This collection of twenty-three timely contributions covers a well-selected repertory of topics within the autonomous systems field. The book discusses a range of design, construction, control, and operation problems along with a multiplicity of well-established and novel solutions.

In racent years the LSI technology has witnessed a revoluti onary development, and allowed substantial reductions in the size and cost of digital logic circuitry. Computer system building blocks have progressed from the level of discrete components to the level of complex ICs involving many logic circuits on a single "chip." The invention and wide applica tions of microprocessors have changed the philosophy of the signal processing, measurement and control engineering fields. The microprocessor-based digital signal processing systems and controllers have replaced the conventional ones based on standard analog and digital computing equipment. The first microprocessors and "on-chip" computers have appeared towards the end of 71 beginning 72. Their evolution since then and the number of applications, in which they have been utilized, have both been extremely spectacular. New system concepts and hardware/software tools are steadily under development to sup port the microprocessor in its multiple and complex tasks. The goal of this book is to provide a cohesive and well-balan ced set of contributions dealing with important aspects and applications of microprocessors to signal processing, measu rement and system control. The majority of contributions in clude sufficient review material and present rather complete treatments of the respective topics."

The field of Intelligent Systems has expanded enormously during the last two decades with many theoretical and practical results already available, which are the outcome of the synergetic merging of classical fields such as system theory, artificial intelligence, information theory, soft computing, operations research, linguistic theory and others. This book presents a collection of timely contributions that cover a wide, well-selected range of topics within the field. The book contains forty-seven contributions with an emphasis on computational and processing issues. The book is structured in four parts, as follows: Part I: Computer-aided intelligent systems and tools; Part II: Information extraction from texts, natural language interfaces and intelligent retrieval systems; Part III: Image processing and video-based systems; Part IV: Applications Particular topics treated include: planning; problem solving; information extraction from texts; natural language interfaces; audio retrieval systems; multi-agent systems; image compression, image and segmentation, and human face recognition. Applications include: peri-urban road network extraction; analysis of structures; climatic sensor signal analysis; aortic pressure assessment; hospital laboratory planning; fatigue analysis using electromyographic signals; forecasting in power systems. The book can serve as a reference pool of knowledge that may inspire and motivate researchers and practitioners for further developments and modern-day applications. The teacher and student in related postgraduate and research programs can thereby save considerable time in searching the scattered literature in the field.

Robotic and manufacturing systems have gained increasing attention at both the academic and industrial levels. A key component in their development is the microprocessor, which offers increased functional capabilities at reduced costs. Microprocessors in Robotic and Manufacturing Systems provides a balanced, state-of-the-art presentation of the involvement of microprocessors in the design and operation of modern robotic and manufacturing systems. Prepared by a distinguished team of experts, the book covers a wide repertory of topics, including the latest developments in the field together with fresh, original results derived by the contributors. The book provides a unique, cohesive reference source providing access to the most current advances in the microprocessor-based robotics and manufacturing field. A subset of the topics covered is the following: Computation of Robot Dynamics by Multiprocessor Schemes; Numerical Applications of Digital Signal Processors in Robotic Computations; Automatic Scheduling of the Newton-Euler Inverse Dynamics; Microprocessor-Based Controllers for Robotic Manipulators; Design Aspects of a Robot Coordinated by a Desktop Computer; Collision Strategies for Robotic Retreat and Resistance: Microprocessor Based Implementations; Microprocessor Based Intelligent Welding Systems; Microprocessors in Robotic/Machine Vison Computer-controlled Integrated Manufacturing Systems; Microcomputer Expert System Tools for Robotic and Manufacturing Operations. The reader can save considerable time in searching the scattered technical information on the application of microprocessors to industrial robots and flexible manufacturing systems. The professional can have readilyavailable a rich set of important analysis, design and operational results.

Robotics is a modern interdisciplinary field that has emerged from the marriage of computerized numerical control and remote manipulation. Today's robotic systems have intelligence features, and are able to perform dexterous and intelligent human-like actions through appropriate combination of learning, perception, planning, decision making and control. This book presents advanced concepts, techniques and applications reflecting the experience of a wide group of specialists in the field. Topics include: kinematics, dynamics, path planning and tracking, control, mobile robotics, navigation, robot programming, and sophisticated applications in the manufacturing, medical, and other areas.

