Taking human factors into account, a visual servoing approach aims to facilitate robots with real-time situational information to accomplish tasks in direct and proximate collaboration with people. A hybrid visual servoing algorithm, a combination of the classical position-based and image-based visual servoing, is applied to the whole task space. A model-based tracker monitors the human activities, via matching the human skeleton representation and the image of people in image. Grasping algorithms are implemented to compute grasp points based on the geometrical model of the robot gripper. Whilst major challenges of human-robot interactive object transfer are visual occlusions and making grasping plans, this work proposes a new method of visually guiding a robot with the presence of partial visual occlusion, and elaborate the solution to adaptive robotic grasping.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2013, held in Bristol, UK, in October 2013. The 55 revised full papers and 13 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 108 submissions and are presented together with one invited paper. The papers cover topics such as human-robot interaction, child development and care for the elderly, as well as technical issues underlying social robotics: visual attention and processing, motor control and learning.

This volume presents a collection of papers presented at the 14th International Symposium of Robotic Research (ISRR). ISRR is the biennial meeting of the International Foundation of Robotic Research (IFRR) and its 14th edition took place in Lucerne, Switzerland, from August 31st to September 3rd, 2009. As for the previous symposia, ISRR 2009 followed up on the successful concept of a mixture of invited contributions and open submissions. Half of the 48 presentations were therefore invited contributions from outstanding researchers selected by the IFRR officers, and half were chosen among the 66 submissions after peer review. This selection process resulted in a truly excellent technical program which, we believe, featured some of the very best of robotic research. Out of the 48 presentations, the 42 papers which were finally submitted for publication are organized in 8 sections that encompass the major research orientations in robotics: Navigation, Control & Planning, Human-Robot Interaction, Manipulation and Humanoids, Learning, Mapping, Multi-Robot Systems, and Micro-Robotics. They represent an excellent snapshot of cutting-edge research in robotics and outline future directions.

The goal of this book is to close the gap between high technology and accessibility for people having lost their independence due to the loss of physical and/or cognitive capabilities. Robots and mechatronic devices bring the opportunity to improve the autonomy of disabled people and facilitate their social and professional integration by assisting them to perform daily living tasks. Technical topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Communication and learning applications in SCI an CP, Interface and Internet-based designs, Issues in human-machine interaction, Personal robotics, Hardware and control, Evaluation methods, Clinical experience, Orthotics and prosthetics, Robotics for older adults, Service robotics, Movement physiology and motor control.

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