In the last decade, signi?cant changes have occurred in the ?eld of vehicle motion planning, and for UAVs in particular. UAV motion planning is especially dif?cult due to several complexities not considered by earlier planning strategies: the - creased importance of differential constraints, atmospheric turbulence which makes it impossible to follow a pre-computed plan precisely, uncertainty in the vehicle state, and limited knowledge about the environment due to limited sensor capabilities. These differences have motivated the increased use of feedback and other control engineering techniques for motion planning. The lack of exact algorithms for these problems and dif?culty inherent in characterizing approximation algorithms makes it impractical to determine algorithm time complexity, completeness, and even soundness. This gap has not yet been addressed by statistical characterization of experimental performance of algorithms and benchmarking. Because of this overall lack of knowledge, it is dif?cult to design a guidance system, let alone choose the algorithm. Throughout this paper we keep in mind some of the general characteristics and requirements pertaining to UAVs. A UAV is typically modeled as having velocity and acceleration constraints (and potentially the higher-order differential constraints associated with the equations of motion), and the objective is to guide the vehicle towards a goal through an obstacle ?eld. A UAV guidance problem is typically characterized by a three-dimensional problem space, limited information about the environment, on-board sensors with limited range, speed and acceleration constraints, and uncertainty in vehicle state and sensor data.

Complete with online files and updates, this cutting-edge text looks at the next generation of unmanned flying machines. Aerial robots can be considered as an evolution of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This book provides a complete overview of all the issues related to aerial robotics, addressing problems ranging from flight control to terrain perception and mission planning and execution. The major challenges and potentials of heterogeneous UAVs are comprehensively explored.

Intelligent Mobile Robot Navigation builds upon the application of fuzzy logic to the area of intelligent control of mobile robots. Reactive, planned, and teleoperated techniques are considered, leading to the development of novel fuzzy control systems for perception and navigation of nonholonomic autonomous vehicles. The unique feature of this monograph lies in its comprehensive treatment of the problem, from the theoretical development of the various schemes down to the real-time implementation of algorithms on mobile robot prototypes. As such, the book spans different domains ranging from mobile robots to intelligent transportation systems, from automatic control to artificial intelligence.

Aerial robotic manipulation integrates concepts and technologies coming from unmanned aerial systems and robotics manipulation. It includes not only kinematic, dynamics, aerodynamics and control but also perception, planning, design aspects, mechatronics and cooperation between several aerial robotics manipulators. All these topics are considered in this book in which the main research and development approaches in aerial robotic manipulation are presented, including the description of relevant systems. In addition of the research aspects, the book also includes the deployment of real systems both indoors and outdoors, which is a relevant characteristic of the book because most results of aerial robotic manipulation have been validated only indoor using motion tracking systems. Moreover, the book presents two relevant applications: structure assembly and inspection and maintenance, which has started to be applied in the industry. The Chapters of the book will present results of two main European Robotics Projects in aerial robotics manipulation: FP7 ARCAS and H2020 AEROARMS. FP7 ARCAS defined the basic concepts on aerial robotic manipulation, including cooperative manipulation. The H2020 AEROARMS on aerial robot with multiple arms and advanced manipulation capabilities for inspection and maintenance has two general objectives: (1) development of advanced aerial robotic manipulation methods and technologies, including manipulation with dual arms and multi-directional thrusters aerial platforms; and (2) application to the inspection and maintenance.

These volumes of "Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing" highlight papers presented at the "Third Iberian Robotics Conference (ROBOT 2017)". Held from 22 to 24 November 2017 in Seville, Spain, the conference is a part of a series of conferences co-organized by SEIDROB (Spanish Society for Research and Development in Robotics) and SPR (Portuguese Society for Robotics). The conference is focused on Robotics scientific and technological activities in the Iberian Peninsula, although open to research and delegates from other countries. Thus, it has more than 500 authors from 21 countries. The volumes present scientific advances but also robotic industrial applications, looking to promote new collaborations between industry and academia.

These volumes of "Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing" highlight papers presented at the "Third Iberian Robotics Conference (ROBOT 2017)". Held from 22 to 24 November 2017 in Seville, Spain, the conference is a part of a series of conferences co-organized by SEIDROB (Spanish Society for Research and Development in Robotics) and SPR (Portuguese Society for Robotics). The conference is focused on Robotics scientific and technological activities in the Iberian Peninsula, although open to research and delegates from other countries. Thus, it has more than 500 authors from 21 countries. The volumes present scientific advances but also robotic industrial applications, looking to promote new collaborations between industry and academia.

Complete with online files and updates, this cutting-edge text looks at the next generation of unmanned flying machines. Aerial robots can be considered as an evolution of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This book provides a complete overview of all the issues related to aerial robotics, addressing problems ranging from flight control to terrain perception and mission planning and execution. The major challenges and potentials of heterogeneous UAVs are comprehensively explored.

