This six-volume set presents cutting-edge advances and applications of expert systems. Because expert systems combine the expertise of engineers, computer scientists, and computer programmers, each group will benefit from buying this important reference work. An "expert system" is a knowledge-based computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a human expert. The primary role of the expert system is to perform appropriate functions under the close supervision of the human, whose work is supported by that expert system. In the reverse, this same expert system can monitor and double check the human in the performance of a task. Human-computer interaction in our highly complex world requires the development of a wide array of expert systems. Expert systems techniques and applications are presented for a diverse array of topics including Experimental design and decision support The integration of machine learning with knowledge acquisition for the design of expert systems Process planning in design and manufacturing systems and process control applications Knowledge discovery in large-scale knowledge bases Robotic systems Geograhphic information systems Image analysis, recognition and interpretation Cellular automata methods for pattern recognition Real-time fault tolerant control systems CAD-based vision systems in pattern matching processes Financial systems Agricultural applications Medical diagnosis

The two volume set LNAI 7101 and LNAI 7102 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2011, held in Aachen, Germany, in November 2011. The 122 revised full papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. They are organized in topical sections on progress in indoor UAV, robotics intelligence, industrial robots, rehabilitation robotics, mechanisms and their applications, multi robot systems, robot mechanism and design, parallel kinematics, parallel kinematics machines and parallel robotics, handling and manipulation, tangibility in human-machine interaction, navigation and localization of mobile robot, a body for the brain: embodied intelligence in bio-inspired robotics, intelligent visual systems, self-optimising production systems, computational intelligence, robot control systems, human-robot interaction, manipulators and applications, stability, dynamics and interpolation, evolutionary robotics, bio-inspired robotics, and image-processing applications.