This volume presents the proceedings of the Joint International Conference of the XII International Conference on Mechanisms and Mechanical Transmissions (MTM) and the XXIII International Conference on Robotics (Robotics '16), that was held in Aachen, Germany, October 26th-27th, 2016. It contains applications of mechanisms and transmissions in several modern technical fields such as mechatronics, biomechanics, machines, micromachines, robotics and apparatus. In connection with these fields, the work combines the theoretical results with experimental testing. The book presents reviewed papers developed by researchers specialized in mechanisms analysis and synthesis, dynamics of mechanisms and machines, mechanical transmissions, biomechanics, precision mechanics, mechatronics, micromechanisms and microactuators, computational and experimental methods, CAD in mechanism and machine design, mechanical design of robot architecture, parallel robots, mobile robots, micro and nano robots, sensors and actuators in robotics, intelligent control systems, biomedical engineering, teleoperation, haptics, and virtual reality.

From an engineering standpoint, the increasing complexity of robotic systems and the increasing demand for more autonomously learning robots, has become essential. This book is largely based on the successful workshop "From motor to interaction learning in robots" held at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robot Systems. The major aim of the book is to give students interested the topics described above a chance to get started faster and researchers a helpful compandium.

The primary aim of this volume is to provide researchers and engineers from both academia and industry with up-to-date coverage of recent advances in the fields of robotic welding, intelligent systems and automation. It gathers selected papers from the 2018 International Conference on Robotic Welding, Intelligence and Automation (RWIA 2018), held Oct 20-22, 2018 in Guangzhou, China. The contributions reveal how intelligentized welding manufacturing (IWM) is becoming an inescapable trend, just as intelligentized robotic welding is becoming a key technology. The volume is divided into four main parts: Intelligent Techniques for Robotic Welding, Sensing in Arc Welding Processing, Modeling and Intelligent Control of Welding Processing, and Intelligent Control and its Applications in Engineering.

This work addresses the challenge of providing effective cutaneous haptic feedback in robotic teleoperation, with the objective of achieving the highest degree of transparency whilst guaranteeing the stability of the considered systems. On the one hand, it evaluates teleoperation systems that provide only cutaneous cues to the operator, thus guaranteeing the highest degree of safety. This cutaneous-only approach shows intermediate performance between no force feedback and full haptic feedback provided by a grounded haptic interface, and it is best suitable for those scenarios where the safety of the system is paramount, e.g., robotic surgery. On the other hand, in order to achieve a higher level of performance, this work also investigates novel robotic teleoperation systems with force reflection able to provide mixed cutaneous and kinesthetic cues to the operator. Cutaneous cues can compensate for the temporary reduction of kinesthetic feedback necessary to satisfy certain stability conditions. This state-of-the-art volume is oriented toward researchers, educators, and students who are interested in force feedback techniques for robotic teleoperation, cutaneous device design, cutaneous rendering methods and perception studies, as well as readers from different disciplines who are interested in applying cutaneous haptic technologies and methods to their field of interest.

This volume gathers the peer reviewed papers presented at the 4th edition of the International Workshop "Service Orientation in Holonic and Multi-agent Manufacturing - SOHOMA'14" organized and hosted on November 5-6, 2014 by the University of Lorraine, France in collaboration with the CIMR Research Centre of the University Politehnica of Bucharest and the TEMPO Laboratory of the University of Valenciennes and Hainaut-Cambresis. The book is structured in six parts, each one covering a specific research line which represents a trend in future manufacturing: (1) Holonic and Agent-based Industrial Automation Systems; (2) Service-oriented Management and Control of Manufacturing Systems; (3) Distributed Modelling for Safety and Security in Industrial Systems; (4) Complexity, Big Data and Virtualization in Computing-oriented Manufacturing; (5) Adaptive, Bio-inspired and Self-organizing Multi-Agent Systems for Manufacturing and (6) Physical Internet Simulation, Modelling and Control. There is a clear orientation of the SOHOMA'14 workshop towards complexity, which is a common view of all six parts. There is need for a framework allowing the development of manufacturing cyber physical systems including capabilities for complex event processing and data analytics which are expected to move the manufacturing domain closer towards cloud manufacturing within contextual enterprises. Recent advances in sensor, communication and intelligent computing technologies made possible the Internet connectivity of the physical world: the Physical Internet, where not only documents and images are created, shared, or modified in the cyberspace, but also the physical resources and products interact over Internet and make decisions based on shared communication.