This 2-volume work represents the proceedings of the First European Workshop on Fault Diagnostics, Reliability and Re- lated Knowledge-Based Approaches held in the Island of Rho- des, Greece (August 3l-September 3, 1986). This Workshop was organized in the framework of a joint research project spon- sored by the Commission of the European Communi ties under the Stimulation Action Programme. The principal aim of the Workshop was to bring together people working on the numeric and symbolic (knowledge-based) treatment of reliability and fault diagnosis problems, in order to promote the interaction and exhange of ideas, expe- riences and results in this area. The workshop was a real success, with SS papers presen- ted and 70 participants. A second Workshop of the same na- ture has been decided to be held in Manchester (UMIST), - gland, in April 1987. . The two volumes contain sufficient amount of informa- tion which reflects very well the state-of-the-art of the field, and shows the current tendency towards knowledge-ba- sed (expert systems) and fault-tolerant approaches. Volume 1 contains the contributions on fault diagnostics and reliability issues (numeric treatment), and Vo*lume 2 the contributions on knowledge~based and fault-tolerant techni- ques. We are grateful to the Commission of the European Com- munities for having sponsored the Workshop, and to all au- thors for their high quality contributions and presenta- tions.

This book is devoted to the study of fuzzy reasoning as applied to decision making and control processes. It contains a collection of important contributions covering a wide well-selected range of topics within the field. The book contains twenty-one papers, written by thirty-four distinguished contributors and is divided into five parts. Part 1 involves four chapters providing background material together with useful techniques for the validation of fuzzy knowledge bases and the software representation of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. Part 2 presents an overview of neuro-fuzzy expert systems along with an important case study, and a neural network model which is suitable for fuzzy reasoning. Part 3 presents the state of art of fuzzy controllers, including design and implementation aspects. This part starts with a chapter on the demystification of fuzzy control and includes critical evaluations of fuzzy controllers, along with new types of fuzzy controllers such as the sliding mode fuzzy controller. Part 4 involves a chapter on fuzzy parameter and state estimation, which is of fundamental importance in a variety of applications, a chapter on fuzzy reasoning as used in rule-based systems, and a chapter on computing the multivariable shape of an n-D pattern class. Finally, Part 5 presents six important applications dealing with industrial robotic systems, mechanical systems, manipulators with artificial rubber muscles, Petri nets, biomedical engineering, and nondestructive fruit collection. The book is suitable for the researcher and practitioner, as well as for the teacher and student in related Master and Doctoral courses.

This book is concerned with Intelligent Control methods and applications. The field of intelligent control has been expanded very much during the recent years and a solid body of theoretical and practical results are now available. These results have been obtained through the synergetic fusion of concepts and techniques from a variety of fields such as automatic control, systems science, computer science, neurophysiology and operational research. Intelligent control systems have to perform anthropomorphic tasks fully autonomously or interactively with the human under known or unknown and uncertain environmental conditions. Therefore the basic components of any intelligent control system include cognition, perception, learning, sensing, planning, numeric and symbolic processing, fault detection/repair, reaction, and control action. These components must be linked in a systematic, synergetic and efficient way. Predecessors of intelligent control are adaptive control, self-organizing control, and learning control which are well documented in the literature. Typical application examples of intelligent controls are intelligent robotic systems, intelligent manufacturing systems, intelligent medical systems, and intelligent space teleoperators. Intelligent controllers must employ both quantitative and qualitative information and must be able to cope with severe temporal and spatial variations, in addition to the fundamental task of achieving the desired transient and steady-state performance. Of course the level of intelligence required in each particular application is a matter of discussion between the designers and users. The current literature on intelligent control is increasing, but the information is still available in a sparse and disorganized way.

This book contains a selection of papers presented at the "European Robotics and Intelligent Systems Conference" (EURISCON '91) held in Corfu. Greece (June 23-28. 1991). It is devoted to the analysis. design and applications of technological systems with built-in intelligence achieved through appropriate blending of mathematical, symbolic. sensing. computer processing. and feedback control concepts. methods and software / hardware tools. System intelligence includes human-like capabilities such as learning. observation. perception. interpretation. reasoning. planning. decision making. and action. Integrated intelligent decision and control systems obey Saridis' prinCiple of Increasing Precision with Decreasing Intelligence (IPDI). and have a hierarchical structure with three basic levels. namely Organization. Coordination. and Execution Levels. As we proceed from the organization to the execution level. the precision about the jobs to be completed increases and accordingly the intelligence reqUired for these jobs decreases. As an example. it is mentioned here that in an intelligent robotic system the organization tasks can be realized using a neural net. the coordination tasks by a Petri net. and the execution tasks by local sensors and actuators. The field of intelligent systems is a new interdisciplinary field with continuously increasing interest and expansion. It is actually the outcome of the synergetic interaction and cooperation of classical fields such as system theory. control theory. artificial intelligence. operational research. information theory. electronics. communications. and others.

