This book focuses on the principles and technology of environmental perception in unmanned systems. With the rapid development of a new generation of information technologies such as automatic control and information perception, a new generation of robots and unmanned systems will also take on new importance. This book first reviews the development of autonomous systems and subsequently introduces readers to the technical characteristics and main technologies of the sensor. Lastly, it addresses aspects including autonomous path planning, intelligent perception and autonomous control technology under uncertain conditions. For the first time, the book systematically introduces the core technology of autonomous system information perception.

This book presents state-of-the-art research, challenges and solutions in the area of human-robot collaboration (HRC) in manufacturing. It enables readers to better understand the dynamic behaviour of manufacturing processes, and gives more insight into on-demand adaptive control techniques for industrial robots. With increasing complexity and dynamism in today's manufacturing practice, more precise, robust and practical approaches are needed to support real-time shop-floor operations. This book presents a collection of recent developments and innovations in this area, relying on a wide range of research efforts. The book is divided into five parts. The first part presents a broad-based review of the key areas of HRC, establishing a common ground of understanding in key aspects. Subsequent chapters focus on selected areas of HRC subject to intense recent interest. The second part discusses human safety within HRC. The third, fourth and fifth parts provide in-depth views of relevant methodologies and algorithms. Discussing dynamic planning and monitoring, adaptive control and multi-modal decision making, the latter parts facilitate a better understanding of HRC in real situations. The balance between scope and depth, and theory and applications, means this book appeals to a wide readership, including academic researchers, graduate students, practicing engineers, and those within a variety of roles in manufacturing sectors.

Service robots serve a wide range of people in residential, commercial, industrial, military, and many more applied fields. Service Robots and Robotics: Design and Application offers the latest research within the field, combining a mixture of case studies, research, and future directions. Staying abreast of the latest research within the field not only affords practitioners and academics the foot forward they need, it allows for a comprehensive look into the latest advances in a burgeoning field of technology. From tasks no humans can do to everyday tasks for the disabled and elderly, service robots are an enormously important facet of modern technology, and this volume offers a current look into their state of the art.

This book consolidates the current state of knowledge on implementing cooperating robot-based systems to increase the flexibility of manufacturing systems. It is based on the concrete experiences of experts, practitioners, and engineers in implementing cooperating robot systems for more flexible manufacturing systems. Thanks to the great variety of manufacturing systems that we had the opportunity to study, a remarkable collection of methods and tools has emerged. The aim of the book is to share this experience with academia and industry practitioners seeking to improve manufacturing practice. While there are various books on teaching principles for robotics, this book offers a unique opportunity to dive into the practical aspects of implementing complex real-world robotic applications. As it is used in this book, the term "cooperating robots" refers to robots that either cooperate with one another or with people. The book investigates various aspects of cooperation in the context of implementing flexible manufacturing systems. Accordingly, manufacturing systems are the main focus in the discussion on implementing such robotic systems. The book begins with a brief introduction to the concept of manufacturing systems, followed by a discussion of flexibility. Aspects of designing such systems, e.g. material flow, logistics, processing times, shop floor footprint, and design of flexible handling systems, are subsequently covered. In closing, the book addresses key issues in operating such systems, which concern e.g. decision-making, autonomy, cooperation, communication, task scheduling, motion generation, and distribution of control between different devices. Reviewing the state of the art and presenting the latest innovations, the book offers a valuable asset for a broad readership.

Studies on robotics applications have grown substantially in recent years, with swarm robotics being a relatively new area of research. Inspired by studies in swarm intelligence and robotics, swarm robotics facilitates interactions between robots as well as their interactions with the environment. The Handbook of Research on Design, Control, and Modeling of Swarm Robotics is a collection of the most important research achievements in swarm robotics thus far, covering the growing areas of design, control, and modeling of swarm robotics. This handbook serves as an essential resource for researchers, engineers, graduates, and senior undergraduates with interests in swarm robotics and its applications.

This book presents theoretical modeling and numerical simulations applied to drive several applications towards Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0). The topics discussed range from theoretical parts to extensive simulations involving many efficient algorithms as well as various statistical techniques. This book is suitable for postgraduate students, researchers as well as other scientists who are working in mathematics, statistics and numerical modeling and simulation.

This book is the sixth volume of the successful book series on Robot Operating System: The Complete Reference. The objective of the book is to provide the reader with comprehensive coverage of the Robot Operating Systems (ROS) and the latest trends and contributed systems. ROS is currently considered as the primary development framework for robotics applications. There are seven chapters organized into three parts. Part I presents two chapters on the emerging ROS 2.0 framework; in particular, ROS 2.0 is become increasingly mature to be integrated into the industry. The first chapter from Amazon AWS deals with the challenges that ROS 2 developers will face as they transition their system to be commercial-grade. The second chapter deals with reactive programming for both ROS1 and ROS. In Part II, two chapters deal with advanced robotics, namely on the usage of robots in farms, and the second deals with platooning systems. Part III provides three chapters on ROS navigation. The first chapter deals with the use of deep learning for ROS navigation. The second chapter presents a detailed tuning guide on ROS navigation and the last chapter discusses SLAM for ROS applications. I believe that this book is a valuable companion for ROS users and developers to learn more ROS capabilities and features.

