Nowadays, multiple attention have been paid on a robot working in the human living environment, such as in the field of medical, welfare, entertainment and so on. Various types of researches are being conducted actively in a variety of fields such as artificial intelligence, cognitive engineering, sensor- technology, interfaces and motion control. In the future, it is expected to realize super high functional human-like robot by integrating technologies in various fields including these types of researches. The book represents new developments and advances in the field of bio-inspired robotics research introducing the state of the art, the idea of multi-locomotion robotic system to implement the diversity of animal motion. It covers theoretical and computational aspects of Passive Dynamic Autonomous Control (PDAC), robot motion control, multi legged walking and climbing as well as brachiation focusing concrete robot systems, components and applications. In addition, gorilla type robot systems are described as hardware of Multi-Locomotion Robotic system. It is useful for students and researchers in the field of robotics in general, bio-inspired robots, multi-modal locomotion, legged walking, motion control, and humanoid robots. Furthermore, it is also of interest for lecturers and engineers in practice building systems cooperating with humans.

Neural Networks in Robotics is the first book to present an integrated view of both the application of artificial neural networks to robot control and the neuromuscular models from which robots were created. The behavior of biological systems provides both the inspiration and the challenge for robotics. The goal is to build robots which can emulate the ability of living organisms to integrate perceptual inputs smoothly with motor responses, even in the presence of novel stimuli and changes in the environment. The ability of living systems to learn and to adapt provides the standard against which robotic systems are judged. In order to emulate these abilities, a number of investigators have attempted to create robot controllers which are modelled on known processes in the brain and musculo-skeletal system. Several of these models are described in this book. On the other hand, connectionist (artificial neural network) formulations are attractive for the computation of inverse kinematics and dynamics of robots, because they can be trained for this purpose without explicit programming. Some of the computational advantages and problems of this approach are also presented. For any serious student of robotics, Neural Networks in Robotics provides an indispensable reference to the work of major researchers in the field. Similarly, since robotics is an outstanding application area for artificial neural networks, Neural Networks in Robotics is equally important to workers in connectionism and to students for sensormonitor control in living systems.

Tele operation systems, in which robots are controlled remotely, are a potential solution to performing tasks in remote, small, and hazardous environments. However, there is a big disadvantage to these systems; as the direct connection between the human and the environment is lost and operators are deprived of their sense of touch. The recreation of touch feedback through haptic devices is a possible solution, however haptic devices are far from perfect and improving their design is usually a slow trial-and-error process. This book describes 7 scientific studies that try to break this slow loop by using a deductive approach. Through investigating fundamental properties of human haptic perception using psychophysical paradigms, general knowledge on haptic perception of force, position, movement and hardness was gained. The resulting information can be applied to many different haptic devices. Consequently haptic systems can be more easily designed in an intuitive, human-centered way.

This book presents the most recent advances in the research and applications of reconfigurable mechanisms and robots. It collects 93 independently reviewed papers presented at the Third ASME/IFToMM International Conference on Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Robots (ReMAR 2015) held in Beijing, China, 20-22 July 2015. The conference papers are organized into seven parts to cover the reconfiguration theory, topology, kinematics and design of reconfigurable mechanisms including reconfigurable parallel mechanisms. The most recent results on reconfigurable robots are presented including their analysis, design, simulation and control. Bio-inspired mechanisms are also explored in the challenging fields of rehabilitation and minimally invasive surgery. This book further addresses deployable mechanisms and origami-inspired mechanisms and showcases a wide range of successful applications of reconfigurable mechanisms and robots. Advances in Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Robots II should be of interest for researchers, engineers and postgraduate students in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and mathematics.

This book reviews the fundamentals of screw theory concerned with velocity analysis of rigid-bodies, confirmed with detailed and explicit proofs. The author additionally investigates acceleration, jerk, and hyper-jerk analyses of rigid-bodies following the trend of the velocity analysis. With the material provided in this book, readers can extend the theory of screws into the kinematics of optional order of rigid-bodies. Illustrative examples and exercises to reinforce learning are provided. Of particular note, the kinematics of emblematic parallel manipulators, such as the Delta robot as well as the original Gough and Stewart platforms are revisited applying, in addition to the theory of screws, new methods devoted to simplify the corresponding forward-displacement analysis, a challenging task for most parallel manipulators.