The theory of nonlinear oscillations and stability of motion is a fundamental part of the study of numerous real world phenomena. These phenomena, particularly auto-oscillations of the first and second kind, capture, para metric, subharmonic and ultraharmonic resonance, asymptotic behavior and orbits' stability, constitute the core of problems treated in "Nonlinear Mechanics", and their study is connected with the names of H. Poincare, A. M. Lyapunov, N. M. Krylov and N. N. Bogolyubov. Professor Demetrios Magiros, a widely known scientist in the theories of oscillations and nonlinear differential equations, has devoted his numerous works to this significant part of modern physical science. His scientific results can be classified in the following way: I) creation of methods of analysis of subharmonic resonances under the nonlinear effect, 2) determination and analysis of the main modes of nonlinear oscillations on the basis of infinite determinants, 3) analysis of problems of celestial mechanics, 4) classification of stability of solutions of dynamic systems concepts, 5) mathematical analogs of physical and social systems. He has developed new methods and solutions for a great number of difficult problems of nonlinear mechanics making a significant contri bution to the theory and applications of the field. Urgency, depth of perception of the considered phenomena, and practi cal directness are characteristics of his work.

"Introduction to Mobile Robot Control" provides a complete and concise study of modeling, control, and navigation methods for wheeled non-holonomic and omnidirectional mobile robots and manipulators. The book begins with a study of mobile robot drives and corresponding kinematic and dynamic models, and discusses the sensors used in mobile robotics. It then examines a variety of model-based, model-free, and vision-based controllers with unified proof of their stabilization and tracking performance, also addressingthe problems of path, motion, and task planning, along with localization and mapping topics. The book provides a host of experimental results, a conceptual overview of systemic and software mobile robot control architectures, and a tour of the use of wheeled mobile robots and manipulators in industry and society.

"Introduction to Mobile Robot Control" is an essential reference, and is also a textbook suitable as a supplement for many university robotics courses. It is accessible to all and can be used as a reference for professionals and researchers in the mobile robotics field.
Clearly and authoritatively presents mobile robot conceptsRichly illustrated throughout with figures and examplesKey concepts demonstrated with a host of experimental and simulation examplesNo prior knowledge of the subject is required; each chapter commences with an introduction and background"

It is in the area of Systems Diagnosis. Supervision and Control that Knowledge-Based Techniques have had their most significant impact in recent years. In this volume. Spyros Tzafestas has ably put together the current state of the art of the application of Artificial Intelligence concepts to problems of Systems Diagnosis. All the authors in this edited work are distinguished internationally. recognized experts on various aspects of Artificial Intelligence and its applications. and the coverage of the field that they provide is both readable and authoritative. The sixteen chapters break down in a natural way into three broad categories i.e ** (a) introduction to the applications of Expert Systems in Engineering. (b) Knowledge-based systems architectures. models and techniques for fault diagnosis. supervision and real time control and finally. (c) applications and case studies in three specific 'areas. namely: Manufacturing. Chemical Processes and Communications Networks. The final chapter provides a com prehensive survey of the field with an extensive bibliography. The mix of original scientific articles. tutorial and survey papers makes this col lection a very timely and valuable addition to the literature in this important field. MADAN G. SINGH Professor of Information Engineering at U.M.I.S.T.

Great progresses have been made in the application of fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic. Most remarkable area of application is 'fuzzy control', where fuzzy logic was first applied to plant control systems and its use is expanding to consumer products. Most of fuzzy control systems uses fuzzy inference with max-min or max-product composition, similar to the algorithm that first used by Mamdani in 1970s. Some algorithms are developed to refine fuzzy controls systems but the main part of algorithm stays the same. Triggered by the success of fuzzy control systems, other ways of applying fuzzy set theory are also investigated. They are usually referred to as 'fuzzy expert sys tems', and their purpose are to combine the idea of fuzzy theory with AI based approach toward knowledge processing. These approaches can be more generally viewed as 'fuzzy information processing', that is to bring fuzzy idea into informa tion processing systems."