The emergence of mechatronics has advanced the engineering disciplines, producing a plethora of useful technical systems. Advanced Engineering and Computational Methodologies for Intelligent Mechatronics and Robotics presents the latest innovations and technologies in the fields of mechatronics and robotics. These innovations are applied to a wide range of applications for robotic-assisted manufacturing, complex systems, and many more. This publication is essential to bridge the gap between theory and practice for researchers, engineers, and practitioners from academia to government.

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.

The papers in this volume provide a vision of the evolution of the robotics disciplines and indicate new directions in which these disciplines are foreseen to develop. Paper topics include, but are not limited to, novel robot design and robot modules/components, service, education, medical, space, welfare and rescue robots, humanoid robots, bio-robotics, multi-robot, embodied multi-agent systems, challenges in control, modeling, kinematical and dynamical analysis of robotic systems, innovations in sensor systems for robots and perception, and recent advances in robotics. In particular, many contributions on humanoid robots from leading Japanese researchers are included.

This volume comprises selected extended papers written by prominent researchers participating in the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2015, Hong Kong, 18-20 March 2015. The conference served as a platform for discussion of frontier topics in theoretical and applied engineering and computer science, and subjects covered include communications systems, control theory and automation, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, data mining, engineering mathematics, scientific computing, engineering physics, electrical engineering, and industrial applications. The book describes the state-of-the-art in engineering technologies and computer science and its applications, and will serve as an excellent reference for industrial and academic researchers and graduate students working in these fields.

Furthering the aim of reducing human exposure to hazardous environments, this monograph presents a detailed study of the modeling and control of vehicle-manipulator systems. The text shows how complex interactions can be performed at remote locations using systems that combine the manipulability of robotic manipulators with the ability of mobile robots to locomote over large areas. The first part studies the kinematics and dynamics of rigid bodies and standard robotic manipulators and can be used as an introduction to robotics focussing on robust mathematical modeling. The monograph then moves on to study vehicle-manipulator systems in great detail with emphasis on combining two different configuration spaces in a mathematically sound way. Robustness of these systems is extremely important and Modeling and Control of Vehicle-manipulator Systems effectively represents the dynamic equations using a mathematically robust framework. Several tools from Lie theory and differential geometry are used to obtain globally valid representations of the dynamic equations of vehicle-manipulator systems. The specific characteristics of several different types of vehicle-manipulator systems are included and the various application areas of these systems are discussed in detail. For underwater robots buoyancy and gravity, drag forces, added mass properties, and ocean currents are considered. For space robotics the effects of free fall environments and the strong dynamic coupling between the spacecraft and the manipulator are discussed. For wheeled robots wheel kinematics and non-holonomic motion is treated, and finally the inertial forces are included for robots mounted on a forced moving base. Modeling and Control of Vehicle-manipulator Systems will be of interest to researchers and engineers studying and working on many applications of robotics: underwater, space, personal assistance, and mobile manipulation in general, all of which have similarities in the equations required for modeling and control.

In this book, a generic model in as far as possible mathematical closed-formis developed that predicts the behavior of large self-organizing robot groups (robot swarms) based on their control algorithm. In addition, an extensive subsumption of the relatively young and distinctive interdisciplinary research field of swarm robotics is emphasized. The connection to many related fields is highlighted and the concepts and methods borrowed from these fields are described shortly.

This book is devoted to the state-of-the-art in all aspects of fireworks algorithm (FWA), with particular emphasis on the efficient improved versions of FWA. It describes the most substantial theoretical analysis including basic principle and implementation of FWA and modeling and theoretical analysis of FWA. It covers exhaustively the key recent significant research into the improvements of FWA so far. In addition, the book describes a few advanced topics in the research of FWA, including multi-objective optimization (MOO), discrete FWA (DFWA) for combinatorial optimization, and GPU-based FWA for parallel implementation. In sequels, several successful applications of FWA on non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), text clustering, pattern recognition, and seismic inversion problem, and swarm robotics, are illustrated in details, which might shed new light on more real-world applications in future. Addressing a multidisciplinary topic, it will appeal to researchers and professionals in the areas of metahuristics, swarm intelligence, evolutionary computation, complex optimization solving, etc.

