This book provides state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of service robotics and associated support technologies around the theme of human-centric robotics. The book contains peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2017 conference. The book contains a strong stream of papers on robotic locomotion strategies and wearable robotics for assistance and rehabilitation. There is also a strong collection of papers on non-destructive inspection, underwater and UAV robotics to meet the growing emerging needs in various sectors of the society. Robot designs based on biological inspirations are also strongly featured.

This book explores the making of robots in labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It examines the cultural ideas that go into the making of robots, and the role of fiction in co-constructing the technological practices of the robotic scientists. The book engages with debates in anthropological theorizing regarding the way that robots are reimagined as intelligent, autonomous and social and weaved into lived social realities. Richardson charts the move away from the "worker" robot of the 1920s to the "social" one of the 2000s, as robots are reimagined as companions, friends and therapeutic agents.

An exponentially growing industry, human robot interaction (HRI) research has drawn predominantly upon psychologists' descriptions of mechanisms of face-to-face dyadic interactions. This book considers how social robotics is beginning unwittingly to confront an impasse that has been a perennial dilemma for psychology, associated with the historical 'science vs. art' debate. Raya Jones examines these paradigmatic tensions, and, in tandem, considers ways in which the technology-centred discourse both reflects and impacts upon understanding our relational nature. Chapters in the book explore not only how the technology-centred discourse constructs machines as us, but also how humans feature in this discourse. Focusing on how the social interaction is conceptualised when the human-robot interaction is discussed, this book addresses issues such as the long-term impact on persons and society, authenticity of relationships, and challenges to notions of personhood. By leaving aside terminological issues, Jones attempts to transcend ritual of pitching theories against each other in order to comprehensively analyse terms such as subjectivity, self and personhood and their fluid interplay in the world that we inhabit. Personhood and Social Robotics will be a key text for postgraduate students, researchers and scholars interested in the connection between technology and human psychology, including psychologists, science and technology studies scholars, media studies scholars and humanists. The book will also be of interest to roboticists and HRI researchers, as well as those studying or working in areas of artificial intelligence and interactive technologies more generally.

From car manufacturing to production of niche products, welding is one of the most widespread and successful applications of industrial robotics. This book is an overview of robotic welding at the beginning of this century. The last few years-worth of evolution in robotic welding are described, illustrating their rapid innovations and featuring: Welding Technology;Sensors and Sensing Techniques;Industrial robotic welding systems; andActual industrial application of modern-day robotic welding techniques. Containing worked examples and problems, this book will be of value to students of robotics and manufacturing engineering who wish to understand the latest robot welding technologies while also being a useful reference for active researchers and those working in industry. The book signposts future developments and aims to give readers the information they need to contribute to the next wave of development in the area of manufacturing technology.

This book presents solutions to control problems in a number of robotic systems and provides a wealth of worked-out examples with full analytical and numerical details, graphically illustrated to aid in reader comprehension. It also presents relevant studies on and applications of robotic system control approaches, as well as the latest findings from interdisciplinary theoretical studies. Featuring chapters on advanced control (fuzzy, neural, backstepping, sliding mode, adaptive, predictive, diagnosis, and fault-tolerant control), the book will equip readers to easily tailor the techniques to their own applications. Accordingly, it offers a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, and students in the field of robotic systems.

This book summarizes the application of linear algebra-based controllers (LABC) for trajectory tracking for practitioners and students across a range of engineering disciplines. It clarifies the necessary steps to apply this straight-forward technique to a non-linear multivariable system, dealing with continuous or discrete time models, and outlines the steps to implement such controllers. In this book, the authors present an approach of the trajectory tracking problem in systems with dead time and in the presence of additive uncertainties and environmental disturbances. Examples of applications of LABC to systems in real operating conditions (mobile robots, marine vessels, quadrotor and pvtol aircraft, chemical reactors and First Order Plus Dead Time systems) illustrate the controller design in such a way that the reader attains an understanding of LABC.

Modern robots have arrived at a very matured state both in their mechanical / control aspects and their mental aspects. An Introduction to Robophilosophy explores the philosophical questions that arise in the development, creation, and use of mental - anthropomorphic and zoomorphic- robots that are capable of semiautonomous / autonomous operation, decision making and human-like action, being able to socially interact with humans and exhibit behavior similar to human beings or animals. Coverage first presents fundamental concepts, and an overview of philosophy, philosophy of science, and philosophy of technology. The six principal mental capabilities of modern robots, namely cognition, intelligence, autonomy, consciousness, conscience, and ethics are then studied from a philosophical point of view. They actually represent the product of technological embodiment of cognitive features to robots. Overall, readers are provided a consolidated thorough investigation of the philosophical aspects of these mental capabilities when embedded to robots. This book will serve as an ideal educational source in engineering and robotics courses as well as an introductory reference for researchers in the field of robotics, and it includes a rich bibliography.

