots. An invaluable reference text for graduate students and researchers in robotics, this book is also intended for researchers studying robotics control design, user interfaces, modelling, simulation, sensors, humanoid robotics.

This book provides the reader with a clear and precise description of robotics and other systems for home automation currently on the market, and discusses their interoperability and perspectives for the near future. It shows the different standards and the development platforms used by the main service robots in an international environment. This volume provides a scientific basis for the user who is looking for the best option to suit his or her needs from the available alternatives to integrate modern technology in the digital home.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of robotics engineering, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the Latin American Symposium on Industrial and Robotic Systems (LASIRS), held in Tampico, Mexico on October-November 30-01 2019. The contributions cover all major areas of R&D and innovation in simulation, optimization, and control of robotics, such as design and optimization of robots using numerical and metaheuristic methods, autonomous and control systems, industrial compliance solutions, numerical simulations for manipulators and robots, metaheuristics applied to robotics problems, Industry 4.0, control and automation in petrochemical processes, simulation and control in aerospace and aeronautics, and education in robotics. The conference represented a unique platform to share the latest research and developments in simulation, control and optimization of robotic systems, and to promote cooperation among specialists in machine and mechanism area.

This book gives a full picture of the welding quality real-time control via arc sound information. This book presents all aspects of acoustic signal research during the welding dynamic process from the last five years. It also offers valuable and practical strategies for achieving the real-time control of welding quality via arc sound signal. Researchers, scientists, and engineers who have interests in intelligent welding could acquire intensive view and experiment procedures from the book.

Humans have always been fascinated with the concept of artificial life and the construction of machines that look and behave like people. As the field of robotics evolves, it demands continuous development of successful systems with high-performance characteristics for practical applications. Advanced Mechanics in Robotic Systems illustrates original and ambitious mechanical designs and techniques for developing new robot prototypes with successful mechanical operational skills. Case studies are focused on projects in mechatronics that have high growth expectations: humanoid robots, robotics hands, mobile robots, parallel manipulators, and human-centred robots. A good control strategy requires good mechanical design, so a chapter has also been devoted to the description of suitable methods for control architecture design. Readers of Advanced Mechanics in Robotic Systems will discover novel designs for relevant applications in robotic fields, that will be of particular interest to academic and industry-based researchers.

This is the first book to treat the analysis of 3D dynamic scenes using a stereovision system. Several approaches are described, for example two different methods for dealing with long and short sequences of images of an unknown environment including an arbitrary number of rigid mobile objects. Results obtained from stereovision systems are found to be superior to those from monocular image systems, which are often very sensitive to noise and therefore of little use in practice. It is shown thatmotion estimation can be further improved by the explicit modeling of uncertainty in geometric objects. The techniques developed in this book have been successfully demonstrated with a large number of real images in the context of visual navigation of a mobile robot.

In the concluding chapters of this book the author introduces GIM, the Global Intelligent Machine. GIM is a huge global hybrid machine, a combination of production machinery, information machinery and mechanized networks. In the future it may very well encompass all machinery on the globe. The author discusses the development of machines from the Stone Age until the present and pays particular attention to the rise of the science of machines and the development of the relationship between science and technology. The first production and information tools were invented in the Stone Age. In the Agricultural empires tools and machinery became more complex. During and after the Industrial Revolution the pace of innovation accelerated. In the 20th century the mechanization of production, information processing and networks became increasingly sophisticated. GIM is the culmination of this development. GIM is no science fiction. GIM exists and is growing and getting smarter and smarter. Individuals and institutions are trying to control parts of this giant global robot. By looking at its history and by putting GIM in the context of the current developments, this book seeks to reach a fuller understanding of this phenomenon.

Intravascular Ultrasound: From Acquisition to Advanced Quantitative Analysis covers topics of the whole imaging pipeline, ranging from the definition of the clinical problem and image acquisition systems to image processing and analysis, including the assisted clinical-decision making procedures and treatment planning (stent deployment and follow up). Atherosclerosis, a disease of the vessel wall that produces vessel narrowing and obstruction, is the major cause of cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attack or stroke. This book covers all aspects of this imaging tool that allows for the visualization of internal vessel structures and the quantification and characterization of coronary plaque.

This volume Future Control and Automation- Volume 1 includes best papers selected from 2012 2nd International Conference on Future Control and Automation (ICFCA 2012) held on July 1-2, 2012, Changsha, China. Future control and automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. This volume can be divided into five sessions on the basis of the classification of manuscripts considered, which is listed as follows: Identification and Control, Navigation, Guidance and Sensor, Simulation Technology, Future Telecommunications and Control

These proceedings present the latest information on regulations and standards for medical and non-medical devices, including wearable robots for gait training and support, design of exoskeletons for the elderly, innovations in assistive robotics, and analysis of human-machine interactions taking into account ergonomic considerations. The rapid development of key mechatronics technologies in recent years has shown that human living standards have significantly improved, and the International Conference on Wearable Sensor and Robot was held in Hangzhou, China from October 16 to 18, 2015, to present research mainly focused on personal-care robots and medical devices. The aim of the conference was to bring together academics, researchers, engineers and students from across the world to discuss state-of-the-art technologies related to various aspects of wearable sensors and robots.