This important work is an attempt to synthesize two areas that need to be treated in tandem. The book brings together the fields of robot spatial mapping and cognitive spatial mapping, which share some common core problems. One would expect some cross-fertilization of research between the two areas to have occurred, yet this has begun only recently. There are now signs that some synthesis is happening, so this work is a timely one for students and engineers in robotics.

Focuses on acquiring spatial models of physical environments through mobile robots

The robotic mapping problem is commonly referred to as SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping).

3D maps are necessary to avoid collisions with complex obstacles and to self-localize in six degrees of freedom (x-, y-, z-position, roll, yaw and pitch angle)

New solutions to the 6D SLAM problem for 3D laser scans are proposed and a wide variety of applications are presented

"This book presents the result of a joint effort from different European Institutions within the framework of the EU funded project called SPARK II, devoted to device an insect brain computational model, useful to be embedded into autonomous robotic agents.
"Part I reports the biological background on Drosophila melanogaster with particular attention to the main centers which are used as building blocks for the implementation of the insect brain computational model.
Part II reports the mathematical approach to model the Central Pattern Generator used for the gait generation in a six-legged robot. Also the Reaction-diffusion principles in non-linear lattices are exploited to develop a compact internal representation of a dynamically changing environment for behavioral planning.
In Part III a software/hardware framework, developed to integrate the insect brain computational model in a simulated/real robotic platform, is illustrated. The different robots used for the experiments are also described. Moreover the problems related to the vision system were addressed proposing robust solutions for object identification and feature extraction.
Part IV includes the relevant scenarios used in the experiments to test the capabilities of the insect brain-inspired architecture taking as comparison the biological case. Experimental results are finally reported, whose multimedia can be found in the SPARK II web page: "www.spark2.diees.unict.it
"

Industrial machines, automobiles, airplanes, robots, and machines are among the myriad possible hosts of embedded systems. The author researches robotic vehicles and remote operated vehicles (ROVs), especially Underwater Robotic Vehicles (URVs), used for a wide range of applications such as exploring oceans, monitoring environments, and supporting operations in extreme environments. Embedded Mechatronics System Design for Uncertain Environments has been prepared for those who seek to easily develop and design embedded systems for control purposes in robotic vehicles. It reflects the multidisciplinarily of embedded systems from initial concepts (mechanical and electrical) to the modelling and simulation (mathematical relationships), creating graphical-user interface (software) and their actual implementations (mechatronics system testing). The author proposes new solutions for the prototyping, simulation, testing, and design of real-time systems using standard PC hardware including Linux (R), Raspbian (R), ARDUINO (R), and MATLAB (R) xPC Target.

Incorporating intelligence in industrial systems can help to increase productivity, cut-off production costs, and to improve working conditions and safety in industrial environments. This need has resulted in the rapid development of modeling and control methods for industrial systems and robots, of fault detection and isolation methods for the prevention of critical situations in industrial work-cells and production plants, of optimization methods aiming at a more profitable functioning of industrial installations and robotic devices and of machine intelligence methods aiming at reducing human intervention in industrial systems operation. To this end, the book analyzes and extends some main directions of research in modeling and control for industrial systems. These are: (i) industrial robots, (ii) mobile robots and autonomous vehicles, (iii) adaptive and robust control of electromechanical systems, (iv) filtering and stochastic estimation for multisensor fusion and sensorless control of industrial systems (iv) fault detection and isolation in robotic and industrial systems, (v) optimization in industrial automation and robotic systems design, and (vi) machine intelligence for robots autonomy. The book will be a useful companion to engineers and researchers since it covers a wide spectrum of problems in the area of industrial systems. Moreover, the book is addressed to undergraduate and post-graduate students, as an upper-level course supplement of automatic control and robotics courses.

