Our society keeps growing with a large number of complicated machines and systems, while we are spending our diverse lives. The number of aged people has been increasing in the society. It is more likely than ever that we are involved in dangers, accidents, crimes, and disasters. Securing and supporting our daily life, building reliable infrastructures against large scale disasters, and preventing unexpected human errors are crucial issues in our highly developed complex society.
The systems theory can provide "modelling, decision analysis and management for safety and security" as well as "fault detection and reliable control for the design of fail-safe, fool-proof machines and systems."
If the human nature is analyzed and treated properly in the process of designing machines and systems, we could create safer, more reliable, and more intelligent machines and systems that can support our society and give us no anxiety and no uneasiness. "Hybrid systems modelling human behaviours" and "services for human" could give proper examples in this respect.
"Robotics for safety and security," "safety recovery systems," "visual surveillance and monitoring," and "transportation systems for safety and security," those will provide powerful tools for safe, secure, and reliable systems to achieve peaceful society.
Key features:
- Towards a new science and its practical applications
- Analysis of humans contributing to system designs
- Evaluations of systems in the aspects of sense of security and feeling of easiness.
.Towards a new science and its practical applications
.Analysis of humans contributing to system designs
.Evaluations of systems in the aspects of sense of security and feeling of easiness"

The book includes 61 selected papers from 106 presented at the second International Conference on Machine Automation (ICMA2000). The conference focused, for the first time, on human friendly mechantronics which covers machine systems interacting with human beings, psychological, physiological, and physical behaviors of the human being itself, robotics, human-mimetic mechanical systems, commercial application examples and so on. Machine automation has owed a lot to mechatronics technology in the last decades, however, a paradigm shift is desired and emphasized in the 21st century in every aspect of our society, and mechantronics is not an exception. The paradigm shift in mechatronics is a pursuit of productivity and efficiency to the preference of humans, and it is time that a new concept of a human friendly robot must be proposed that is welcome by human users. The book aims to offer the most up-to-date and valuable information on:
Human Interface & Communication
Human Support Technology
Actuator & Control
Vision & Sensing
Robotics and Design
Manufacturing System
We believe this book will bring advanced knowledge and valuable information to the industries as well as to academics and will contribute to the further development in mechatronics and its related fields.
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