Climbing robot is a challenging research topic that has gained much attention from researchers. Most of the robots reported in the literature are designed to climb on manmade structures, but seldom robots are designed for climbing natural environment such as trees. Trees and manmade structures are very different in nature. It brings different aspects of technical challenges to the robot design. In this book, you can find a collection of the cutting edge technologies in the field of tree-climbing robot and the ways that animals climb. It provides a valuable reference for robot designers to select appropriate climbing methods in designing tree-climbing robots for specific purposes. Based on the study, a novel bio-inspired tree-climbing robot with several breakthrough performances has been developed and presents in this book. It is capable of performing various actions that is impossible in the state-of-the-art tree-climbing robots, such as moving between trunk and branches. This book also proposes several approaches in autonomous tree-climbing, including the sensing methodology, cognition of the environment, path planning and motion planning on both known and unknown environment.

How can we provide guarantees of behaviours for autonomous systems such as driverless cars? This tutorial text, for professionals, researchers and graduate students, explains how autonomous systems, from intelligent robots to driverless cars, can be programmed in ways that make them amenable to formal verification. The authors review specific definitions, applications and the unique future potential of autonomous systems, along with their impact on safer decisions and ethical behaviour. Topics discussed include the use of rational cognitive agent programming from the Beliefs-Desires-Intentions paradigm to control autonomous systems and the role model-checking in verifying the properties of this decision-making component. Several case studies concerning both the verification of autonomous systems and extensions to the framework beyond the model-checking of agent decision-makers are included, along with complete tutorials for the use of the freely-available verifiable cognitive agent toolkit Gwendolen, written in Java.

The second edition of this handbook provides a state-of-the-art overview on the various aspects in the rapidly developing field of robotics. Reaching for the human frontier, robotics is vigorously engaged in the growing challenges of new emerging domains. Interacting, exploring, and working with humans, the new generation of robots will increasingly touch people and their lives. The credible prospect of practical robots among humans is the result of the scientific endeavour of a half a century of robotic developments that established robotics as a modern scientific discipline. The ongoing vibrant expansion and strong growth of the field during the last decade has fueled this second edition of the Springer Handbook of Robotics. The first edition of the handbook soon became a landmark in robotics publishing and won the American Association of Publishers PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics as well as the organization's Award for Engineering & Technology. The second edition of the handbook, edited by two internationally renowned scientists with the support of an outstanding team of seven part editors and more than 200 authors, continues to be an authoritative reference for robotics researchers, newcomers to the field, and scholars from related disciplines. The contents have been restructured to achieve four main objectives: the enlargement of foundational topics for robotics, the enlightenment of design of various types of robotic systems, the extension of the treatment on robots moving in the environment, and the enrichment of advanced robotics applications. Further to an extensive update, fifteen new chapters have been introduced on emerging topics, and a new generation of authors have joined the handbook's team. A novel addition to the second edition is a comprehensive collection of multimedia references to more than 700 videos, which bring valuable insight into the contents. The videos can be viewed directly augmented into the text with a smartphone or tablet using a unique and specially designed app. Springer Handbook of Robotics Multimedia Extension Portal: http://handbookofrobotics.org/

Robot-assisted healthcare offers benefits for repetitive, intensive and task specific training compared to traditional manual manipulation performed by physiotherapists. However, a majority of existing rehabilitation devices use rigid actuators such as electric motors or hydraulic cylinders which cannot guarantee the safety of patients; novel soft robots combining soft and compliant actuators with stiff skeletons offer a better alternative. This book focuses on the development of these soft robotics for rehabilitation purposes. Topics covered include an introduction to soft robots and the state of the art of their use in healthcare; concept and modelling of a soft rehabilitation actuator - the Peano muscle; design of the reactive Peano muscle; soft wrist rehabilitation robot; development and control of a soft ankle rehabilitation robot (SARR); design, modelling and control strategies of a gait rehabilitation exoskeleton (GAREX); and conclusions and future work. This book presents novel applications of mechatronics to provide better clinical rehabilitation services and new insights into emerging technologies utilized in soft robots for healthcare, and is essential reading for researchers and students working in these and related fields.

Consider this - Robots will one day be able to write poetry and prose so touching that it will make men weep, compose symphonies that rival the work of Mozart, judge a court case with absolute impartiality and fairness and converse with the natural ease of your best friend. Robots will one day be so life-like that a human could fall in love and marry one. Is it thought provoking and controversial? Certainly. Is it far fetched? Not at all. In this popular approach to understanding Al, David Levy lays the factual foundations for his intriguing speculations by presenting the history of Al from its inception. He then considers recent advance and makes predictions for the future of Al.