This thesis lays the groundwork for the automatic supervision of the laser incision process, which aims to complement surgeons' perception of the state of tissues and enhance their control over laser incisions. The research problem is formulated as the estimation of variables that are representative of the state of tissues during laser cutting. Prior research in this area leveraged numerical computation methods that bear a high computational cost and are not straightforward to use in a surgical setting. This book proposes a novel solution to this problem, using models inspired by the ability of experienced surgeons to perform precise and clean laser cutting. It shows that these new models, which were extracted from experimental data using statistical learning techniques, are straightforward to use in a surgical setup, allowing greater precision in laser-based surgical procedures.

2016 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Automation (EEA2016) was held in Hong Kong, China from June 24th-26th, 2016. EEA2016 has provided a platform for leading academic scientists, researchers, scholars and students around the world, to get together to compare notes, and share their results and findings, in areas of Electronics Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Materials and Mechanical Engineering, Control and Automation Modeling and Simulation, Testing and Imaging, Robotics, Actuating and Sensoring.The conference had received a total of 445 submissions. However, after peer review by the Technical Program Committee only 129 were selected to be included in this conference proceedings; based on their originality, ability to test ideas, and contribution to the understanding and advancement in Electronics and Electrical Engineering.

This book introduces a new framework for non-linear analysis and control of intelligent machines such as robot arms, mechanical hands, and other advanced mechatronic systems. It clarifies the physical and mathematical prinicples underlying the complicated dynamics of non-linear mechanical systems and deals with the design of controllers that enable sophisticated tasks to be executed. A new concept called `non-linear position-dependent circuits' plays a crucial role, together with passivity analysis as a generalization of the impedance concept. Adaptability and learnability of robot arms and hands as intelligent machines are aLso analysed through visible expressions of their dynamics via corresponding non-linear circuits and generalized impedance concepts. This approach may mark a milestone not only in development of a control theory for advanced mechatronics systems but also in the long path toward understanding the mysteries of motor control in the human central nervous system.

The book deals with intelligent control of mobile robots, presenting the state-of-the-art in the field, and introducing new control algorithms developed and tested by the authors. It also discusses the use of artificial intelligent methods like neural networks and neuraldynamic programming, including globalised dual-heuristic dynamic programming, for controlling wheeled robots and robotic manipulators,and compares them to classical control methods.

This book aims to discuss the technical and ethical challenges posed by the present technological framework and to highlight the fundamental role played by human-centred design and human factors in the definition of robotic architectures for human-robot collaboration. The book gives an updated overview of the most recent robotic technology, conceived and designed to collaborate with human beings in industrial working scenarios. The technological development of robotics over the last years and the fast evolution of AI, machine learning and IoT have paved the way for applications that extend far beyond the typical use of robots performing repetitive tasks in exclusive spaces. In this new technological paradigm that is expected to drive the robotics market in the coming years, robots and workers will coexist in the same workplace, sharing not only this lived space, but also the roles and functions inherent to a process of production, merging the benefits of automated and manual performing. However, having robots cooperating in real time with workers, responding in a physical, psychological and social adequate way, requires a human-centred design that not only calls for high safety standards regulating the quality of human-robot interaction, but also demands the robot's fine-grained perception and awareness of the dynamics of its surrounding environment, namely the behaviours of their human peers-their expected actions/responses-fostering the necessary collaborative efforts towards the accomplishment of the tasks to be executed.

AI for Scientific Discovery provides an accessible introduction to the wide-ranging applications of artificial intelligence technologies in scientific research and discovery across the full breadth of scientific disciplines. Artificial intelligence technologies support discovery science in multiple different ways. They support literature management and synthesis, allowing the wealth of what has already been discovered and reported on to be integrated and easily accessed. They play a central role in data analysis and interpretation - in the context of what is called 'data science'. AI is also helping to combat the reproducibility crisis in scientific research, by underpinning the discovery process with AI-enabled standards and pipelines, support the management of large-scale data and knowledge resources so that they can be shared, integrated and serve as a background 'knowledge ecosystem' into which new discoveries can be embedded. However, there are limitations to what AI can achieve and its outputs can be biased and confounded thus should not be blindly trusted. The latest generation of hybrid and 'human-in-the-loop' AI technologies have as their objective a balance between human inputs and insights and the power of the number-crunching and statistical inference at massive scale that AI technologies are best at.

