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Robotic research and developments in computing technologies including artificial intelligence have led to significant improvements in autonomous capabilities of robots. Yet, human supervision is advisable and, in many cases, necessary when robots interact with real-world, outside-lab environments. This is due to the fact that complete autonomy in robots has not yet been achieved. When robots encounter challenges beyond their capabilities, a viable solution is to include human operators in the loop, who can support robots through teleoperation, taking complete control or shared control. This monograph focuses on a special form of shared control, namely mixed-initiative, where the final command to the robot is a weighted sum of the commands from the operator and the autonomous controller. The weights (fixed or adaptive), called authority allocation (AA) factors, decide who has more control authority over the robot. Several research groups use different methods toadapt the AA factors online and the benefits of adaptive mixed-initiative shared control have been well established in terms of task completion success and operator usability. However, stability of the overall shared control framework, with communication time-delays between the operator and the robot, is a field that has not been examined extensively. This monograph presents methods to improve performance and stability in shared control so that the possibilities of its applications can be widened. Firstly, methods to improve the haptic feedback performance of teleoperation are developed. Secondly, methods to stabilize adaptive shared control systems, while still ensuring high teleoperation performance, are proposed. The methods are validated on multiple robotic systems and they were applied in several projects, both in space and terrestrial domains. With the aforementioned contributions, this monograph provides an overarching framework to improve synergy between humans and robots. The flexibility of the framework allows integration of existent teleoperation and shared control approaches, which further promotes synergy within the robotics community.

Robots can't climb trees. Or can they? This volume features the work of leading experts who have tackled this kinematic conundrum, with motion analysis of tree-climbing animals and details of a novel robot engineered as a result of this research.

This book examines the main control aspects in dynamic robotic control of underwater vehicles. It presents a mathematical model with significant impact on the control strategy.

Cable-driven parallel robots are a new kind of lightweight manipulators with excellent scalability in terms of size, payload, and dynamics capacities. For the first time, a comprehensive compendium is presented of the field of cable-driven parallel robots. A thorough theory of cable robots is setup leading the reader from first principles to the latest results in research. The main topics covered in the book are classification, terminology, and fields of application for cable-driven parallel robots. The geometric foundation of the standard cable model is introduced followed by statics, force distribution, and stiffness. Inverse and forward kinematics are addressed by elaborating efficient algorithms. Furthermore, the workspace is introduced and different algorithms are detailed. The book contains the dynamic equations as well as simulation models with applicable parameters. Advanced cable models are described taking into account pulleys, elastic cables, and sagging cables. For practitioner, a descriptive design method is stated including methodology, parameter synthesis, construction design, component selection, and calibration. Rich examples are presented by means of simulation results from sample robots as well as experimental validation on reference demonstrators. The book contains a representative overview of reference demonstrator system. Tables with physical parameters for geometry, cable properties, and robot parameterizations support case studies and are valuable references for building custom cable robots. For scientist, the book provides the starting point to address new scientific challenges as open problems are named and a commented review of the literature on cable robot with more than 500 references are given.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge was a robotics competition that took place in Pomona, California USA in June 2015.

Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge was a robotics competition that took place in Pomona, California USA in June 2015.

This volume presents a collection of papers presented at the 14th International Symposium of Robotic Research (ISRR).

This carefully edited volume is the outcome of the eleventh edition of the Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), which is the premier venue showcasing cutting edge research in algorithmic robotics.

The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) is a series of bi-annual meetings, which are organized, in a rotating fashion around North America, Europe and Asia/Oceania.

This book describes a number of techniques developed to solve a central problem in the navigation of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). It focuses in particular on localization methods and especially on simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

The bipedal robot Lucy boasts breakthrough technology, using pleated pneumatic artificial muscles instead of the customary electrical drives. This book gives a complete description of Lucy's hardware, electronics and software and reports latest developments.

