Synopsis
This is a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the field of mobile robotics. Emphasising computation and algorithms, the authors address a range of strategies for enabling robots to perform tasks that involve motion and behavior. The book is divided into three major sections: locomotion, sensing, and reasoning. It concentrates on wheeled and legged mobile robots, but discusses a variety of other propulsion systems. Kinematic models are developed for many of the more common locomotive strategies. It presents algorithms for both visual and nonvisual sensor technologies, including sonar, vision, and laser scanners. In the section on reasoning, the authors offer a thorough examination of planning and the issues related to spatial representation. They emphasize the problems of navigation, pose estimation, and autonomous exploration. The book is a comprehensive treatment of the field, offering a discussion of state-of-the art methods with illustrations of key technologies.

Synopsis
The interest in climbing and walking robots has increased over recent years, addressing advanced application fields such as exploration/intervention in extreme environments, personal services, emergency rescue operations, transportation, entertainment among others, and to envisage robots evolving into electromechanical replicas of ourselves. In response to the new technical challenges in the development of these sophisticated machines, significant research and development effort has been undertaken. It concerns embedded technologies (for acuators, sensors, information systems), advanced design methods, adapted control techniques for highly redundant systems, as well as operation and decision autonomy and human-robot co-existence. Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR 2002) provides research and industrial individuals in the international community with the opportunity to report their experience in this domain and allow the changes of ideas towards creating robot devices to be able to carry out difficult activities in demanding or dangerous conditions. Topics covered include: biological inspired systems; control of CLAWAR; hopping robots; multi-legged locomotion; and medical systems.

Algorithms for Robotic Motion and Manipulation :
1996 Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics

Synopsis
Robotics research incorporates such a wide variety of fields, each with its own domain of knowledge; this fact is one of the reasons that the design of integrated robotics systems is so difficult. The necessity of combining tools from various domains requires a formal and abstract view of the robot-environment relationship. Exploring the algorithmic foundations of this relationship based on a common knowledge of different theoretical issues is rapidly becoming a respected fields in its own right. This volume contains a carefully edited collection of papers that gives a solid overview of the state of the art in robot algorithms. The papers not only treat core problems in robotics, like motion planning, sensor-based planning, manipulation, and assembly planning, but also examine the application of robotics algorithms in other domains, like molecular modelling, computer graphics, and image analysis.

Mobile Robot Localization and Map Building - A Multisensor Fusion Approach
Jose A. Castellanos, Juan D. Tardos

Synopsis
During the 1990s, many researchers dedicated their efforts to constructing revolutionary machines and to providing them with forms of artificial intelligence to perform some of the most hazardous, risky or monotonous tasks historically assigned to human beings. Among those machines, mobile robots are undoubtedly at the cutting edge of research directions. A rough classification of mobile robots can be considered: on the one hand, mobile robots oriented to human-made indoor environments; on the other hand, mobile robots oriented to unstructured outdoor environments, which could include flying oriented robots, space-oriented robots and underwater robots. The most common motion mechanism for surface mobile robots is the wheel-based mechanism, adapted both to flat surfaces, found in human-made environments, and to rough terrain, found in outdoor environments. However, some researchers have reported successful developments with leg-based mobile robots capable of climbing up stairs, although they require further investigation. The research work presented here focuses on wheel-based mobile robots that navigate in human-made indoor environments. Two main problems are described throughout this book: Firstly, the representation and integration of uncertain geometric information by means of the Symmetries and Perturbations Model (SPmodel). This model combines the use of probability theory to represent the imprecision in the location of a geometric element, and the theory of symmetries to represent the partiality due to characteristics of each type of geometric element. The second major problem is the "first location problem", that is, the computation of an estimation for the mobile robot location when the vehicle is completely lost in the environment. The problem is formulated as a search in an interpretation tree using efficient matching algorithms and geometric constraints to reduce the size of the solution space. The book proposes a new probabilistic framework adapted to the problem of simultaneous localization and map building for mobile robots: the Symmetries and Perturbations Map (SPmap). This framework has been experimentally validated by a complete experiment which profited from ground-truth to accurately validate the precision and the appropriateness of the approach. The book emphasizes the generality of the solutions proposed to the different problems and their independence with respect to the exteroceptive sensors mounted on the mobile robot. Theoretical results are complemented by real experiments, where the use of multisensor-based approaches is highlighted.

Synopsis
Parallel robots are closed-loop mechanisms offering very good performance in terms of accuracy, rigidity and ability to manipulate large loads. Parallel robots have been used in a wide variety of applications ranging from astronomy to flight simulators and are becoming increasingly popular in the machine-tool industry. This book presents a synthesis of results on the possible mechanical architectures, analysis and synthesis of this type of mechanism. It is intended to be used by students (with over 100 exercises and numerous Internet addresses), researchers (with over 500 references and anonymous ftp access to the code of some algorithms presented in this book) and engineers (for whom practical results and applications are presented).

Robot Force Control (Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science)
Bruno Siciliano, Luigi Villani

Synopsis
One of the fundamental requirements for the success of a robot task is the capability to handle interaction between manipulator and environment. The quantity that describes the state of interaction more effectively is the contact force at the manipulator's end effector. High values of contact force are generally undesirable since they may stress both the manipulator and the manipulated object; hence the need to seek for effective force control strategies. This text provides a theoretical and experimental treatment of robot interaction control. In the framework of model-based operational space control, stiffness control and impedance control are presented as the basic strategies for indirect force control. A key feature is the coverage of six-degree-of-freedom interaction tasks and manipulator kinematic redundancy. Then, direct force control strategies are presented which are obtained from motion control schemes suitably modified by the closure of an outer force regulation feedback loop. Finally, advanced force and position control strategies are presented which include passivity-based, adaptive and output feedback control schemes. All control schemes are experimentally tested on a setup consisting of a seven-joint industrial robot with open control architecture and force/torque sensor. The topic of robot force control is not treated in depth in robotics textbooks, in spite of its importance for practical manipulation tasks. This book is thus aimed at filling this gap by providing a theoretical and experimental treatment of robot force control.

Romansy 12 : Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators :
Proceedings of the Twelfth Cism-Iftomm Symposium (Cism International Centre for mechanic
Adam Morecki (Editor), Giovanni Bianchi (Editor), Marek Wojtyra (Editor)

Synopsis
The CISM-IFToMM Ro.Man.Sy Symposia have played a dynamic role in the development of the theory and practice of robotics. The proceedings of the 12th symposium present a world view of the state of the art in the late 1990s, including a record of the results achieved in Central and Eastern Europe. The proceedings of this 12th edition focus mainly on problems of mechanical engineering and control.