A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation presents a mathematical formulation of the kinematics, dynamics, and control of robot manipulators. It uses an elegant set of mathematical tools that emphasizes the geometry of robot motion and allows a large class of robotic manipulation problems to be analyzed within a unified framework. The foundation of the book is a derivation of robot kinematics using the product of the exponentials formula. The authors explore the kinematics of open-chain manipulators and multifingered robot hands, present an analysis of the dynamics and control of robot systems, discuss the specification and control of internal forces and internal motions, and address the implications of the nonholonomic nature of rolling contact are addressed, as well. The wealth of information, numerous examples, and exercises make A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation valuable as both a reference for robotics researchers and a text for students in advanced robotics courses.

This book explores how the design, construction, and use of robotics technology may affect today’s legal systems and, more particularly, matters of responsibility and agency in criminal law, contractual obligations, and torts. By distinguishing between the behaviour of robots as tools of human interaction, and robots as proper agents in the legal arena, jurists will have to address a new generation of “hard cases.” General disagreement may concern immunity in criminal law (e.g., the employment of robot soldiers in battle), personal accountability for certain robots in contracts (e.g., robo-traders), much as clauses of strict liability and negligence-based responsibility in extra-contractual obligations (e.g., service robots in tort law). Since robots are here to stay, the aim of the law should be to wisely govern our mutual relationships.

This publication covers all the topics which are relevant to Advanced Robotics today, ranging from Systems Design to Reasoning and Planning. It is based on the Seventh International Symposium on Robotics Research held in Germany on October, 21 - 24th, 1995. The papers were written by specialists in the field from the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada. The editors, who also chaired this symposium, present the latest research results as well as new approaches to long standing problems. Robotics Research is a contribution to the emerging concepts, methods and tools that shape Robotics. The papers range from pure research reports to application-oriented studies. The topics covered include: manipulation, control, virtual reality, motion planning, 3D vision and industrial systems' issues.

As the use and relevance of robotics for countless scientific purposes grows all the time, research into the many diverse elements of the subject becomes ever more important and in demand. This volume examines in depth the most topical, complex issues of modelling and identification in robotics. The book is divided into three main parts. The !first part is devoted to robot dynamics modelling and identification of robot and load parameters, incorporating friction torques, discussing identification schemes, and presenting simulations and experiment al results of robot and load dynamic parameters identification. A general concept of robot programming language for research and educational purposes is examined and there is a detailed outline of its basic structures along with hardware requirements, which both constitute an open robot controller architecture. Finally a hybrid controller is derived, and several experimental results of this system are outlined. This impressive discussion of the topic covers both the theoretical and practical, illustrated throughout by examples and experimental results, and will be of value to anyone researching or practising within the field of robotics, automation and system i dentification or to control engineers.

Neuro-robotics is one of the most multidisciplinary fields of the last decades, fusing information and knowledge from neuroscience, engineering and computer science. This book focuses on the results from the strategic alliance between Neuroscience and Robotics that help the scientific community to better understand the brain as well as design robotic devices and algorithms for interfacing humans and robots. The first part of the book introduces the idea of neuro-robotics, by presenting state-of-the-art bio-inspired devices. The second part of the book focuses on human-machine interfaces for performance augmentation, which can seen as augmentation of abilities of healthy subjects or assistance in case of the mobility impaired. The third part of the book focuses on the inverse problem, i.e. how we can use robotic devices that physically interact with the human body, in order (a) to understand human motor control and (b) to provide therapy to neurologically impaired people or people with disabilities.

This monograph by Florian Röhrbein, Germano Veiga and Ciro Natale is an edited collection of 15 authoritative contributions in the area of robot technology transfer between academia and industry. It comprises three parts on Future Industrial Robotics, Robotic Grasping as well as Human-Centered Robots. The book chapters cover almost all the topics nowadays considered ‘hot’ within the robotics community, from reliable object recognition to dexterous grasping, from speech recognition to intuitive robot programming, from mobile robot navigation to aerial robotics, from safe physical human-robot interaction to body extenders. All contributions stem from the results of ECHORD – the European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development, a large-scale integrating project funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme from 2009 to 2013. ECHORD’s two main pillars were the so-called experiments, 51 small-sized industry-driven research projects and the structured dialog a powerful interaction instrument between the stakeholders. The results described in this volume are expected to shed new light on innovation and technology transfer from academia to industry in the field of robotics.