This book deals with the state of the art in underwater robotics experiments of dynamic control of an underwater vehicle. This second substantially improved and expanded edition new features are presented dealing with fault-tolerant control and coordinated control of autonomous underwater vehicles.

This book presents an accurate, efficient pipeline for single camera-based 3D mapping of terrestrial and underwater environments. The authors offer a novel Structure from Motion algorithm that boosts accuracy by registering camera views directly with the maps.

With functional analyses both of human and robotic hands, this work sets out a new approach in anthropomorphic robot design with broad, systemic relevance. The techniques set a new standard in robot hand kinematics, fulfilling full sets of task criteria.

Using novel model-based methods, this book bridges the gap between statistical mechanics and control theory by tackling challenges for a class of distributed systems involving a specific type of constitutive components, referred to as Smart Minimal Particles.

Cable-driven parallel robots are a new kind of lightweight manipulators with excellent scalability in terms of size, payload, and dynamics capacities. For the first time, a comprehensive compendium is presented of the field of cable-driven parallel robots. A thorough theory of cable robots is setup leading the reader from first principles to the latest results in research. The main topics covered in the book are classification, terminology, and fields of application for cable-driven parallel robots. The geometric foundation of the standard cable model is introduced followed by statics, force distribution, and stiffness. Inverse and forward kinematics are addressed by elaborating efficient algorithms. Furthermore, the workspace is introduced and different algorithms are detailed. The book contains the dynamic equations as well as simulation models with applicable parameters. Advanced cable models are described taking into account pulleys, elastic cables, and sagging cables. For practitioner, a descriptive design method is stated including methodology, parameter synthesis, construction design, component selection, and calibration. Rich examples are presented by means of simulation results from sample robots as well as experimental validation on reference demonstrators. The book contains a representative overview of reference demonstrator system. Tables with physical parameters for geometry, cable properties, and robot parameterizations support case studies and are valuable references for building custom cable robots. For scientist, the book provides the starting point to address new scientific challenges as open problems are named and a commented review of the literature on cable robot with more than 500 references are given.

This book examines the requirements needed to ensure safety in human-robot coexistence. It focuses on the biomechanical level of injury assessment, addresses the physical evaluation of robot-human impacts and isolates major factors that cause human injuries.

FSR, the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, is a robotics Symposium which has established over the past ten years the latest research and practical results towards the use of field and service robotics in the community with particular focus on proven technology.

This book deals with the growing challenges of using assistive robots in our everyday activities along with providing intelligent assistive services. The presented applications concern mainly healthcare and wellness such as helping elderly people, assisting dependent persons, habitat monitoring in smart environments, well-being, security, etc.

A reference that represents a cross-section of forefront robotics research, ranging from robotics and systems to learning, autonomy and failure detection, from vision and navigation to localization and mapping, which are based on the papers presented at the 1st European Robotics Symposium (EUROS-06) held in Palermo, Italy from 16-18 March, 2006.

This book introduces novel thinking and techniques to the control of robotic manipulation. In particular, the concept of teleimpedance control as an alternative method to bilateral force-reflecting teleoperation control for robotic manipulation is introduced.

This volume presents a collection of paperspresented at the 16th International Symposium of Robotic Research(ISRR). The ISRR is the longest running seriesof robotics research meetings and dates back to the very earliest days ofrobotics as a research discipline.

This book presents the development of a new multimodal human-robot interface for testing and validating control strategies applied to robotic walkers for assisting human mobility and gait rehabilitation.

This book aims at gathering roboticists, control theorists, neuroscientists, and mathematicians, in order to promote a multidisciplinary research on movement analysis.

FSR, the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, is a robotics Symposium which has established over the past ten years the latest research and practical results towards the use of field and service robotics in the community with particular focus on proven technology.

This monograph introduces a unifying framework for mapping, planning and exploration with mobile robots considering uncertainty, linking such problems with a common SLAM approach, adopting Pose SLAM as the basic state estimation machinery.

Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has p- duced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neuros- ences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others.