This book presents the results of an assessment of the state of robotics in Japan, South Korea, Western Europe and Australia and a comparison of robotics R&D programs in these countries with those in the United States. The comparisons include areas like robotic vehicles, space robotics, service robots, humanoid robots, networked robots, and robots for biological and medical applications, and based on criteria such as quality, scope, funding and commercialization. This important study identifies a number of areas where the traditional lead of the United States is being overtaken by developments in other countries.

This book presents the results of an assessment of the state of robotics in Japan, South Korea, Western Europe and Australia and a comparison of robotics R&D programs in these countries with those in the United States. The comparisons include areas like robotic vehicles, space robotics, service robots, humanoid robots, networked robots, and robots for biological and medical applications, and based on criteria such as quality, scope, funding and commercialization. This important study identifies a number of areas where the traditional lead of the United States is being overtaken by developments in other countries./a

This book presents the latest research findings from leading space robotic researchers around the world, together with contributions from leading space systems industrialists on the practical aspects of research and development in space robotics. The book also considers future challenges and trends to provide a ‘look ahead’ for space robotics. The European Commission set up the “Space Robotic Technologies” Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) in its flagship funding programme Horizon 2020, with the goal of enabling major advances in strategic key points of Space Robotics Technologies, in order to improve European competitiveness. Space robotics have advanced rapidly in recent years, as reflected in recent successful space exploration missions like NASA’s successful landing and operation of the Curiosity rover on Mars, and the European Space Agency’s equally successful landing of its Philae probe on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. These advances have inspired many young graduates and undergraduates to study space robotics.

What will universities look like in 30- or 40-years’ time? This book looks at that future, examining the potential impact of technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, smart buildings, drones, robots, and holograms in future universities. It is a story told in three acts. The first act takes the reader through a history of the modern university, highlighting major innovations that have transformed the academy since the founding of the University of Bologna in 1088. A second act builds on this history and transports the reader to the future, observing the application of these technologies in a future university from the point of view of professors, administrators, and students, as we tour the transformed campus with them. The third act examines how these technologies might be adopted most effectively through the combined effort of university leaders, administrators, faculty and students.

ISRR, the "International Symposium on Robotics Research", is one of robotics pioneering Symposia, which has established over the past two decades some of the field's most fundamental and lasting contributions. This book presents the results of the seventeenth edition of "Robotics Research" ISRR15, offering a collection of a broad range of topics in robotics. The content of the contributions provides a wide coverage of the current state of robotics research.: the advances and challenges in its theoretical foundation and technology basis, and the developments in its traditional and new emerging areas of applications. The diversity, novelty, and span of the work unfolding in these areas reveal the field's increased maturity and expanded scope and define the state of the art of robotics and its future direction.