Innovative examination of augmentation technologies in terms of technical, social, and ethical considerations Usable as a supplemental text for a variety of courses, and also of interest to researchers and professionals in fields including: technical communication, digital communication, UX design, information technology, informatics, human factors, artificial intelligence, ethics, philosophy of technology, and sociology of technology First major work to combine technological, ethical, social, and rhetorical perspectives on human augmentation Additional cases and research material available at the authors' Fabric of Digital Life research database at https://fabricofdigitallife.com/

This book presents a unified mathematical treatment of diverse problems in the general domain of robotics and associated fields using Clifford or geometric alge- bra. By addressing a wide spectrum of problems in a common language, it offers both fresh insights and new solutions that are useful to scientists and engineers working in areas related with robotics. It introduces non-specialists to Clifford and geometric algebra, and provides ex- amples to help readers learn how to compute using geometric entities and geomet- ric formulations. It also includes an in-depth study of applications of Lie group theory, Lie algebra, spinors and versors and the algebra of incidence using the universal geometric algebra generated by reciprocal null cones. Featuring a detailed study of kinematics, differential kinematics and dynamics using geometric algebra, the book also develops Euler Lagrange and Hamiltoni- ans equations for dynamics using conformal geometric algebra, and the recursive Newton-Euler using screw theory in the motor algebra framework. Further, it comprehensively explores robot modeling and nonlinear controllers, and discusses several applications in computer vision, graphics, neurocomputing, quantum com- puting, robotics and control engineering using the geometric algebra framework. The book also includes over 200 exercises and tips for the development of future computer software packages for extensive calculations in geometric algebra, and a entire section focusing on how to write the subroutines in C++, Matlab and Maple to carry out efficient geometric computations in the geometric algebra framework. Lastly, it shows how program code can be optimized for real-time computations. An essential resource for applied physicists, computer scientists, AI researchers, roboticists and mechanical and electrical engineers, the book clarifies and demon- strates the importance of geometric computing for building autonomous systems to advance cognitive systems research.

Cooperative Control of Multi-Agent Systems: An Optimal and Robust Perspective reports and encourages technology transfer in the field of cooperative control of multi-agent systems. The book deals with UGVs, UAVs, UUVs and spacecraft, and more. It presents an extended exposition of the authors' recent work on all aspects of multi-agent technology. Modelling and cooperative control of multi-agent systems are topics of great interest, across both academia (research and education) and industry (for real applications and end-users). Graduate students and researchers from a wide spectrum of specialties in electrical, mechanical or aerospace engineering fields will use this book as a key resource.

This volume of the series ARENA2036 compiles the outcomes of the first Stuttgart Conference on Automotive Production (SCAP2020). It contains peer-reviewed contributions from a theoretical as well as practical vantage point and is topically structured according to the following four sections: It discusses (I) Novel Approaches for Efficient Production and Assembly Planning, (II) Smart Production Systems and Data Services, (III) Advances in Manufacturing Processes and Materials, and (IV) New Concepts for Autonomous, Collaborative Intralogistics. Given the restrictive circumstances of 2020, the conference was held as a fully digital event divided into two parts. It opened with a pre-week, allowing everyone to peruse the scientific contributions at their own pace, followed by a two-day live event that enabled experts from the sciences and the industry to engage in various discussions. The conference has proven itself as an insightful forum that allowed for an expertly exchange regarding the pivotal Advances in Automotive Production and Technology.

Presents sensor specification, theory of operation, sensor design, and application criteria Provides background plus specific information for practicing engineers who want to understand sensors Includes a complete chapter on industrial sensor communication protocols Explains temperature sensitivity, how to determine, and how to avoid Discusses how to understand and utilize sensor specifications

Understanding Geometric Algebra: Hamilton, Grassmann, and Clifford for Computer Vision and Graphics introduces geometric algebra with an emphasis on the background mathematics of Hamilton, Grassmann, and Clifford. It shows how to describe and compute geometry for 3D modeling applications in computer graphics and computer vision. Unlike similar texts, this book first gives separate descriptions of the various algebras and then explains how they are combined to define the field of geometric algebra. It starts with 3D Euclidean geometry along with discussions as to how the descriptions of geometry could be altered if using a non-orthogonal (oblique) coordinate system. The text focuses on Hamilton's quaternion algebra, Grassmann's outer product algebra, and Clifford algebra that underlies the mathematical structure of geometric algebra. It also presents points and lines in 3D as objects in 4D in the projective geometry framework; explores conformal geometry in 5D, which is the main ingredient of geometric algebra; and delves into the mathematical analysis of camera imaging geometry involving circles and spheres. With useful historical notes and exercises, this book gives readers insight into the mathematical theories behind complicated geometric computations. It helps readers understand the foundation of today's geometric algebra.