In the last decade, we have seen an extraordinary progress in the the ory and applications of robot kinematics. This has been motivated espe cially by the development of complex parallel and humanoid robots. The present book reports the most recent research advances in the theory, design, control and application of robotic systems, which are intended for a variety of purposes such as manipulation, manufacturing, automa tion, surgery, locomotion and biomechanics. The issues addressed are fundamentally kinematic in nature, including synthesis, calibration, re dundancy, force control, dexterity, inverse and forward kinematics, kine matic singularities, as well as over-constrained systems. Methods used include line geometry, quaternion algebra, screw algebra, and linear alge bra. These methods are applied to both parallel and serial multi-degree of-freedom systems. The results should interest researchers, teachers and students, in fields of engineering and mathematics related to robot theory, design, control and application. This is the sixth book of the series Advances in Robot Kinematics published by Kluwer. The contributions in this book had been rigorously reviewed by in dependent reviewers and fifty one articles had been recommended for publication. They were introduced in seven chapters. These articles were also reported and discussed at the ninth international symposium on Advances in Robot Kinematics which was held in June 2004 in Sestri Levante in Italy. Indexed in Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Science (CPCI-S)

While sailing has a long tradition, both as a means of transportation and as a sport, robotic sailing is a fairly new area of research. One of its unique characteristics is the use of wind for propulsion. On the one hand, this allows for long range and long term autonomy. On the other hand, the dependency on changing winds presents a serious challenge for short and long term planning, collision avoidance, and boat control. Moreover, building a robust and seaworthy sailing robot is no simple task, leading to a truly interdisciplinary engineering problem. These proceedings summarize the state of the art as presented at the International Robotic Sailing Conference 2011. Following an overview of the history of autonomous sailing a number of recent boat designs is presented, ranging from small one-design boats to vessels built to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Subsequently, various aspects of system design and validation are discussed, further highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Finally, methods for collision avoidance, localization and route planning are covered.

This book aims at reporting some of the most challenging open problems of control theoretic nature raised by robotics applications. Topics covered in the book represent many of the most innovative areas in contemporary robotics research, with special emphasis on vision, sensory-feedback control, human-centered robotics, manipulation, planning, flexible and cooperative robots, or assembly systems. The basic idea behind the book is to present the variety of innovative applications and related technology demands that arise from robotics and automation to a larger community, including in particular, researchers in automatic control, applied mathematics, mechanical engineering, or computer science. The book is intended for an audience of researchers and graduate students in those disciplines and in robotics. It is the outcome of a workshop held in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 14, 2002 jointly sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

Implementation of Smart Healthcare Systems using AI, IoT, and Blockchain provides imperative research on the development of data fusion and analytics for healthcare and their implementation into current issues in a real-time environment. While highlighting IoT, bio-inspired computing, big data, and evolutionary programming, the book explores various concepts and theories of data fusion, IoT, and Big Data Analytics. It also investigates the challenges and methodologies required to integrate data from multiple heterogeneous sources, analytical platforms in healthcare sectors. This book is unique in the way that it provides useful insights into the implementation of a smart and intelligent healthcare system in a post-Covid-19 world using enabling technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and blockchain in providing transparent, faster, secure and privacy preserved healthcare ecosystem for the masses.

Surveillance systems have become increasingly popular. Full involvement of human operators has led to shortcomings, e.g. high labor cost, limited capability for multiple screens, inconsistency in long-duration, etc. Intelligent surveillance systems (ISSs) can supplement or even replace traditional ones. In ISSs, computer vision, pattern recognition, and artificial intelligence technologies are used to identify abnormal behaviours in videos. They present the development of real-time behaviour-based intelligent surveillance systems. The book focuses on the detection of individual abnormal behaviour based on learning and the analysis of dangerous crowd behaviour based on texture and optical flow. Practical systems include a real-time face classification and counting system, a surveillance robot system that utilizes video and audio information for intelligent interaction, and a robust person counting system for crowded environments.

This book presents a collection of papers from the International Symposium in Robotics Research (ISRR01). The goal of the symposium was to bring together active, leading robotics researchers from academia, government, and industry, to define the state of the art in robotics and its future direction.

Building a robot that learns to perform a task has been acknowledged as one of the major challenges facing artificial intelligence. Self-improving robots would relieve humans from much of the drudgery of programming and would potentially allow operation in environments that were changeable or only partially known. Progress towards this goal would also make fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence by furthering our understanding of how to successfully integrate disparate abilities such as perception, planning, learning and action. Although its roots can be traced back to the late fifties, the area of robot learning has lately seen a resurgence of interest. The flurry of interest in robot learning has partly been fueled by exciting new work in the areas of reinforcement earning, behavior-based architectures, genetic algorithms, neural networks and the study of artificial life. Robot Learning gives an overview of some of the current research projects in robot learning being carried out at leading universities and research laboratories in the United States. The main research directions in robot learning covered in this book include: reinforcement learning, behavior-based architectures, neural networks, map learning, action models, navigation and guided exploration.