Robots That Talk and Listen provides a forward-looking examination of speech and language in robots from technical, functional, and social perspectives. Contributors address cultural foundations as well as the linguistic skills and technologies that robots need to function effectively in real-world settings. Among the most difficult and complex is the ability to understand and use language. Speech-enabled automata are already serving as interactive toys, teacher's aides, and research assistants. These robots will soon be joined by personal companions, industrial co-workers, and military support automata. The social impact of these and other robots extends well beyond the specific tasks they perform. Contributors tackle the most knotty of those issues, notably acceptance of advanced, speech-enabled robots and developing ethical and moral controls for robots. Topics in this book include: * Language and Beyond: The True Meaning of "Speech Enabled" * Robots in Myth and Media * Enabling Robots to Converse * Language Learning by Automata * Handling Noisy Settings * Empirical Studies of Robots in Real-World Environments * Acceptance of Intelligent Robots * Managing Robots that Can Lie and Deceive * Envisioning a World Shared with Intelligent Robots

A beyond human knowledge and reach, robotics is strongly involved in tackling challenges of new emerging multidisciplinary fields. Together with humans, robots are busy exploring and working on the new generation of ideas and problems whose solution is otherwise impossible to find. The future is near when robots will sense, smell and touch people and their lives. Behind this practical aspect of human-robotics, there is a half a century spanned robotics research, which transformed robotics into a modern science. The Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality is a compilation of emerging application areas of robotics. The book covers robotics role in medicine, space exploration and also explains the role of virtual reality as a non-destructive test bed which constitutes a premise of further advances towards new challenges in robotics. This book, edited by two famous scientists with the support of an outstanding team of fifteen authors, is a well suited reference for robotics researchers and scholars from related disciplines such as computer graphics, virtual simulation, surgery, biomechanics and neuroscience.

Cognitive Scienceis a discipline that brings together research in natural and artificial systems and this is clearly reflected in the diverse contributions to "From Animals to Robots and Back."

In tribute to Aaron Sloman and his pioneering work in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, the editors have collected a unique collection of cross-disciplinary papers that include work on:

. intelligent robotics;

. philosophy of cognitive science;

. emotional research

. computational vision;

. comparative psychology; and

. human-computer interaction.

Key themes such as the importance of taking an architectural view in approaching cognition, run through the text. Drawing on the expertize of leading international researchers, contemporary debates in the study of natural and artificial cognition are addressed from complementary and contrasting perspectives with key issues being outlined at various levels of abstraction.

"From Animals to Robots and Back," will give readers with backgrounds in the study of both natural and artificial cognition an important window on the state of the art in cognitive systems research."

This book covers the start-of-the-art research and development for the emerging area of autonomous and intelligent systems. In particular, the authors emphasize design and validation methodologies to address the grand challenges related to safety. This book offers a holistic view of a broad range of technical aspects (including perception, localization and navigation, motion control, etc.) and application domains (including automobile, aerospace, etc.), presents major challenges and discusses possible solutions.

Algorithms that control the computational processes relating sensors and actuators are indispensable for robot navigation and the perception of the world in which they move. Therefore, a deep understanding of how algorithms work to achieve this control is essential for the development of efficient and usable robots in a broad field of applications. An interdisciplinary group of scientists gathers every two years to document the progress in algorithmic foundations of robotics. This volume addresses in particular the areas of control theory, computational and differential geometry in robotics, and applications to core problems such as motion planning, navigation, sensor-based planning, and manipulation.

In this book Part I presents first an overview of the ECHORD++ project, with its mission and vision together with a detailed structure of its functionalities and instruments: Experiments, Robotic Innovation Facilities and Public end-user Driven Technology Innovation PDTI. Chapter 1 explains how the project is born, the partners, the different instruments and the new concept of cascade funding projects. This novelty made ECHORD++ a special project along the huge number of research groups and consortia involved in the whole project. So far, it is the European funded project with more research team and partners involved in the robotic field. In Chapter 2, one of the instruments in ECHORD++ is explained in detail: RIF. Robotic innovation facilities are a set of laboratories across Europe funded with the project with the goal of hosting consortia involved in any experiment that have special needs when testing their robotic research. In the chapter the three different and specific RIFs will be described and analyzed. Chapter 3 explains an important instrument in ECHORD++: the Experiments. In this part, a big number of research groups have been involve in short time funded research projects. The chapter explains the management of such Experiments, from the call for participation, the candidate's selection, the monitoring, reviews and funding for each of the 36 experiments funded for Echord. Chapter 4 is very special because it presents the innovation of funding public end-user driven technology, in particular, robotic technology. The robotic challenge is the key of such an instruments together with the management of the different consortia that participated competitively in the success of the robotic challenge proposed by a public entity, selected also with a very special and innovative process.