As robots are becoming more and more sophisticated the interest in robot dynamics is increasing. Within this field, contact problems are among the most interesting, since contacts are present in almost any robot task and introduce serious complexity to system dynamics, strongly influencing robot behavior. The book formulates dynamic models of robot interaction with different kinds of environment, from pure geometrical constraints to complex dynamic environments. It provides a number of examples. Dynamic modeling is the primary interest of the book but control issues are treated as well. Because dynamics and contact control tasks are strongly related the authors also provide a brief description of relevant control issues.
The book will be of interest to engineers working in research and development in robotics and automation and to both graduate and postgraduate students. The work will also be valuable to readers involved in manufacturing, robotics, automation, computer and control engineering.

This monograph introduces a unifying framework for mapping, planning and exploration with mobile robots considering uncertainty, linking such problems with a common SLAM approach, adopting Pose SLAM as the basic state estimation machinery. Pose SLAM is the variant of SLAM where only the robot trajectory is estimated and where landmarks are used to produce relative motion measurements between robot poses. With regards to extending the original Pose SLAM formulation, this monograph covers the study of such measurements when they are obtained with stereo cameras, develops the appropriate noise propagation models for such case, extends the Pose SLAM formulation to SE(3), introduces information-theoretic loop closure tests, and presents a technique to compute traversability maps from the 3D volumetric maps obtained with Pose SLAM. A relevant topic covered in this monograph is the introduction of a novel path planning approach that exploits the modeled uncertainties in Pose SLAM to search for the path in the pose graph that allows the robot to navigate to a given goal with the least probability of becoming lost. Another relevant topic is the introduction of an autonomous exploration method that selects the appropriate actions to drive the robot so as to maximize coverage, while minimizing localization and map uncertainties. This monograph is appropriate for readers interested in an information-theoretic unified perspective to the SLAM, path planning and exploration problems, and is a reference book for people who work in mobile robotics research in general.

This book addresses dynamic modelling methodology and analyses of tree-type robotic systems. Such analyses are required to visualize the motion of a system without really building it. The book contains novel treatment of the tree-type systems using concept of kinematic modules and the corresponding Decoupled Natural Orthogonal Complements (DeNOC), unified representation of the multiple-degrees-of freedom-joints, efficient recursive dynamics algorithms, and detailed dynamic analyses of several legged robots. The book will help graduate students, researchers and practicing engineers in applying their knowledge of dynamics for analysis of complex robotic systems. The knowledge contained in the book will help one in virtual testing of robot operation, trajectory planning and control.

This book offers a comprehensive reference guide for modeling humanoid robots using intelligent and fuzzy systems. It provides readers with the necessary intelligent and fuzzy tools for controlling humanoid robots by incomplete, vague, and imprecise information or insufficient data, where classical modeling approaches cannot be applied. The respective chapters, written by prominent researchers, explain a wealth of both basic and advanced concepts including fuzzy control, metaheuristic-based control, neutrosophic control, etc. To foster reader comprehension, all chapters include relevant numerical examples or case studies. Taken together, they form an excellent reference guide for researchers, lecturers, and postgraduate students pursuing research on humanoid robots. Moreover, by extending all the main aspects of humanoid robots to its intelligent and fuzzy counterparts, the book presents a dynamic snapshot of the field that is expected to stimulate new directions, ideas, and developments.

This book provides exclusive insight into the development of a new generation of robotic underwater technologies. Deploying and using even the most simple and robust mechanical tools is presenting a challenge, and is often associated with an enormous amount of preparation, continuous monitoring, and maintenance. Therefore, all disciplinary aspects (e.g. system design, communication, machine learning, mapping and coordination, adaptive mission planning) are examined in detail and together this gives an extensive overview on research areas influencing next generation underwater robots. These robotic underwater systems will operate autonomously with the help of the most modern artificial intelligence procedures and perform environmental monitoring as well as inspection and maintenance of underwater structures. The systems are designed as modular and reconfigurable systems for long term autonomy to remain at the site for longer periods of time. New communication methods using AI enable missions of hybrid teams of humans and heterogeneous robots. Thus this volume will be an important reference for scientists on every qualification level in the field of underwater technologies, industrial maritime applications, and maritime science.