This book is concerned with Artificial Intelligence (AI) concepts and techniques as applied to industrial decision making, control and automation problems. The field of AI has been expanded enormously during the last years due to that solid theoretical and application results have accumulated. During the first stage of AI development most workers in the field were content with illustrations showing ideas at work on simple problems. Later, as the field matured, emphasis was turned to demonstrations that showed the capability of AI techniques to handle problems of practical value. Now, we arrived at the stage where researchers and practitioners are actually building AI systems that face real-world and industrial problems. This volume provides a set of twenty four well-selected contributions that deal with the application of AI to such real-life and industrial problems. These contributions are grouped and presented in five parts as follows: Part 1: General Issues Part 2: Intelligent Systems Part 3: Neural Networks in Modelling, Control and Scheduling Part 4: System Diagnostics Part 5: Industrial Robotic, Manufacturing and Organizational Systems Part 1 involves four chapters providing background material and dealing with general issues such as the conceptual integration of qualitative and quantitative models, the treatment of timing problems at system integration, and the investigation of correct reasoning in interactive man-robot systems.

Robotics is a modern interdisciplinary field that has emerged from the marriage of computerized numerical control and remote manipulation. Today's robotic systems have intelligence features, and are able to perform dexterous and intelligent human-like actions through appropriate combination of learning, perception, planning, decision making and control. This book presents advanced concepts, techniques and applications reflecting the experience of a wide group of specialists in the field. Topics include: kinematics, dynamics, path planning and tracking, control, mobile robotics, navigation, robot programming, and sophisticated applications in the manufacturing, medical, and other areas.

This collection of twenty-three timely contributions covers a well-selected repertory of topics within the autonomous systems field. The book discusses a range of design, construction, control, and operation problems along with a multiplicity of well-established and novel solutions.

This book contains a selection of papers presented at the "European Robotics and Intelligent Systems Conference" (EURISCON '91) held in Corfu. Greece (June 23-28. 1991). It is devoted to the analysis. design and applications of technological systems with built-in intelligence achieved through appropriate blending of mathematical, symbolic. sensing. computer processing. and feedback control concepts. methods and software / hardware tools. System intelligence includes human-like capabilities such as learning. observation. perception. interpretation. reasoning. planning. decision making. and action. Integrated intelligent decision and control systems obey Saridis' prinCiple of Increasing Precision with Decreasing Intelligence (IPDI). and have a hierarchical structure with three basic levels. namely Organization. Coordination. and Execution Levels. As we proceed from the organization to the execution level. the precision about the jobs to be completed increases and accordingly the intelligence reqUired for these jobs decreases. As an example. it is mentioned here that in an intelligent robotic system the organization tasks can be realized using a neural net. the coordination tasks by a Petri net. and the execution tasks by local sensors and actuators. The field of intelligent systems is a new interdisciplinary field with continuously increasing interest and expansion. It is actually the outcome of the synergetic interaction and cooperation of classical fields such as system theory. control theory. artificial intelligence. operational research. information theory. electronics. communications. and others.

This book is concerned with Intelligent Control methods and applications. The field of intelligent control has been expanded very much during the recent years and a solid body of theoretical and practical results are now available. These results have been obtained through the synergetic fusion of concepts and techniques from a variety of fields such as automatic control, systems science, computer science, neurophysiology and operational research. Intelligent control systems have to perform anthropomorphic tasks fully autonomously or interactively with the human under known or unknown and uncertain environmental conditions. Therefore the basic components of any intelligent control system include cognition, perception, learning, sensing, planning, numeric and symbolic processing, fault detection/repair, reaction, and control action. These components must be linked in a systematic, synergetic and efficient way. Predecessors of intelligent control are adaptive control, self-organizing control, and learning control which are well documented in the literature. Typical application examples of intelligent controls are intelligent robotic systems, intelligent manufacturing systems, intelligent medical systems, and intelligent space teleoperators. Intelligent controllers must employ both quantitative and qualitative information and must be able to cope with severe temporal and spatial variations, in addition to the fundamental task of achieving the desired transient and steady-state performance. Of course the level of intelligence required in each particular application is a matter of discussion between the designers and users. The current literature on intelligent control is increasing, but the information is still available in a sparse and disorganized way.

