Bionics evolved in the 1960s as a framework to pursue the development of artificial systems based on the study of biological systems. Numerous disciplines and technologies, including artificial intelligence and learningdevices, information processing, systems architecture and control, perception, sensory mechanisms, and bioenergetics, contributed to bionics research. This volume is based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop within the Special Programme on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control, held in Il Ciocco, Italy, in June 1989. A consensus emerged at the workshop, and is reflected in the book, on the value of learning from nature in order to derive guidelines for the design of intelligent machines which operate in unstructured environments. The papers in the book are grouped into seven chapters: vision and dynamic systems, hands and tactile perception, locomotion, intelligent motor control, design technologies, interfacing robots to nervous systems, and robot societies and self-organization.

This volume contains papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on "Sensors and Sensory Systems for Advanced Robots", which was held in Maratea, Italy, during the week Apri I 28 - May 3, 1986. Participants in the ARW, who came from eleven NATO and two non-NATO countries, represented an i nternat i ona I assortment of d i st i ngu i shed research centers in industry, government and academia. Purpose of the Workshop was to rev i ew the state of the art of sensing for advanced robots, to discuss basic concepts and new ideas on the use of sensors for robot control and to provide recommendations for future research in this area, There IS an almost unanimous consensus among invest i gators in the fie I d of robot i cs that the add i t i on of sensory capabi I ities represents the "natural" evolution of present industrial robots, as wei I as the necessary premise to the development of advanced robots for nonindustrial app I i cat ions. However, a number of conceptua I and techn i ca I problems sti I I challenge the practical implementation and widespread appl ication of sensor-based robot control techn i ques. Cruc i a I among those prob I ems is the ava i lab iii ty of adequate sensors.

Distributed autonomous robotic systems (DARS) are systems composed of multiple autonomous units such as modules, cells, processors, agents, and robots. Combination or cooperative operation of multiple autonomous units is expected to lead to desirable features such as flexibility, fault tolerance, and efficiency. The DARS is the leading established conference on distributed autonomous systems. All papers have the common goal to contribute solutions to the very demanding task of designing distributed systems to realize robust and intelligent robotic systems.

Atthedawnofthenewmillennium, roboticsisundergoingamajortransformation inscopeanddimension.Fromalargelydominantindustrialfocus, roboticsisrapidly expanding into the challenges of unstructured environments. Interacting with, - sisting, serving, and exploring with humans, the emerging robots will increasingly touchpeopleandtheirlives. ThegoalofthenewseriesofSpringerTractsinAdvancedRobotics(STAR)isto bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basisoftheirsigni?canceandquality.Itisourhopethatthewiderdisseminationof researchdevelopmentswillstimulatemoreexchangesandcollaborationsamongthe researchcommunityandcontributetofurtheradvancementofthisrapidlygrowing ?eld. Sinceitsinceptionsomefourteenyearsago, ISER, theInternationalSymposium on Experimental Robotics was published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences (LNCIS). With the launching of STAR, a more suitable homeisfoundforthisandotherthematicsymposiadevotedtoexcellenceinrobotics research. TheEightheditionofExperimentalRoboticseditedbyBrunoSicilianoandPaolo Dario offers in its ?fteen-chapter volume a collection of a broad range of topics in robotics.Thecontentsofthesecontributionsrepresentacross-sectionofthecurrent stateofroboticsresearchfromoneparticularaspect: experimentalwork, andhowit re?ectsonthetheoreticalbasisofsubsequentdevelopments.Experimentalvalidation ofalgorithms, designconcepts, ortechniquesisthecommonthreadrunningthrough thislargecollectionofwidelydiversecontributions. From its charming venue to its excellent program, ISER culminates with this unique reference on the current developments and new directions in the ?eld of experimentalrobotics-atributetothecommitmentanddedicationofitshosts California, USA OussamaKhatib November2002 STAREditor Preface The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) is a series of - annual meetings, which are organized in a rotating fashion around North Am- ica, EuropeandAsia/Oceania.PreviousvenueswereMontreal(Canada), Toulouse (France), Kyoto (Japan), Stanford (USA), Barcelona (Spain), Sydney (Australia), Honolulu (USA). The goal of these symposia is to provide a forum for research in robotics that focuses on theories and principles that are validated by experiments. Themeetingsareconceivedtobringtogether, inasmallgroupsetting, researchers fromaroundtheworldwhoareintheforefrontofexperimentalroboticsresearch. Thepost-symposiumExperimentalRoboticsproceedingshavetraditionallybeen published by Springer-Verlag. In addition to the proceedings, these symposia have produced compilation of video segments illustrating the reported research, which areavailableasvideoproceedings. The Eight International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER 02) was held in the charming sea village of Sant'Angelo on the island of Ischia in the gulf ofNaples, Italyon8-11July2002.ThesymposiumwaschairedbyBrunoSiciliano andPaol

ISRR, the "International Symposium on Robotics Research," is one of robotics pioneering symposia, which has established some of the field's most fundamental and lasting contributions over the past two decades. This book presents the results of the eleventh edition of "Robotics Research" ISRR03, offering a broad range of topics in robotics. The contributions provide a wide coverage of the current state of robotics research: the advances and challenges in its theoretical foundation and technology basis, and the developments in its traditional and new emerging areas of applications. The diversity, novelty, and span of the work unfolding in these areas reveal the field's increased maturity and expanded scope, and define the state of the art of robotics and its future direction. "

ISRR, the "International Symposium on Robotics Research," is one of robotics pioneering symposia, which has established some of the field's most fundamental and lasting contributions over the past two decades. This book presents the results of the eleventh edition of "Robotics Research" ISRR03, offering a broad range of topics in robotics. The contributions provide a wide coverage of the current state of robotics research: the advances and challenges in its theoretical foundation and technology basis, and the developments in its traditional and new emerging areas of applications. The diversity, novelty, and span of the work unfolding in these areas reveal the field's increased maturity and expanded scope, and define the state of the art of robotics and its future direction. "

This book is a collection of papers on the state of the art in experimental robotics. Experimental Robotics is at the core of validating robotics research for both its systems science and theoretical foundations. Because robotics experiments are carried out on physical, complex machines, of which its controllers are subject to uncertainty, devising meaningful experiments and collecting statistically significant results, pose important and unique challenges in robotics. Robotics experiments serve as a unifying theme for robotics system science and algorithmic foundations. These observations have led to the creation of the International Symposia on Experimental Robotics. The papers in this book were presented at the 2002 International Symposium on Experimental Robotics.

Bionics evolved in the 1960s as a framework to pursue the development of artificial systems based on the study of biological systems. Numerous disciplines and technologies, including artificial intelligence and learningdevices, information processing, systems architecture and control, perception, sensory mechanisms, and bioenergetics, contributed to bionics research. This volume is based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop within the Special Programme on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control, held in Il Ciocco, Italy, in June 1989. A consensus emerged at the workshop, and is reflected in the book, on the value of learning from nature in order to derive guidelines for the design of intelligent machines which operate in unstructured environments. The papers in the book are grouped into seven chapters: vision and dynamic systems, hands and tactile perception, locomotion, intelligent motor control, design technologies, interfacing robots to nervous systems, and robot societies and self-organization.