The increasing demand for physical interaction between humans and robots has led to an interest in robots whose behavior is guaranteed to be safe when they are in close proximity with humans. However, attaining sufficiently high levels of performance while ensuring safety creates formidable challenges in mechanical design, actuation, sensing, and control. To promote safety without compromising performance, a new actuation concept, referred to as hybrid actuation, has been developed. Since low impedance output at high frequencies is essential for robot safety, while optimal passive stiffness is needed for robot performance, the new actuation approach employs a pneumatic artificial muscle as a macro actuator to provide low-frequency torques. Artificial pneumatic muscles provide high force-to-weight ratio and inherent compliance, both of which allow for low impedance actuation. To compensate for the slow and non-linear dynamics of pneumatic actuation, a small electromagnetic actuator collocated at the robot's joint is employed as a mini actuator, which provides high mechanical bandwidth for high performance without increasing the inertia and size of the manipulator. To achieve the appropriate balance between safety and performance, design methodologies were developed that optimally determine key design parameters such as the required mini motor torque capacity, the joint stiffness introduced by an antagonistic pair of muscles, and the pulley radius. Using a testbed, referred to as the Stanford Safety Robot (S2rho), the hybrid actuation was evaluated for position tracking performance, force tracking performance, and impact behavior. The experimental results demonstrate that by significantly improving control performance with the hybrid actuation over performance with pneumatic muscles alone, while reducing the effective inertia significantly, the competing design objectives of safety and performance can be successfully integrated into a single robotic manipulator. As an extension of the hybrid actuation concept, the new design of dual four-degree-of-freedom robotic arms with torso is presented and detailed descriptions of the design are included.

Robotic engineering inspired by biology—biomimetics—has many potential applications: robot snakes can be used for rescue operations in disasters, snake-like endoscopes can be used in medical diagnosis, and artificial muscles can replace damaged muscles to recover the motor functions of human limbs. Conversely, the application of robotics technology to our understanding of biological systems and behaviors—biorobotic modeling and analysis—provides unique research opportunities: robotic manipulation technology with optical tweezers can be used to study the cell mechanics of human red blood cells, a surface electromyography sensing system can help us identify the relation between muscle forces and hand movements, and mathematical models of brain circuitry may help us understand how the cerebellum achieves movement control. Biologically Inspired Robotics contains cutting-edge material—considerably expanded and with additional analysis—from the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO). These 16 chapters cover both biomimetics and biorobotic modeling/analysis, taking readers through an exploration of biologically inspired robot design and control, micro/nano bio-robotic systems, biological measurement and actuation, and applications of robotics technology to biological problems. Contributors examine a wide range of topics, including: A method for controlling the motion of a robotic snake The design of a bionic fitness cycle inspired by the jaguar The use of autonomous robotic fish to detect pollution A noninvasive brain-activity scanning method using a hybrid sensor A rehabilitation system for recovering motor function in human hands after injury Human-like robotic eye and head movements in human–machine interactions A state-of-the-art resource for graduate students and researchers in the fields of control engineering, robotics, and biomedical engineering, this text helps readers understand the technology and principles in this emerging field.

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transformation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the field 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 communities, 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 range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neuros- ences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the field 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 the basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing field.

This three volume set LNAI 9244, 9245, and 9246 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2015, held in Portsmouth, UK, in August 2015. The 46 papers included in the third volume are organized in topical sections on mobile robots and intelligent autonomous systems; intelligent system and cybernetics; robot mechanism and design; robotic vision; recognition and reconstruction; and active control in tunneling boring machine.

The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) is a series of bi-annual meetings, which are organized, in a rotating fashion around North America, Europe and Asia/Oceania. The goal of ISER is to provide a forum for research in robotics that focuses on novelty of theoretical contributions validated by experimental results. The meetings are conceived to bring together, in a small group setting, researchers from around the world who are in the forefront of experimental robotics research. This unique reference presents the latest advances across the various fields of robotics, with ideas that are not only conceived conceptually but also explored experimentally. It collects robotics contributions on the current developments and new directions in the field of experimental robotics, which are based on the papers presented at the 13the ISER held in Québec City, Canada, at the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, on June 18-21, 2012. This present thirteenth edition of Experimental Robotics edited by Jaydev P. Desai, Gregory Dudek, Oussama Khatib, and Vijay Kumar offers a collection of a broad range of topics in field and human-centered robotics.

The book substantially offers the latest progresses about the important topics of the "Mechanical Engineering" to readers. It includes twenty-eight excellent studies prepared using state-of-art methodologies by professional researchers from different countries. The sections in the book comprise of the following titles: power transmission system, manufacturing processes and system analysis, thermo-fluid systems, simulations and computer applications, and new approaches in mechanical engineering education and organization systems.