In the last decade, signi?cant changes have occurred in the ?eld of vehicle motion planning, and for UAVs in particular. UAV motion planning is especially dif?cult due to several complexities not considered by earlier planning strategies: the - creased importance of differential constraints, atmospheric turbulence which makes it impossible to follow a pre-computed plan precisely, uncertainty in the vehicle state, and limited knowledge about the environment due to limited sensor capabilities. These differences have motivated the increased use of feedback and other control engineering techniques for motion planning. The lack of exact algorithms for these problems and dif?culty inherent in characterizing approximation algorithms makes it impractical to determine algorithm time complexity, completeness, and even soundness. This gap has not yet been addressed by statistical characterization of experimental performance of algorithms and benchmarking. Because of this overall lack of knowledge, it is dif?cult to design a guidance system, let alone choose the algorithm. Throughout this paper we keep in mind some of the general characteristics and requirements pertaining to UAVs. A UAV is typically modeled as having velocity and acceleration constraints (and potentially the higher-order differential constraints associated with the equations of motion), and the objective is to guide the vehicle towards a goal through an obstacle ?eld. A UAV guidance problem is typically characterized by a three-dimensional problem space, limited information about the environment, on-board sensors with limited range, speed and acceleration constraints, and uncertainty in vehicle state and sensor data.

Testbeds are gaining increasing relevance in research domains and also in industrial applications. However, very few books devoted to testbeds have been published. To the best of my knowledge no book on this topic has been published. This book is particularly interesting for the growing community of testbed developers. I believe the book is also very interesting for researchers in robot-WSN cooperation. This book provides detailed description of a system that can be considered the first testbed that allows full peer-to-peer interoperability between heterogeneous robots and ubiquitous systems such as Wireless Sensor Networks, camera networks and pervasive computing systems. The system architecture includes modules that allows full bidirectional communication between robots and WSN. One robot can The book describes the current state of the art in development of testbeds integrating Cooperating Object technologies. It describes in detail the testbed specification and design using requirements extracted from surveys among experts in robotics and ubiquitous systems in academia and industry. The book also describes the testbed novel architecture and its hardware and software components. Moreover, it includes details on user support tools to facilitate its use such as remote use using a virtual private network and sets of functionalities of interest for members from the robotics, WSN and robot-WSN communities. Finally, the book illustrates its capabilities and potentialities describing the implementation of some of the experiments that have been performed. Examples from the robotics, WSN and robot-WSN communities are described.

Aerial robotic manipulation integrates concepts and technologies coming from unmanned aerial systems and robotics manipulation. It includes not only kinematic, dynamics, aerodynamics and control but also perception, planning, design aspects, mechatronics and cooperation between several aerial robotics manipulators. All these topics are considered in this book in which the main research and development approaches in aerial robotic manipulation are presented, including the description of relevant systems. In addition of the research aspects, the book also includes the deployment of real systems both indoors and outdoors, which is a relevant characteristic of the book because most results of aerial robotic manipulation have been validated only indoor using motion tracking systems. Moreover, the book presents two relevant applications: structure assembly and inspection and maintenance, which has started to be applied in the industry. The Chapters of the book will present results of two main European Robotics Projects in aerial robotics manipulation: FP7 ARCAS and H2020 AEROARMS. FP7 ARCAS defined the basic concepts on aerial robotic manipulation, including cooperative manipulation. The H2020 AEROARMS on aerial robot with multiple arms and advanced manipulation capabilities for inspection and maintenance has two general objectives: (1) development of advanced aerial robotic manipulation methods and technologies, including manipulation with dual arms and multi-directional thrusters aerial platforms; and (2) application to the inspection and maintenance.

Intelligent Mobile Robot Navigation builds upon the application of fuzzy logic to the area of intelligent control of mobile robots. Reactive, planned, and teleoperated techniques are considered, leading to the development of novel fuzzy control systems for perception and navigation of nonholonomic autonomous vehicles. The unique feature of this monograph lies in its comprehensive treatment of the problem, from the theoretical development of the various schemes down to the real-time implementation of algorithms on mobile robot prototypes. As such, the book spans different domains ranging from mobile robots to intelligent transportation systems, from automatic control to artificial intelligence.

Localization and tracking are key functionalities in ubiquitous computing systems and techniques. In recent years a very high variety of approaches, sensors and techniques for indoor and GPS-denied environments have been developed. This book briefly summarizes the current state of the art in localization and tracking in ubiquitous computing systems focusing on cluster-based schemes. Additionally, existing techniques for measurement integration, node inclusion/exclusion and cluster head selection are also described in this book.