The Microsoft (R) Robotics Developer Studio (MSRDS) and LEGO (R) robots together offer a flexible platform for creating robotic systems. Designed for novices with basic programming skills, Robot Development Using Microsoft (R) Robotics Developer Studio provides clear instructions on developing and operating robots. It includes an extensive array of examples, with corresponding step-by-step tutorials and explanations. The first several chapters of the book introduce the development environment of MSRDS, including concurrency and coordination runtime (CCR), decentralized software services (DSS), visual simulation environment (VSE), and the Microsoft Visual Programming Language (MVPL). The text then covers the inputs and outputs to the robot and control logic and describes how MSRDS can be used to control a LEGO robot's hearing and vision. It also presents a real-life example involving a sumo robot contest. The final chapter provides information on related academic courses, websites, and books. The top-down approach used in this text helps readers think of a robot as a system rather than an assemblage of parts. Readers gain an understanding of methods for integration, design trade-offs, and teamwork-all essential skills for building robots. The MSRDS codes for all examples are available at http://msrds.caece.net/

The 2016 International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation Engineering (ICMAE2016) have been successfully held in Xiamen, China, on April 22nd - 24th.The conference received well over more than 200 submissions, however, only 64 articles were selected and recommended to be included in this proceedings, which organized into 4 main areas, namely, Industrial Automation and Control System, Intelligent Mechatronics and Robotics, Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.The conference provides the opportunity to showcase state of art research and development in Mechatronics and Automation Engineering from researchers and developers from around the world under one roof to compare notes and establish collaborative relationships.

The 3rd Annual International Conference on Design, Manufacturing and Mechatronics (ICDMM2016) was successfully held in Wuhan, China in 2016.The ICDMM2016 covers a wide range of fundamental studies, technical innovations and industrial applications in industry design, manufacturing and mechatronics. The ICDMM2016 program consists of 4 keynote speeches, 96 oral and poster presentations. We were pleased to have more than 80 participants from China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. However, finally, only 83 articles were selected after peer review to be included in this proceedings.

Bipedal locomotion is among the most difficult challenges in control engineering. Most books treat the subject from a quasi-static perspective, overlooking the hybrid nature of bipedal mechanics. Feedback Control of Dynamic Bipedal Robot Locomotion is the first book to present a comprehensive and mathematically sound treatment of feedback design for achieving stable, agile, and efficient locomotion in bipedal robots. In this unique and groundbreaking treatise, expert authors lead you systematically through every step of the process, including: -Mathematical modeling of walking and running gaits in planar robots -Analysis of periodic orbits in hybrid systems -Design and analysis of feedback systems for achieving stable periodic motions -Algorithms for synthesizing feedback controllers -Detailed simulation examples -Experimental implementations on two bipedal test beds The elegance of the authors' approach is evident in the marriage of control theory and mechanics, uniting control-based presentation and mathematical custom with a mechanics-based approach to the problem and computational rendering. Concrete examples and numerous illustrations complement and clarify the mathematical discussion. A supporting Web site offers links to videos of several experiments along with MATLAB(R) code for several of the models. This one-of-a-kind book builds a solid understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of truly dynamic locomotion in planar bipedal robots.

The book introduces the main problems, key methods, and milestone results in singularity analysis of mechanisms. It provides a comprehensive and concise overview of basic results while also addressing a few advanced topics of singularities in mechanical systems and robots.

Human-Robot Interaction in Social Robotics explores important issues in designing a robot system that works with people in everyday environments. Edited by leading figures in the field of social robotics, it draws on contributions by researchers working on the Robovie project at the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, a world leader in humanoid interactive robotics. The book brings together, in one volume, technical and empirical research that was previously scattered throughout the literature. Taking a networked robot approach, the book examines how robots work in cooperation with ubiquitous sensors and people over telecommunication networks. It considers the use of social robots in daily life, grounding the work in field studies conducted at a school, train station, shopping mall, and science museum. Critical in the development of network robots, these usability studies allow researchers to discover real issues that need to be solved and to understand what kinds of services are possible. The book tackles key areas where development is needed, namely, in sensor networks for tracking humans and robots, humanoids that can work in everyday environments, and functions for interacting with people. It introduces a sensor network developed by the authors and discusses innovations in the Robovie humanoid, including several interactive behaviors and design policies. Exploring how humans interact with robots in daily life settings, this book offers valuable insight into how robots may be used in the future. The combination of engineering, empirical, and field studies provides readers with rich information to guide in developing practical interactive robots.