A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage. If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.

Robotic technology offers two potential benefits for future space exploration. One benefit is minimizing the risk that astronauts face. The other benefit is increasing their productivity. Realizing the benefits of robotic technology in space will require solving several problems which are unique and now becoming active research topics. One of the most important research areas is dynamics, control, motion and planning for space robots by considering the dynamic interaction between the robot and the base (space station, space shuttle, or satellite). Any inefficiency in the planning and control can considerably risk by success of the space mission. Space Robotics: Dynamics and Control presents a collection of papers concerning fundamental problems in dynamics and control of space robots, focussing on issues relevant to dynamic base/robot interaction. The authors are all pioneers in theoretical analysis and experimental systems development of space robot technology. The chapters are organized within three problem areas: dynamics problems, nonholonomic nature problems, and control problems. This collection provides a solid reference for researchers in robotics, mechanics, control, and astronautical science.

Aerial Robotic Workers: Design, Modeling, Control, Vision and Their Applications provides an in-depth look at both theory and practical applications surrounding the Aerial Robotic Worker (ARW). Emerging ARWs are fully autonomous flying robots that can assist human operations through their agile performance of aerial inspections and interaction with the surrounding infrastructure. This book addresses all the fundamental components of ARWs, starting with the hardware and software components and then addressing aspects of modeling, control, perception of the environment, and the concept of aerial manipulators, cooperative ARWs, and direct applications. The book includes sample codes and ROS-based tutorials, enabling the direct application of the chapters and real-life examples with platforms already existing in the market.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft that is equipped with necessary data processing units, sensors, automatic control and communications systems, and is capable of performing autonomously flight missions without a human pilot. Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems provides a complete treatment of the design of fully autonomous miniature rotorcraft UAVs. It is an integration of advanced technologies developed in communications, computing and control areas. In particular, it focuses on:

the systematic hardware construction;

software systems integration;

aerodynamic modeling; and

automatic flight control system design.

Emphasis is extended to the cooperative control and flight formation of multiple UAVs, and vision-based ground target tracking and landing on moving platforms. Other issues such as the development of GPSless indoor micro aerial vehicles and vision-based navigation are also highlighted.

The proposed monograph aims to explore the research and development of fully functional miniature UAV (unmanned-aerial-vehicle) rotorcraft. This consists of a small-scale basic rotorcraft with all necessary accessories onboard, and a ground station. The unmanned system is an integration of advanced technologies developed in communications, computing and control areas. It is an excellent testing ground for trialing and implementing modern control techniques. It is however a highly challenging process. The aerodynamics of a small-scale rotorcraft such as a hobby helicopter are similar to its full-scale counterpart but has some unique characteristics, such as the utilization of stabilizer bar and higher main/tail rotors rotation speed. Besides these, the strict limitation on payload also increases the difficulty on upgrading a small-scale rotorcraft to a UAV with full capacities. Based on its various characteristics and limitations, a light-weight but effective onboard computer system with corresponding onboard/ground software should be carefully designed to realize the system identification and automatic flight requirements. These issues will be addressed in detail in this monograph. Research on the following will be detailed:

utilizing the vision-based system for accomplishing ground target tracking;

attacking and landing;

cooperative control and flight formation of muitiple unmanned rotorcraft;

future research directions on the related areas.

The book will be a good reference for researchers and students working on the related subjects. Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems will be of great value to practicing engineers in rotorcraft industries and to researchers in areas related to the development of unmanned systems in general. It may be used as a reference for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in aeronautics and astrinautics, electrical and mechanical engineering."

The book discusses new algorithms capable of searching for, tracking, mapping and providing a visualization of invisible substances. It reports on the realization of a bacterium-inspired robotic controller that can be used by an agent to search for any environmental spatial function such as temperature or pollution. Using the parameters of a mathematical model, the book shows that it is possible to control the exploration, exploitation and sensitivity of the agent. This feature sets the work apart from the usual method of applying the bacterium behavior to robotic agents. The book also discusses how a computationally tractable multi-agent robotic controller was developed and used to track as well as provide a visual map of a spatio-temporal distribution of a substance. On the one hand, this book provides biologists and ecologists with a basis to perform simulations related to how individual organisms respond to spatio-temporal factors in their environment as well as predict and analyze the behavior of organisms at a population level. On the other hand, it offers robotic engineers practical and fresh insights into the development of computationally tractable algorithms for spatial exploratory and mapping robots. It also allows a more general audience to gain an understanding of the design of computational intelligence algorithms for autonomous physical systems.

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.