This book shows how a conventional multi-layered approach can be used to control a snake robot on a desired path while moving on a flat surface. To achieve robustness to unknown variations in surface conditions, it explores various adaptive robust control methods. The authors propose a sliding-mode control approach designed to achieve robust maneuvering for bounded uncertainty with a known upper bound. The control is modified by addition of an adaptation law to alleviate the overestimation problem of the switching gain as well as to circumvent the requirement for knowledge regarding the bounds of uncertainty. The book works toward non-conservativeness, achieving efficient tracking in the presence of slowly varying uncertainties with a specially designed framework for time-delayed control. It shows readers how to extract superior performance from their snake robots with an approach that allows robustness toward bounded time-delayed estimation errors. The book also demonstrates how the multi-layered control framework can be simplified by employing differential flatness for such a system. Finally, the mathematical model of a snake robot moving inside a uniform channel using only side-wall contact is discussed. The model has further been employed to demonstrate adaptive robust control design for such a motion. Using numerous illustrations and tables, Adaptive Robust Control for Planar Snake Robots will interest researchers, practicing engineers and postgraduate students working in the field of robotics and control systems.

Providing an in-depth introduction to fundamental classical and non-classical logics, this textbook offers a comprehensive survey of logics for computer scientists. Logics for Computer Science contains intuitive introductory chapters explaining the need for logical investigations, motivations for different types of logics and some of their history. They are followed by strict formal approach chapters. All chapters contain many detailed examples explaining each of the introduced notions and definitions, well chosen sets of exercises with carefully written solutions, and sets of homework. While many logic books are available, they were written by logicians for logicians, not for computer scientists. They usually choose one particular way of presenting the material and use a specialized language. Logics for Computer Science discusses Gentzen as well as Hilbert formalizations, first order theories, the Hilbert Program, Godel's first and second incompleteness theorems and their proofs. It also introduces and discusses some many valued logics, modal logics and introduces algebraic models for classical, intuitionistic, and modal S4 and S5 logics. The theory of computation is based on concepts defined by logicians and mathematicians. Logic plays a fundamental role in computer science, and this book explains the basic theorems, as well as different techniques of proving them in classical and some non-classical logics. Important applications derived from concepts of logic for computer technology include Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering. In addition to Computer Science, this book may also find an audience in mathematics and philosophy courses, and some of the chapters are also useful for a course in Artificial Intelligence.

A classic in underwater robotics. One of the first volumes in the "Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics" series, it has been a bestseller through the previous three editions. Fifteen years after the publication of the first edition, the fourth edition comes to print. The book addresses the main control aspects in underwater manipulation tasks. With respect to the third edition, it has been revised, extended and some concepts better clustered. The mathematical model with significant impact on the control strategy is discussed. The problem of controlling a 6-degrees-of-freedoms autonomous underwater vehicle is investigated and a survey of fault detection/tolerant strategies for unmanned underwater vehicles is provided. Inverse kinematics, dynamic and interaction control for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems are then discussed. The code used to generate most of the numerical simulations is made available and briefly discussed.

This book presents selected papers from The 1st International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2019). Focusing on novel architecture theories, tools, methods, and procedures for digital design and construction in architecture, it promotes dialogs between architecture, engineer, computer science, robotics, and other relevant disciplines to establish a new way of production in the building industry in the digital age. The contents make valuable contributions to academic researchers and engineers in the industry. At the same time, it offers readers new ideas for the application of digital technology.