The social sciences, especially economics, management, and organizational science, are experiencing a tremendous renewed interest for their epistemological and methodological statutes, as witnessed by the many books and specialized journals established during the last two decades. Relational Methodologies and Epistemology in the Economics and Management Sciences identifies and presents the four main network-based methodologies including network analysis, Boolean network simulation modeling, artificial neural network simulation modeling, and agent-based simulation modeling in addition to their conceptual-epistemological implications and concrete applications within the social and natural sciences. Featuring a critical assessment of relational methodologies and their practical applications, this timely publication is ideal for use by corporate R&D departments, researchers, theorists, and graduate-level students.

This book describes the application of vision-sensing technologies in welding processes, one of the key technologies in intelligent welding manufacturing. Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) is one of the main welding techniques and has a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. As such, the book also explores the application of AI technologies, such as vision sensing and machine learning, in GTAW process sensing and feature extraction and monitoring, and presents the state-of-the-art in computer vision, image processing and machine learning to detect welding defects using non-destructive methods in order to improve welding productivity. Featuring the latest research from ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) using digital image correlation technology, this book will appeal to researchers, scientists and engineers in the field of advanced manufacturing.

This book comprises select proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Trends for Smart Grid Automation and Industry 4.0 (ICETSGAI4.0 2019). The contents discuss the recent trends in smart grid technology and related applications. The topics covered include data analytics for smart grid operation and control, integrated power generation technologies, green technologies as well as advances in microgrid operation and planning. The book highlights the enhancement in technology in the field of smart grids, and how IoT, big data, robotics and automation, artificial intelligence, and wide area measurement have become prerequisites for the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. The book can be a valuable reference for researchers and professionals interested in smart grid automation incorporating features of Industry 4.0.

This book provides a comprehensive review of fundamental issues in the dynamical modeling and vibration control design for several flexible mechanical systems, such as flexible satellites, flexible aerial refueling hoses, and flexible three-dimensional manipulators. Offering an authoritative reference guide to the dynamics and control of flexible mechanical systems, it equips readers to solve a host of problems concerning these systems. It provides not only a complete overview of flexible systems, but also a better understanding of the technical levels involved. The book is divided into ten chapters: Chapters 1 and 2 lay the foundations, while the remaining chapters explore several independent yet related topics in detail. The book's final chapter presents conclusions and recommendations for future research. Given its scope, the book is intended for researchers, graduate students, and engineers whose work involves control systems, flexible mechanical systems, and related areas.

This book gathers contributions by researchers from several countries on all major areas of robotic research, development and innovation, as well as new applications and current trends. The topics covered include: novel designs and applications of robotic systems, intelligent cooperating and service robots, advanced robot control, human-robot interfaces, robot vision systems, mobile robots, humanoid and walking robots, bio-inspired and swarm robotic systems, aerial, underwater and spatial robots, robots for ambient assisted living, medical robots and bionic prostheses, cognitive robots, cloud robotics, ethical and social issues in robotics, etc. Given its scope, the book offers a source of information and inspiration for researchers seeking to improve their work and gather new ideas for future developments. The contents reflect the outcomes of the activities of RAAD (International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region) in 2020.

This book presents the proceedings of the 5th IFToMM Symposium on Mechanism Design for Robotics, MEDER 2021, held in Poitiers, France, 23-25 June 2021. It gathers contributions by researchers from several countries on all major areas of robotic research, development and innovation, as well as new applications and current trends. The topics covered include: theoretical and computational kinematics, mechanism design, experimental mechanics, mechanics of robots, control issues of mechanical systems, machine intelligence, innovative mechanisms and applications, linkages and manipulators, micro-mechanisms, dynamics of machinery and multi-body systems. Given its scope, the book offers a source of information and inspiration for researchers seeking to improve their work and gather new ideas for future developments.

The book discusses the opportunities and challenges of managing knowledge in the new reality of Industry 4.0. Addressing paradigmatic changes in value creation due to the development of digital technologies applied to manufacturing (additive manufacturing, IoT, robotics, etc.), it includes theoretical and empirical contributions on how Industry 4.0 technologies allow firms to create and exploit knowledge. The carefully selected expert contributions highlight the potential of these technologies in acquiring knowledge from a larger number of sources and examine approaches to innovation, organization of activities, and stakeholder development in the context of this next industrial revolution.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of geographic information systems and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies, as presented by leading researchers and engineers at the 1st International Conference on Unmanned Aerial System in Geomatics (UASG), held in Roorkee, India on April 6-7, 2019. It covers highly diverse topics, including photogrammetry and remote sensing, surveying, UAV manufacturing, geospatial data sensing, UAV processing, visualization, and management, UAV applications and regulations, geo-informatics and geomatics. The contributions, which were selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaboration among different specialists.