The foundation of linear systems theory goes back to Newton and has been followed over the years by many improvements such as linear operator theory, Laplace Transformation etc. After the World War II, feedback control theory has shown a rapid development, and standard elegant analysis and synthesis techniques have been discovered by control system workers, such as root-locus (Evans) and frequency response methods (Nyquist, Bode). These permitted a fast and efficient analysis of simple-loop control systems, but in their original "paper-and-pencil" form were not appropriate for multiple loop high-order systems. The advent of fast digital computers, together with the development of multivariable multi-loop system techniques, have eliminated these difficulties. Multivariable control theory has followed two main avenues; the optimal control approach, and the algebraic and frequency-domain control approach. An important key concept in the whole multivariable system theory is "ob servability and controllability" which revealed the exact relationships between transfer functions and the state variable representations. This has given new insight into the phenomenon of "hidden oscillations" and to the transfer function modelling of dynamic systems. The basic tool in optimal control theory is the celebrated matrix Riccati differential equation which provides the time-varying feedback gains in a linear-quadratic control system cell. Much theory presently exists for the characteristic properties and solution of this Riccati equation."

This 2-volume work represents the proceedings of the First European Workshop on Fault Diagnostics, Reliability and Re- lated Knowledge-Based Approaches held in the Island of Rho- des, Greece (August 3l-September 3, 1986). This Workshop was organized in the framework of a joint research project spon- sored by the Commission of the European Communi ties under the Stimulation Action Programme. The principal aim of the Workshop was to bring together people working on the numeric and symbolic (knowledge-based) treatment of reliability and fault diagnosis problems, in order to promote the interaction and exhange of ideas, expe- riences and results in this area. The workshop was a real success, with SS papers presen- ted and 70 participants. A second Workshop of the same na- ture has been decided to be held in Manchester (UMIST), - gland, in April 1987. . The two volumes contain sufficient amount of informa- tion which reflects very well the state-of-the-art of the field, and shows the current tendency towards knowledge-ba- sed (expert systems) and fault-tolerant approaches. Volume 1 contains the contributions on fault diagnostics and reliability issues (numeric treatment), and Vo*lume 2 the contributions on knowledge~based and fault-tolerant techni- ques. We are grateful to the Commission of the European Com- munities for having sponsored the Workshop, and to all au- thors for their high quality contributions and presenta- tions.

In racent years the LSI technology has witnessed a revoluti onary development, and allowed substantial reductions in the size and cost of digital logic circuitry. Computer system building blocks have progressed from the level of discrete components to the level of complex ICs involving many logic circuits on a single "chip". The invention and wide applica tions of microprocessors have changed the philosophy of the signal processing, measurement and control engineering fields. The microprocessor-based digital signal processing systems and controllers have replaced the conventional ones based on standard analog and digital computing equipment. The first microprocessors and "on-chip" computers have appeared towards the end of 71 beginning 72. Their evolution since then and the number of applications, in which they have been utilized, have both been extremely spectacular. New system concepts and hardware/software tools are steadily under development to sup port the microprocessor in its multiple and complex tasks. The goal of this book is to provide a cohesive and well-balan ced set of contributions dealing with important aspects and applications of microprocessors to signal processing, measu rement and system control. The majority of contributions in clude sufficient review material and present rather complete treatments of the respective topics.

The introduction of the microprocessor in computer and system engineering has motivated the development of many new concepts and has simplified the design of many modern industrial systems. During the first decade of their life. microprocessors have shown a tremendous evolution in all possible directions (technology. power. functionality. I/O handling. etc). Of course putting the microprocessors and their environmental devices into properly operating systems is a complex and difficult task requiring high skills for melding and integrating hardware. and systemic components. software This book was motivated by the editors' feeling that a cohesive reference is needed providing a good coverage of modern industrial applications of microprocessor-based real time control, together with latest advanced methodological issues. Unavoidably a single volume cannot be exhaustive. but the present book contains a sufficient number of important real-time applications. The book is divided in two sections. Section I deals with general hardware. software and systemic topics. and involves six chapters. Chapter 1. by Gupta and Toong. presents an overview of the development of microprocessors during their first twelve years of existence. Chapter 2. by Dasgupta. deals with a number of system software concepts for real time microprocessor-based systems (task scheduling. memory management. input-output aspects. programming language reqUirements."