A revolutionary new framework that draws on insights from ecology for the design and analysis of long-duration robots Robots are increasingly leaving the confines of laboratories, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities, venturing into agriculture and other settings where they must operate in uncertain conditions over long timescales. This multidisciplinary book draws on the principles of ecology to show how robots can take full advantage of the environments they inhabit, including as sources of energy. Magnus Egerstedt introduces a revolutionary new design paradigm—robot ecology—that makes it possible to achieve long-duration autonomy while avoiding catastrophic failures. Central to ecology is the idea that the richness of an organism’s behavior is a function of the environmental constraints imposed by its habitat. Moving beyond traditional strategies that focus on optimal policies for making robots achieve targeted tasks, Egerstedt explores how to use survivability constraints to produce both effective and provably safe robot behaviors. He blends discussions of ecological principles with the development of control barrier functions as a formal approach to constraint-based control design, and provides an in-depth look at the design of the SlothBot, a slow and energy-efficient robot used for environmental monitoring and conservation. Visionary in scope, Robot Ecology presents a comprehensive and unified methodology for designing robots that can function over long durations in diverse natural environments.

A revolutionary new framework that draws on insights from ecology for the design and analysis of long-duration robots Robots are increasingly leaving the confines of laboratories, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities, venturing into agriculture and other settings where they must operate in uncertain conditions over long timescales. This multidisciplinary book draws on the principles of ecology to show how robots can take full advantage of the environments they inhabit, including as sources of energy. Magnus Egerstedt introduces a revolutionary new design paradigm—robot ecology—that makes it possible to achieve long-duration autonomy while avoiding catastrophic failures. Central to ecology is the idea that the richness of an organism’s behavior is a function of the environmental constraints imposed by its habitat. Moving beyond traditional strategies that focus on optimal policies for making robots achieve targeted tasks, Egerstedt explores how to use survivability constraints to produce both effective and provably safe robot behaviors. He blends discussions of ecological principles with the development of control barrier functions as a formal approach to constraint-based control design, and provides an in-depth look at the design of the SlothBot, a slow and energy-efficient robot used for environmental monitoring and conservation. Visionary in scope, Robot Ecology presents a comprehensive and unified methodology for designing robots that can function over long durations in diverse natural environments.

This book offers the first specific application in film studies of what is generally known as ecology theory, shifting attention from history to the (in this case media) environment. It takes the robot as its subject because it has attained a status that resonates not only with some of the key concerns of contemporary culture over the last century, but also with the very nature of film. While the robot has given us a vehicle for exploring issues of gender, race, and a variety of forms of otherness, and increasingly for asking questions about the very nature and meaning of life, this image of an artificial being, typically anthropomorphic, also invariably implicates the cinema’s own and quite fundamental artificing of the human. Looking across genres, across specific media forms, and across closely linked conceptualizations, Telotte sketches a context of interwoven influences and meanings. The result is that this study of the cinematic robot, while mainly focused on science fiction film, also incorporates its appearance in, for example, musicals, cartoons, television, advertising, toys, and literature.

Today’s mobile robot perception is insu?cient for acting goal-directedly in - constrained, dynamic everyday environments like a home, a factory, or a city. Subject to restrictions in bandwidth, computer power, and computation time, a robot has to react to a wealth of dynamically changing stimuli in such - vironments, requiring rapid, selective attention to decisive, action-relevant - formation of high current utility. Robust and general engineering methods for e?ectively and e?ciently coupling perception, action, and reasoning are unava- able. Interesting performance, if any, is currently only achieved by sophisticated robot programming exploiting domain features and specialties, which leaves - dinary users no chance of changing how the robot acts. The latter facts are high barriers for introducing, for example, service robots into human living or work environments. In order to overcome these barriers, additonal R&D e?orts are required. The European Commission is undert- ing a determined e?ort to fund related basic, inter-disciplinary research in a line of Strategic Objectives, including the Cognitive Systems calls in their 6th Framework Programme (FP6, [1]), and continuing in the 7th Framework P- gramme.OneofthefundedCognitiveSystemsprojectsisMACS(“multi-sensory autonomous cognitive systems interacting with dynamic environments for p- ceiving and using a?ordances”).

How a built environment that is robotic and interactive becomes an apt home to our restless, dynamic, and increasingly digital society. The relationship of humans to computers can no longer be represented as one person in a chair and one computer on a desk. Today computing finds its way into our pockets, our cars, our appliances; it is ubiquitous—an inescapable part of our everyday lives. Computing is even expanding beyond our devices; sensors, microcontrollers, and actuators are increasingly embedded into the built environment. In Architectural Robotics, Keith Evan Green looks toward the next frontier in computing: interactive, partly intelligent, meticulously designed physical environments. Green examines how these “architectural robotic” systems will support and augment us at work, school, and home, as we roam, interconnect, and age. Green tells the stories of three projects from his research lab that exemplify the reconfigurable, distributed, and transfigurable environments of architectural robotics. The Animated Work Environment is a robotic work environment of shape-shifting physical space that responds dynamically to the working life of the people within it; home+ is a suite of networked, distributed “robotic furnishings” integrated into existing domestic and healthcare environments; and LIT ROOM offers a simulated environment in which the physical space of a room merges with the imaginary space of a book, becoming “a portal to elsewhere.” How far beyond workstations, furniture, and rooms can the environments of architectural robotics stretch? Green imagines scaled-up neighborhoods, villages, and metropolises composed of physical bits, digital bytes, living things, and their hybrids. Not global but local, architectural robotics grounds computing in a capacious cyber-physical home.

Robots are increasingly becoming prevalent in our daily lives within our living or working spaces. We hope that robots will take up tedious, mundane or dirty chores and make our lives more comfortable, easy and enjoyable by providing companionship and care. However, robots may pose a threat to human privacy, safety and autonomy; therefore, it is necessary to have constant control over the developing technology to ensure the benevolent intentions and safety of autonomous systems. Building trust in (autonomous) robotic systems is thus necessary. The title of this book highlights this challenge: “Trust in robots—Trusting robots”. Herein, various notions and research areas associated with robots are unified. The theme “Trust in robots” addresses the development of technology that is trustworthy for users; “Trusting robots” focuses on building a trusting relationship with robots, furthering previous research. These themes and topics are at the core of the PhD program “Trust Robots” at TU Wien, Austria.

Advances in the engineering of sensing and acting capabilities distributed in wide range of specialized devices is providing at last an opportunity for the fundamental advances that computer science achieved in the past few decades to make an impact in our daily lives. This technical confluence is matched by a unique historical context where users are better informed (more aware of the benefits that technology can provide) and production of more complex systems is becoming more affordable. Sensors/actuators deployed in an environment (in this context it can be any physical space like a house, office, classroom, car, street, etc.) facilitate a link between an automated decision-making system connected to that technologically enriched space. This computing empowered environment enables the provision of an intelligent environment, i.e., "a digital environment that proactively, but sensibly, supports people in their daily lives". This is an active area of research which is attracting an increasing number of professionals (in academia and industry) worldwide. The prestigious 5th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE'09) is focused on the development of advanced intelligent environments and stimulates the discussion on several specific topics which are crucial to the future of the area. As part of that five workshops were supported as part of IE'09. This volume is the combined proceedings of those five workshops: Workshop on Digital Object Memories (DOMe'09), Workshop on RFID Technology: concepts, practices & solutions (RFID'09), Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Ambient Intelligence (AITAmI'09), Workshop on Ethical Design of Ambient Intelligence (EDAmI'09), Workshop on Smart Offices and Other Workplaces (SOOW'09).