This book presents the outcomes of the 12th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR 2016). WAFR is a prestigious, single-track, biennial international meeting devoted to recent advances in algorithmic problems in robotics. Robot algorithms are an important building block of robotic systems and are used to process inputs from users and sensors, perceive and build models of the environment, plan low-level motions and high-level tasks, control robotic actuators, and coordinate actions across multiple systems. However, developing and analyzing these algorithms raises complex challenges, both theoretical and practical. Advances in the algorithmic foundations of robotics have applications to manufacturing, medicine, distributed robotics, human-robot interaction, intelligent prosthetics, computer animation, computational biology, and many other areas. The 2016 edition of WAFR went back to its roots and was held in San Francisco, California - the city where the very first WAFR was held in 1994. Organized by Pieter Abbeel, Kostas Bekris, Ken Goldberg, and Lauren Miller, WAFR 2016 featured keynote talks by John Canny on "A Guided Tour of Computer Vision, Robotics, Algebra, and HCI," Erik Demaine on "Replicators, Transformers, and Robot Swarms: Science Fiction through Geometric Algorithms," Dan Halperin on "From Piano Movers to Piano Printers: Computing and Using Minkowski Sums," and by Lydia Kavraki on "20 Years of Sampling Robot Motion." Furthermore, it included an Open Problems Session organized by Ron Alterovitz, Florian Pokorny, and Jur van den Berg. There were 58 paper presentations during the three-day event. The organizers would like to thank the authors for their work and contributions, the reviewers for ensuring the high quality of the meeting, the WAFR Steering Committee led by Nancy Amato as well as WAFR's fiscal sponsor, the International Federation of Robotics Research (IFRR), led by Oussama Khatib and Henrik Christensen. WAFR 2016 was an enjoyable and memorable event.

This book provides insights into research in the field of artificial intelligence in combination with robotics technologies. The integration of artificial intelligence and robotic technologies is a highly topical area for researchers and developers from academia and industry around the globe, and it is likely that artificial intelligence will become the main approach for the next generation of robotics research. The tremendous number of artificial intelligence algorithms and big data solutions has significantly extended the range of potential applications for robotic technologies, and has also brought new challenges for the artificial intelligence community. Sharing recent advances in the field, the book features papers by young researchers presented at the 4th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics 2019 (ISAIR2019), held in Daegu, Korea, on August 20-24, 2019.

This book focuses on the key technologies and scientific problems involved in emotional robot systems, such as multimodal emotion recognition (i.e., facial expression/speech/gesture and their multimodal emotion recognition) and emotion intention understanding, and presents the design and application examples of emotional HRI systems. Aiming at the development needs of emotional robots and emotional human-robot interaction (HRI) systems, this book introduces basic concepts, system architecture, and system functions of affective computing and emotional robot systems. With the professionalism of this book, it serves as a useful reference for engineers in affective computing, and graduate students interested in emotion recognition and intention understanding. This book offers the latest approaches to this active research area. It provides readers with the state-of-the-art methods of multimodal emotion recognition, intention understanding, and application examples of emotional HRI systems.

The primary aim of this volume is to provide researchers and engineers from both academic and industry with up-to-date coverage of new results in the field of robotic welding, intelligent systems and automation. The book is mainly based on papers selected from the 2019 International Workshop on Intelligentized Welding Manufacturing (IWIWM'2019) in USA. The articles show that the intelligentized welding manufacturing (IWM) is becoming an inevitable trend with the intelligentized robotic welding as the key technology. The volume is divided into four logical parts: Intelligent Techniques for Robotic Welding, Sensing of Arc Welding Processing, Modeling and Intelligent Control of Welding Processing, as well as Intelligent Control and its Applications in Engineering.

This book features selected papers presented at the 15th International Conference on Electromechanics and Robotics "Zavalishin's Readings" - ER(ZR) 2020, held in Ufa, Russia, on 15-18 April 2020. The contributions, written by professionals, researchers and students, cover topics in the field of automatic control systems, electromechanics, electric power engineering and electrical engineering, mechatronics, robotics, automation and vibration technologies. The Zavalishin's Readings conference was established as a tribute to the memory of Dmitry Aleksandrovich Zavalishin (1900-1968) - a Russian scientist, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and founder of the school of valve energy converters based on electric machines and valve converters energy. The first conference was organized by the Institute of Innovative Technologies in Electromechanics and Robotics at the Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation in 2006.