Highly Redundant Sensing In Robotic Systems

Design of intelligent robots is one of the most important endeavors in robotics research today. The key to intelligent robot design lies in sensory systems for robotic control and manipulation. In an unstructural environment, robotic sensing translates measurements and characteristics of the environment and working objects into useful information. A robotic system is usually equipped with a variety of sensors to perform redundant sensing and achieve data fusion. This book contains revised versions of papers presented at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held in Florida in September 1989 within the activities of the NATO Special Programme on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control. The fundamental issues addressed in this volume were: - Theory and techniques, including knowledge-based systems, geometrical fusion, Boolean fusion, probabilistic fusion, feature-based fusion, error-estimation approach, and Markov process modeling. - General concepts, including microscopic redundancy at the sensory element level, macroscopic redundancy at the sensory system level, parallel redundancy, and standby redundancy. - Implementation and application, including robotic control, sensory technology, robotic assembly, robot fingers, sensory signal processing, sensory system integration, and PAPIA architecture. - Biological analogies, including neural nets, pattern recognition, low-level fusion, and motor learning.

The trend in the evolution of robotic systems is that the number of degrees of freedom increases. This is visible both in robot manipulator design and in the shift of focus from single to multi-robot systems. Following the principles of evolution in nature, one may infer that adding degrees of freedom to robot systems design is beneficial. However, since nature did not select snake-like bodies for all creatures, it is reasonable to expect the presence of a certain selection pressure on the number of degrees of freedom. Thus, understanding costs and benefits of multiple degrees of freedom, especially those that create redundancy, is a fundamental problem in the field of robotics. This volume is mostly based on the works presented at the workshop on Redundancy in Robot Manipulators and Multi-Robot Systems at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems - IROS 2011. The workshop was envisioned as a dialog between researchers from two separate, but obviously related fields of robotics: one that deals with systems having multiple degrees of freedom, including redundant robot manipulators, and the other that deals with multirobot systems. The volume consists of twelve chapters, each representing one of the two fields.

One of the most important problems in the field of engineering and technology is the development of so-called intelligent systems, which can perform various intellectual tasks. This book is dedicated to the current progress of research in this vast field and specifically explores the topics of robotics, mechatronics and manufacturing systems.

From traditional topics that form the core of industrial electronics, to new and emerging concepts and technologies, The Industrial Electronics Handbook, in a single volume, has the field covered. Nowhere else will you find so much information on so many major topics in the field. For facts you need every day, and for discussions on topics you have only dreamed of, The Industrial Electronics Handbook is an ideal reference.

The vision of researchers to create smart environments through the deployment of thousands of sensors, each with a short range wireless communications channel and capable of detecting ambient conditions such as temperature, movement, sound, light, or the presence of certain objects is becoming a reality. With the emergence of high-speed networks an

This book addresses the techniques for modeling and integration of data provided by different sensors within robotics and knowledge sources within machine intelligence. Leaders in robotics and machine intelligence capture state-of-the-art technology in data sensor fusion and give a unified vision of the future of the field, presented from both the theoretical and practical angles.

Swarm robotics can be defined as the study of how a swarm of relatively simple physically embodied agents can be constructed to collectively accomplish tasks that are beyond the capabilities of a single one. Unlike other studies on multi-robot systems, swarm robotics emphasizes self-organization and emergence, while keeping in mind the issues of scalability and robustness. These emphases promote the use of relatively simple robots, equipped with localized sensing ability, scalable communication mechanisms, and the exploration of decentralized control strategies. This state-of-the-art survey is the first book devoted to swarm robotics. It is based on the First International Workshop on Swarm Robotics held in Santa Monica, CA, USA in July 2004 as part of SAB 2004

The main objective of this workshop was to review and discuss the state of the art and the latest advances· in the area of 1-10 Gbit/s throughput for local and metropolitan area networks. The first generation of local area networks had throughputs in the range 1-20 Mbit/s. Well-known examples of this first generation networks are the Ethernet and the Token Ring. The second generation of networks allowed throughputs in the range 100-200 Mbit/s. Representatives of this generation are the FDDI double ring and the DQDB (IEEE 802.6) networks. The third generation networks will have throughputs in the range 1-10 Gbit/s. The rapid development and deployment of fiber optics worldwide, as well as the projected emergence of a market for broadband services, have given rise to the development of broadband ISDN standards. Currently, the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) appears to be a viable solution to broadband networks. The possibility of all-optical networks in the future is being examined. This would allow the tapping of approximately 50 terahertz or so available in the lightwave range of the frequency spectrum. It is envisaged that using such a high-speed network it will be feasible to distribute high-quality video to the home, to carry out rapid retrieval of radiological and other scientific images, and to enable multi-media conferencing between various parties.

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transf- mation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the ?eld and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and c- munities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider rangeof applications reaching across diverse research areas and scienti?c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, n- rosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an ab- dant source of stimulation and insights for the ?eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on thebasisoftheirsigni?canceandquality.Itisourhopethatthewiderdissemi- tion of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing ?eld.