Microsystem technology (MST) integrates very small (up to a few nanometers) mechanical, electronic, optical, and other components on a substrate to construct functional devices. These devices are used as intelligent sensors, actuators, and controllers for medical, automotive, household and many other purposes. This book is a basic introduction to MST for students, engineers, and scientists. It is the first of its kind to cover MST in its entirety. It gives a comprehensive treatment of all important parts of MST such as microfabrication technologies, microactuators, microsensors, development and testing of microsystems, and information processing in microsystems. It surveys products built to date and experimental products and gives a comprehensive view of all developments leading to MST devices and robots.

The fully automated estimation of the 6 degrees of freedom camera motion and the imaged 3D scenario using as the only input the pictures taken by the camera has been a long term aim in the computer vision community. The associated line of research has been known as Structure from Motion (SfM). An intense research effort during the latest decades has produced spectacular advances; the topic has reached a consistent state of maturity and most of its aspects are well known nowadays. 3D vision has immediate applications in many and diverse fields like robotics, videogames and augmented reality; and technological transfer is starting to be a reality. This book describes one of the first systems for sparse point-based 3D reconstruction and egomotion estimation from an image sequence; able to run in real-time at video frame rate and assuming quite weak prior knowledge about camera calibration, motion or scene. Its chapters unify the current perspectives of the robotics and computer vision communities on the 3D vision topic: As usual in robotics sensing, the explicit estimation and propagation of the uncertainty hold a central role in the sequential video processing and is shown to boost the efficiency and performance of the 3D estimation. On the other hand, some of the most relevant topics discussed in SfM by the computer vision scientists are addressed under this probabilistic filtering scheme; namely projective models, spurious rejection, model selection and self-calibration.

"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 volume contains the Proceedings of the 3rd IFToMM Symposium on Mechanism Design for Robotics, held in Aalborg, Denmark, 2-4 June, 2015. The book contains papers on recent advances in the design of mechanisms and their robotic applications. It treats the following topics: mechanism design, mechanics of robots, parallel manipulators, actuators and their control, linkage and industrial manipulators, innovative mechanisms/robots and their applications, among others. The book can be used by researchers and engineers in the relevant areas of mechanisms, machines and robotics.

It is at least two decades since the conventional robotic manipulators have become a common manufacturing tool for different industries, from automotive to pharmaceutical. The proven benefits of utilizing robotic manipulators for manufacturing in different industries motivated scientists and researchers to try to extend the applications of robots to many other areas by inventing several new types of robots other than conventional manipulators. The new types of robots can be categorized in two groups; redundant (and hyper-redundant) manipulators, and mobile (ground, marine, and aerial) robots. These groups of robots, known as advanced robots, have more freedom for their mobility, which allows them to do tasks that the conventional manipulators cannot do.

Engineers have taken advantage of the extra mobility of the advanced robots to make them work in constrained environments, ranging from limited joint motions for redundant (or hyper-redundant) manipulators to obstacles in the way of mobile (ground, marine, and aerial) robots.

Since these constraints usually depend on the work environment, they are variable. Engineers have had to invent methods to allow the robots to deal with a variety of constraints automatically. A robot that is equipped with those methods is called an Autonomous Robot.

Autonomous Robots: Kinematics, Path Planning, and Control covers the kinematics and dynamic modeling/analysis of Autonomous Robots, as well as the methods suitable for their control. The text is suitable for mechanical and electrical engineers who want to familiarize themselves with methods of modeling/analysis/control that have been proven efficient through research.

The practical task of building a talking robot requires a theory of how natural language communication works. Conversely, the best way to computationally verify a theory of natural language communication is to demonstrate its functioning concretely in the form of a talking robot, the epitome of human-machine communication. To build an actual robot requires hardware that provides appropriate recognition and action interfaces, and because such hardware is hard to develop the approach in this book is theoretical: the author presents an artificial cognitive agent with language as a software system called database semantics (DBS). Because a theoretical approach does not have to deal with the technical difficulties of hardware engineering there is no reason to simplify the system - instead the software components of DBS aim at completeness of function and of data coverage in word form recognition, syntactic-semantic interpretation and inferencing, leaving the procedural implementation of elementary concepts for later.

In this book the author first examines the universals of natural language and explains the Database Semantics approach. Then in Part I he examines the following natural language communication issues: using external surfaces; the cycle of natural language communication; memory structure; autonomous control; and learning. In Part II he analyzes the coding of content according to the aspects: semantic relations of structure; simultaneous amalgamation of content; graph-theoretical considerations; computing perspective in dialogue; and computing perspective in text. The book ends with a concluding chapter, a bibliography and an index.

The book will be of value to researchers, graduate students and engineers in the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics, in particular those who deal with natural language processing.