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An
Introduction to Robotics
Harpit Singh Sandhu
Explains
the basics of a subject which is the next generation of
model engineering, combining construction skills with computer
programming
This book starts you off with a gentle history of the technology
that makes robots possible and goes through all the theory
of what a robot should be with regard to your needs. Once
you are confident in the workings and software side of things
part two of the book shows you how to build the robot pictured
on the cover, giving all working dimensions of the robot,
all the programmes needed to control it, plus even a list
of suppliers where you can buy the components. All in all,
a very interesting and easily understandable book which
will be of benefit to anyone with a passing interest in
robotics.
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Personal
Robot Navigator
Merl Miller, Nelson Wrinkless, Joseph Bosworth, Kent Phelps
Discusses
what an autonomous personal robot needs to know to navigate
from one place to another, and suggests techniques for developing
a robot navigational system for use in known spaces
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Mobile
Robotics: a Practical Introduction
Ulrich Nehmzow
An introduction
to the foundations and methods used for designing completely
autonomous mobile robots. In this text the reader is introduced
to the fundamental concepts of this complex field via 12
detailed case studies which show how to build and program
real working robots. This book provides a very practical
introduction to mobile robotics for a general scientific
audience, and should be useful reading for final year undergraduate
students and postgraduate students studying robotics, artificial
intelligence, cognitive science and robot engineering.
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Art
of Robotics
Fred G. Martin
(Robotic Explorations)
From the Back Cover
Written by one of the founders of the famous MIT "6270"
Lego Robotic design Competition, Robotic Explorations- A Hands-On
Introduction to Engineering engages students in hands-on robot
building, emphasizing technological systems of all kinds-electrical,
mechanical, and computational. A first text for students as
well as reference for practitioners, the book provides all
the practical information needed to create an introductory
freshman-level laboratory class. This versatile and pioneering
book sparks the imagination and leads the reader into many
thought-provoking and challenging engineering situations.
Robotic Explorations includes-
An introduction
to the field of engineering design, accessible to students
at multiple undergraduate levels, with concepts relevant
to electrical, mechanical, and software systems.
Principles of mechanical design, illustrated using the catalog
of parts available in the LEGO Technic® system.
Step-by-step instructions for building "My First Robot,"
a tutorial for beginning explorations of control.
Applications of various control strategies including traditional
proportional/derivative feedback, behavioral robotics, and
hierarchical control.
Designs and application ideas for robotic sensors.
Project guidelines for designing robot contests to facilitate
students learning of particular engineering concepts.
Documentation for using educational robotics technology
developed at MIT-Handy Board control hardware and Interactive
C software.
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Legged
Robots That Balance
Marc Raibert
This
book is about machines that use legs to run. They are dynamic
machines that balance themselves actively as they travel.
The purpose of these machines is to learn about the principals
of legged locomotion, control, and balance.
Aside from the sheer thrill of creating machines that actually
run, there are two serious reasons for exploring the use
of legs for locomotion. There is a need for vehicles that
can travel in difficult terrain where existing vehicles
cannot go. Exploring legged robots can also shed light on
the human and animal locomotion. The book includes many
stop-action photographic series of animals running and walking.
Also included are some very interesting photos of the machines
that were created by the author and his team in the laboratories
at Carnegie-Mellon University.
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Designing
Sociable Robots
Cynthia L. Breazeal
Cynthia
Breazeal presents her vision of the sociable robot of the
future, a synthetic creature and not merely a sophisticated
tool. A sociable robot will be able to understand us, to
communicate and interact with us, to learn from us and grow
with us. It will be socially intelligent in a human-like
way. Eventually sociable robots will assist us in our daily
lives, as collaborators and companions. Because the most
successful sociable robots will share our social characteristics,
the effort to make sociable robots is also a means for exploring
human social intelligence and even what it means to be human.
Breazeal defines the key components of social intelligence
for these machines and offers a framework and set of design
issues for their realisation. Much of the book focuses on
a nascent sociable robot she designed named Kismet. Breazeal
offers a concrete implementation for Kismet, incorporating
insights from the scientific study of animals and people,
as well as from artistic disciplines such as classical animation.
This blending of science, engineering, and art creates a
lifelike quality that encourages people to treat Kismet
as a social creature rather than just a machine. The book
includes a CD-ROM that shows Kismet in action.
photos and technical details of one-leg, two-leg, and four-leg
walking machines that actually work!
Chapters include: Introduction; Hopping on one leg in the
plane; Hopping in three dimensions; Biped and quadruped
running; Symmetry in running; Alternatives for locomotion
control; Tabular control of running; Research on animals
and vehicles
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The
Map-Building and Exploration Strategies of a Simple Sonar-Equipped
Mobile Robot
D. C. Lee
There are
two radically different approaches to robot navigation: the
first is to use a map of the robot's environment; the second
uses a set of action reflexes to enable a robot to react rapidly
to local sensory information. Hybrid approaches combining
features of both also exist. This book is the first to propose
a method for evaluating the different approaches that shows
how to decide which is the most appropriate for a given situation.
It begins by describing a complete implementation of a mobile
robot including sensor modelling, map-building (a feature-based
map and a grid-based free-space map), localisation, and path-planning.
Exploration strategies are then tested experimentally in a
range of environments and starting positions. The author shows
the most promising results are observed from hybrid exploration
strategies which combine the robustness of reactive navigation
and the directive power of map-based strategies.
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Towards
Real Learning Robots
Getachew Hailu
Reinforcement learning, in a nutshell, is a form of learning
that enables the robot to construct a control law by a system
of feedback signals that reinforce "electrical path ways"
that produce correct response, and conversely wipe-out connections
that produce errors. Unfortunately, without biasing, it is
a weak learning that presents unreasonable difficulty, especially
when it is applied to real robots. The subject of this thesis
is to study, for a particular class of problems, the effects
of different form of biases on the speed of learning as well
as on the quality of final learned policy, and to realise
this learning paradigm on a physical robot by appropriately
biasing the robot with domain knowledge that determines how
much the robot knows about the different parts of its world.
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