Many computer scientists, engineers, applied mathematicians, and physicists use geometry theory and geometric computing methods in the design of perception-action systems, intelligent autonomous systems, and man-machine interfaces. This handbook brings together the most recent advances in the application of geometric computing for building such systems, with contributions from leading experts in the important fields of neuroscience, neural networks, image processing, pattern recognition, computer vision, uncertainty in geometric computations, conformal computational geometry, computer graphics and visualization, medical imagery, geometry and robotics, and reaching and motion planning. For the first time, the various methods are presented in a comprehensive, unified manner.

This handbook is highly recommended for postgraduate students and researchers working on applications such as automated learning; geometric and fuzzy reasoning; human-like artificial vision; tele-operation; space maneuvering; haptics; rescue robots; man-machine interfaces; tele-immersion; computer- and robotics-aided neurosurgery or orthopedics; the assembly and design of humanoids; and systems for metalevel reasoning.

Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation introduces a new approach to the modeling of fingertips that have a soft pad and a hard back plate, similar to human fingers. Starting from the observation of soft-fingered grasping and manipulation, the book provides a parallel distributed model that takes into account tangential deformation of the fingertips. The model is supported with many experimental verifications and simulation results. Statics and dynamics in soft-fingered grasping and manipulation are also formulated based on this new model. The book uniquely investigates how soft fingertips with hard back plates enhance dexterity in grasping and manipulation, theoretically and experimentally, revealing the differences between soft-fingered and rigid-fingered manipulation. Researchers involved in object manipulation by robotic hands, as well as in human dexterity in object manipulation, will find this text enlightening.

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) now provide mature optimization tools that have successfully been applied to many problems, from designing antennas to complete robots, and provided many human-competitive results. In robotics, the integration of EAs within the engineer's toolbox made tremendous progress in the last 20 years and proposes new methods to address challenging problems in various setups: modular robotics, swarm robotics, robotics with non-conventional mechanics (e.g. high redundancy, dynamic motion, multi-modality), etc. This book takes its roots in the workshop on "New Horizons in Evolutionary Design of Robots" that brought together researchers from Computer Science and Robotics during the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS-2009) in Saint Louis (USA). This book features extended contributions from the workshop, thus providing various examples of current problems and applications, with a special emphasis on the link between Computer Science and Robotics. It also provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to Evolutionary Robotics after 20 years of maturation as well as thoughts and considerations from several major actors in the field. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the current trends and challenges in Evolutionary Robotics for the next decade.

