You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book presents interdisciplinary research that pursues the mutual enrichment of neuroscience and robotics. Building on experimental work, and on the wealth of literature regarding the two cortical pathways of visual processing - the dorsal and ventral streams - we define and implement, computationally and on a real robot, a functional model of the brain areas involved in vision-based grasping actions. Grasping in robotics is largely an unsolved problem, and we show how the bio-inspired approach is successful in dealing with some fundamental issues of the task. Our robotic system can safely perform grasping actions on different unmodeled objects, denoting especially reliable visual and visuomotor skills. The computational model and the robotic experiments help in validating theories on the mechanisms employed by the brain areas more directly involved in grasping actions. This book offers new insights and research hypotheses regarding such mechanisms, especially for what concerns the interaction between the dorsal and ventral streams. Moreover, it helps in establishing a common research framework for neuroscientists and roboticists regarding research on brain functions.
Dexterous and autonomous manipulation is a key technology for the personal and service robots of the future. Advances in Bimanual Manipulation edited by Bruno Siciliano provides the robotics community with the most noticeable results of the four-year European project DEXMART (DEXterous and autonomous dual-arm hand robotic manipulation with sMART sensory-motor skills: A bridge from natural to artificial cognition). The volume covers a host of highly important topics in the field, concerned with modelling and learning of human manipulation skills, algorithms for task planning, human-robot interaction, and grasping, as well as hardware design of dexterous anthropomorphic hands. The results described in this five-chapter collection are believed to pave the way towards the development of robotic systems endowed with dexterous and human-aware dual-arm/hand manipulation skills for objects, operating with a high degree of autonomy in unstructured real-world environments.
This handbook provides insights into becoming a better and more evolved athlete. It offers aspiring athletes, regardless of skill level, a better understanding of their bodies and how to unlock the unlimited potential of muscles without injury. It focuses on the “superhero” muscle: the iliopsoas, and also sheds light on Diamond-Corporation’s new technology and elite athleticism, and how these can contribute to a healthier life. Lastly, the authors explore the mindset of success and provide exercises for remaining calm under pressure. This stand-alone book is the sequel to Paradigm Shift for Future Tennis and Enhancing Performance and Reducing Stress in Sport (2014, Springer). This book is written by scientists, whose expertise collectively spans the fields of biomechanics, clinical surgery, current and former elite athleticism, engineering and naturopath doctoral work. Together, they aim to inspire and educate athletes on how to improve their sports performance by using new technologies, world class biomechanics knowledge and ancient herbal medicines.
The goal of this work is to provide building blocks for resource-aware robot architectures. The topic of these blocks are data-driven generation of context-sensitive resource models, prediction of future resource utilizations, and resource-aware computer vision and motion planning algorithms. The implementation of these algorithms is based on resource-aware concepts and methodologies originating from the Transregional Collaborative Research Center ""Invasive Computing"" (SFB/TR 89).
Our culture is obsessed with design. Sometimes designers can fuse utility and fantasy to make the mundane appear fresh—a cosmetic repackaging of the same old thing. Because of this, medicine—grounded in the unforgiving realities of the scientific method and peer review, and of flesh, blood, and pain—can sometimes confuse “design” with mere “prettifying.” Design solves real problems, however. This collection of papers underwrites the importance of design for the MMVR community, within three different environments: in vivo, in vitro and in silico. in vivo: we design machines to explore our living bodies. Imaging devices, robots, and sensors move constantly inward, operating withi...
This book provides state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of mobile robotics and associated support technologies. It contains peer-reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2008 conference. Robots are no longer confined to industrial manufacturing environments; rather, a great deal of interest is invested in the use of robots outside the factory environment. The CLAWAR conference series, established as a high-profile international event, acts as a platform for dissemination of research and development findings to address the current interest in mobile robotics in meeting the needs of mankind in various sectors of the society. These include personal care, public health, and services in the domestic, public and industrial environments. The editors of the book have extensive research experience and publications in the area of robotics in general, and in mobile robotics specifically.
Robot Motion Control 2011 presents very recent results in robot motion and control. Forty short papers have been chosen from those presented at the sixth International Workshop on Robot Motion and Control held in Poland in June 2011. The authors of these papers have been carefully selected and represent leading institutions in this field. The following recent developments are discussed: Design of trajectory planning schemes for holonomic and nonholonomic systems with optimization of energy, torque limitations and other factors. New control algorithms for industrial robots, nonholonomic systems and legged robots. Different applications of robotic systems in industry and everyday life, like medicine, education, entertainment and others. Multiagent systems consisting of mobile and flying robots with their applications The book is suitable for graduate students of automation and robotics, informatics and management, mechatronics, electronics and production engineering systems as well as scientists and researchers working in these fields.
Intelligent autonomous systems are emerged as a key enabler for the creation of a new paradigm of services to humankind, as seen by the recent advancement of autonomous cars licensed for driving in our streets, of unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles carrying out hazardous tasks on-site, and of space robots engaged in scientific as well as operational missions, to list only a few. This book aims at serving the researchers and practitioners in related fields with a timely dissemination of the recent progress on intelligent autonomous systems, based on a collection of papers presented at the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, held in Jeju, Korea, June 26-29, 20...
This book provides state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of mobile robotics and associated support technologies. The book contains peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2008 conference. Robots are no longer confined to industrial manufacturing environments with a great deal of interest being invested in the use of robots outside the factory environment. The CLAWAR conference series, established as a high profile international event, acts as a platform for the dissemination of research and development findings and supports such a trend to address the current interest in mobile robotics in meeting the needs of mankind in various sectors of the society. These include personal care, public health, and services in the domestic, public and industrial environments. The editors of the book have extensive research experience and publications in the area of robotics specifically in mobile robotics, and their experience is reflected in the careful editing of the contents in the book.