Mobile manipulators combine the advantages of mobile platforms and robotic arms, extending their operational range and functionality to large spaces and remote, demanding, and/or dangerous environments. They also bring complexity and difficulty in dynamic modeling and control system design. However, advances in nonlinear system analysis and control system design offer powerful tools and concepts for the control of mobile manipulator systems. Fundamentals in Modeling and Control of Mobile Manipulators presents a thorough theoretical treatment of several fundamental problems for mobile robotic manipulators. The book integrates fresh concepts and state-of-the-art results to systematically examine kinematics and dynamics, motion generation, feedback control, coordination, and cooperation. From this treatment, the authors form a basic theoretical framework for a mobile robotic manipulator that extends the theory of nonlinear control and applies to more realistic problems. Drawing on their research over the past ten years, the authors propose novel control theory concepts and techniques to tackle key problems. Topics covered include kinematic and dynamic modeling, control of nonholonomic systems, path planning that considers motion and manipulation, hybrid motion/force control and hybrid position/force control where the mobile manipulator is required to interact with environments, and coordination and cooperation strategies for multiple mobile manipulators. The book also includes practical examples of applications in engineering systems. This timely book investigates important scientific and engineering issues for researchers and engineers working with either single or multiple mobile manipulators for larger operational space, better cooperation, and improved productivity.

This book aims at providing algorithms for balance control of legged, torque-controlled humanoid robots. A humanoid robot normally uses the feet for locomotion. This paradigm is extended by addressing the challenge of multi-contact balancing, which allows a humanoid robot to exploit an arbitrary number of contacts for support. Using multiple contacts increases the size of the support polygon, which in turn leads to an increased robustness of the stance and to an increased kinematic workspace of the robot. Both are important features for facilitating a transition of humanoid robots from research laboratories to real-world applications, where they are confronted with multiple challenging scenarios, such as climbing stairs and ladders, traversing debris, handling heavy loads, or working in confined spaces. The distribution of forces and torques among the multiple contacts is a challenging aspect of the problem, which arises from the closed kinematic chain given by the robot and its environment.

The introduction of a new technology in a consolidated field has the potential to disrupt usual practices and create a fertile ground for errors. An example is robotic surgery that is now used in most surgical specialties, pushed by technology developers and enthusiastic surgeons. To analyze the potential impact of robotic surgery on patient safety, a consortium of major European Universities started the project SAFROS whose findings are summarized and further elaborated in the three parts of this book. Part one describes safety in complex systems such as surgery, how this may disrupt the traditional surgical workflow, how safety can be monitored, and the research questions that must be posed. Part two of the book describes the main findings of this research, by identifying the risks of robotic surgery and by describing where its ancillary technologies may fail. This part addresses features and evaluation of anatomic imaging and modeling, actions in the operating room, robot monitoring and control, operator interface, and surgical training. Part three of the book draws the conclusions and offers suggestions on how to limit the risks of medical errors. One possible approach is to use automation to monitor and execute parts of an intervention, thus suggesting that robotics and artificial intelligence will be major elements of the operating room of the future.

Musical robotics is a multi- and trans-disciplinary research area involving a wide range of different domains that contribute to its development, including: computer science, multimodal interfaces and processing, artificial intelligence, electronics, robotics, mechatronics and more. A musical robot requires many different complex systems to work together; integrating musical representation, techniques, expressions, detailed analysis and controls, for both playing and listening. The development of interactive multimodal systems provides advancements which enable enhanced human-machine interaction and novel possibilities for embodied robotic platforms. This volume is focused on this highly exciting interdisciplinary field. This book consists of 14 chapters highlighting different aspects of musical activities and interactions, discussing cutting edge research related to interactive multimodal systems and their integration with robots to further enhance musical understanding, interpretation, performance, education and enjoyment. It is dichotomized into two sections: Section I focuses on understanding elements of musical performance and expression while Section II concentrates on musical robots and automated instruments. Musical Robots and Interactive Multimodal Systems provides an introduction and foundation for researchers, students and practitioners to key achievements and current research trends on interactive multimodal systems and musical robotics.

This book provides state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of mobile robotics and associated support technologies around the theme of cooperative robotics. The book contains peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2016 conference. The book contains a strong stream of papers on multi-legged locomotion and cooperative robotics. There is also a strong collection of papers on human assistive devices, notably wearable exoskeletal and prosthetic devices, and personal care robots and mobility assistance devices designed to meet the growing challenges due to the global ageing society. Robot designs based on biological inspirations and ethical concerns and issues related to the design, development and deployment of robots are also strongly featured.