Building on the successful first and second volumes, this book is the third volume of the Springer book on the Robot Operating System (ROS): The Complete Reference. The Robot Operating System is evolving from year to year with a wealth of new contributed packages and enhanced capabilities. Further, the ROS is being integrated into various robots and systems and is becoming an embedded technology in emerging robotics platforms. The objective of this third volume is to provide readers with additional and comprehensive coverage of the ROS and an overview of the latest achievements, trends and packages developed with and for it. Combining tutorials, case studies, and research papers, the book consists of sixteen chapters and is divided into five parts. Part 1 presents multi-robot systems with the ROS. In Part 2, four chapters deal with the development of unmanned aerial systems and their applications. In turn, Part 3 highlights recent work related to navigation, motion planning and control. Part 4 discusses recently contributed ROS packages for security, ROS2, GPU usage, and real-time processing. Lastly, Part 5 deals with new interfaces allowing users to interact with robots. Taken together, the three volumes of this book offer a valuable reference guide for ROS users, researchers, learners and developers alike. Its breadth of coverage makes it a unique resource.

This book presents the proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region, RAAD 2021, held in Poitiers, France, 21-23 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: 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.

In this book, Martijn Wisse and Richard Q. van der Linde provide a detailed description of their research on pneumatic biped robots at the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. The book covers the basic theory of passive dynamic walking and explains the implementation of pneumatic McKibben muscles in a series of successful prototypes.

The book reports on advanced topics in the areas of wearable robotics research and practice. It focuses on new technologies, including neural interfaces, soft wearable robots, sensors and actuators technologies, and discusses important regulatory challenges, as well as clinical and ethical issues. Based on the 4th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob2018, held October 16-20, 2018, in Pisa, Italy, the book addresses a large audience of academics and professionals working in government, industry, and medical centers, and end-users alike. It provides them with specialized information and with a source of inspiration for new ideas and collaborations. It discusses exemplary case studies highlighting practical challenges related to the implementation of wearable robots in a number of fields. One of the focus is on clinical applications, which was encouraged by the colocation of WeRob2018 with the International Conference on Neurorehabilitation, INCR2018. Additional topics include space applications and assistive technologies in the industry. The book merges together the engineering, medical, ethical and political perspectives, thus offering a multidisciplinary, timely snapshot of the field of wearable technologies.

This book offers a timely overview of nonlinear control methods applied to a set of vehicles and their applications to study vehicle dynamics. The first part on the book presents the mathematical models used for describing motion of three class of vehicles such as underwater vehicles, hovercrafts and airships. In turn, each model is expressed in terms of Inertial Quasi-Velocities. Various control strategies from the literature, including model-free ones, are then analyzed. The second part and core of the book guides readers to developing model-based control algorithms using Inertial Quasi-Velocities. Both non-adaptive and adaptive versions are covered. Each controller is validated through simulation tests, which are reported in detail. In turn, this part shows how to use the controllers to gain information about vehicle dynamics, thus describing an important relationship between the dynamics of the moving object and its motion control. The effects of mechanical couplings between variables describing vehicle motion due to inertial forces are also discussed. All in all, this book offers a timely guide and extensive information on nonlinear control schemes for unmanned marine and aerial vehicles. It covers specifically the simulation tests and is therefore meant as a starting point for engineers and researchers that would like to verify experimentally the suitability of the proposed models in real vehicles. Further, it also supports advanced-level students and educators in their courses on vehicle dynamics, control engineering and robotics.

This book presents selected research papers from CISC'17, held in MudanJiang, China. The topics covered include Multi-agent system, Evolutionary Computation, Artificial Intelligence, Complex systems, Computation intelligence and soft computing, Intelligent control, Advanced control technology, Robotics and applications, Intelligent information processing, Iterative learning control, Machine Learning, and etc. Engineers and researchers from academia, industry, and government can gain valuable insights into solutions combining ideas from multiple disciplines in the field of intelligent systems.

This book comprises select proceedings of the 12th Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR 2019) focusing on cutting-edge research carried out in different applications of robotics, including agriculture, search and rescue, aerial marine, industrial, and space. It focuses on experiments and demonstrations of robotics applied to complex and dynamic environments and covers diverse applications. The essays are written by leading international experts, making it a valuable resource for researchers and practicing engineers alike.

This book comprises select peer-reviewed papers from the International Conference on Emerging Trends in Electromechanical Technologies & Management (TEMT) 2019. The focus is on current research in interdisciplinary areas of mechanical, electrical, electronics and information technologies, and their management from design to market. The book covers a wide range of topics such as computer integrated manufacturing, additive manufacturing, materials science and engineering, simulation and modelling, finite element analysis, operations and supply chain management, decision sciences, business analytics, project management, and sustainable freight transportation. The book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners of various disciplines, in particular mechanical and industrial engineering.