1 Grundlagen der Dynamik regelungstechnischer Systeme.- 1.1 Allgemeine Zielsetzung der Regelungstechnik.- 1.2 Regelkreis.- 1.3 Voraussetzungen fur Blockorientierung und Regelkreisbildung.- 1.4 Aufgaben der Regelungstechnik.- 1.5 UEbertragungsfunktion und Regelungssystemtheorie.- 1.6 Anfangsbedingungen und Nullstellen der UEbertragungsfunktion.- 1.7 Ausgangssignal Xa(s) bei x a(k)(0?)=0.- 1.8 Nichtverschwindende Vorgeschichte xa(k)(0?)?0.- 1.9 Analyse im Spektralbereich. Verknupfung mehrerer Elemente.- 1.10 Regelstrecke und Stoergroessen.- 1.11 Einschleifiger Standardregelkreis.- 1.12 Sensitivitat.- 1.13 Differentielle Sensitivitat fur den Standardregelkreis.- 1.14 Linearisierung.- 1.15 Regelkreis im Signalflussdiagramm.- 1.16 Spezielle Elemente regelungstechnischer Systeme.- 1.16.1 Rationale UEbertragungselemente.- 1.16.2 Totzeit-Elemente.- 1.16.3 Allpass-Elemente.- 1.16.4 Laufzeitelemente.- 2 Regelkreisanalyse im Zeitbereich.- 2.1 Regelkreis-Reaktion auf einfache Signale.- 2.2 Mehrfache Polstellen von Xa(s).- 2.3 Naherung fur kleine Zeitwerte.- 2.4 Naherung fur grosse Zeitwerte.- 2.5 Faltungsintegral und Naherung durch Faltungssumme.- 2.6 Regelungen mit Totzeitelementen.- 3 Formulierung kontinuierlicher Regelungssysteme im Zustandsraum.- 3.1 Grundlagen.- 3.2 Transitionsmatrix (Fundamentalmatrix).- 3.3 Potenzreihenentwicklung der Transitionsmatrix.- 3.4 Zustandsregler. Fuhrungs- und Stoerungsverhalten.- 3.5 Vorfilterbemessung.- 4 Analyseverfahren im Frequenzbereich.- 4.1 Frequenzgang.- 4.2 Ortskurven des Frequenzgangs.- 4.3 Ortskurven von typischen stabilen Regelkreis-Element en.- 4.4 Ortskurven instabiler Regelkreiselemente.- 4.5 Frequenzgangsortskurve des Regelkreises.- 4.6 Ermittlung von Zeitbereichssignalen aus dem Frequenzbereich.- 4.7 Ermittlung des Frequenzganges aus der gemessenen Systemantwort.- 4.8 Bode-Diagramm.- 4.9 Phasenminimum-Beziehungen.- 4.10 Knickstellen der Regelschleife und des Regelkreises.- 4.11 H?-Norm einer UEbertragungsfunktion.- 5 Regelstrecken im Regelkreis.- 5.1 Antriebe. Allgemeines.- 5.2 Stromrichtergespeiste Gleichstromantriebe.- 5.3 Stromleitverfahren.- 5.4 Begrenzungsregelung.- 5.5 Kupplungselastizitat.- 5.6 Umrichtergespeiste Asynchronmaschine.- 5.7 Thermische Regelstrecken.- 5.7.1 Durchlauferhitzer, Warmetauscher.- 5.7.2 Kessel und Turbine.- 5.8 Hydraulische Regelstrecken.- 5.9 Pneumatische Regelstrecke.- 5.10 Mechanische Positionsregelstrecken.- 5.10.1 Einfache Fahrzeuglenkung.- 5.10.2 Balancierung.- 5.10.3 Passagierflugzeug.- 5.10.4 Raketenantrieb.- 5.11 Verfahrenstechnische Regelstrecken.- 5.12 Elektronische und nachrichtentechnische Regelstrecken.- 5.12.1 Verstarkungsausgleich.- 5.12.2 Scharfabstimmung.- 5.12.3 Zeilensynchronisierung.- 5.12.4 Rauschunterdruckung.- 5.13 Phase-Locked Loops (PLL).- 5.13.1 Phase-Locked Loop in analoger Ersatzrechnung.- 5.13.2 Regelungen an einem CD-Player.- 5.14 Schaltzeichen (Sinnbilder) fur technische Regelstrecken.- 5.15 Volkswirtschaftliche Regelungen.- 5.16 Physiologische und psychische Regelkreise.- 5.17 Soziologische Regelungen.- 6 Stellglieder und Verstarker.- 6.1 Stromrichterstellglieder.- 6.2 Umrichter fur Drehfeldmaschinen.- 6.3 Stellmotoren fur mechanische Positionierung.- 6.4 Stellglieder fur Flussigkeits-, Gasstroeme u. koernige Stoffe.- 6.5 Schaltzeichen fur Stellglieder und Verstarker.- 7 Regelungstechnischer Einsatz von Sensoren und Messumformern.- 7.1 Anforderungen.- 7.2 Messrauschen.- 7.3 Leistung eines Rauschsignales.- 8 Identifikationsverfahren.- 8.1 Auswertung der Sprungantwort von PDT1-Elementen.- 8.2 Auswertung der Sprungantwort von PT2-Elementen.- 8.3 Wendetangentenmethode bei PT2-Elementen.- 8.4 Auswertung der Sprungantwort von IT1-Elementen.- 8.5 Momentenmethode an der Gewichtsfunktion.- 8.6 Identifikation mit Hilfsregler.- 8.7 Identifikation mit fiktivem Serienelement.- 8.8 Regressionsanalyse. Quadratische Ausgleichsrechnung.- 9 Regler. Ausfuhrung und Dimensionierung.- 9.1 Operationsverstarker.- 9.2 Elektr