The second edition of a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of mobile robotics, from algorithms to mechanisms. Mobile robots range from the Mars Pathfinder mission's teleoperated Sojourner to the cleaning robots in the Paris Metro. This text offers students and other interested readers an introduction to the fundamentals of mobile robotics, spanning the mechanical, motor, sensory, perceptual, and cognitive layers the field comprises. The text focuses on mobility itself, offering an overview of the mechanisms that allow a mobile robot to move through a real world environment to perform its tasks, including locomotion, sensing, localization, and motion planning. It synthesizes material from such fields as kinematics, control theory, signal analysis, computer vision, information theory, artificial intelligence, and probability theory. The book presents the techniques and technology that enable mobility in a series of interacting modules. Each chapter treats a different aspect of mobility, as the book moves from low-level to high-level details. It covers all aspects of mobile robotics, including software and hardware design considerations, related technologies, and algorithmic techniques. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout, with 130 pages of new material on such topics as locomotion, perception, localization, and planning and navigation. Problem sets have been added at the end of each chapter. Bringing together all aspects of mobile robotics into one volume, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots can serve as a textbook or a working tool for beginning practitioners. Curriculum developed by Dr. Robert King, Colorado School of Mines, and Dr. James Conrad, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, to accompany the National Instruments LabVIEW Robotics Starter Kit, are available. Included are 13 (6 by Dr. King and 7 by Dr. Conrad) laboratory exercises for using the LabVIEW Robotics Starter Kit to teach mobile robotics concepts.

Through expanded intelligence, the use of robotics has fundamentally transformed the business industry. Providing successful techniques in robotic design allows for increased autonomous mobility, which leads to a greater productivity and production level. Rapid Automation: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications provides innovative insights into the state-of-the-art technologies in the design and development of robotics and their real-world applications in business processes. Highlighting a range of topics such as workflow automation tools, human-computer interaction, and swarm robotics, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for computer engineers, business managers, robotic developers, business and IT professionals, academicians, and researchers.

Offers a theoretical and practical guide to the communication and navigation of autonomous mobile robots and multi-robot systems This book covers the methods and algorithms for the navigation, motion planning, and control of mobile robots acting individually and in groups. It addresses methods of positioning in global and local coordinates systems, off-line and on-line path-planning, sensing and sensors fusion, algorithms of obstacle avoidance, swarming techniques and cooperative behavior. The book includes ready-to-use algorithms, numerical examples and simulations, which can be directly implemented in both simple and advanced mobile robots, and is accompanied by a website hosting codes, videos, and PowerPoint slides Autonomous Mobile Robots and Multi-Robot Systems: Motion-Planning, Communication and Swarming consists of four main parts. The first looks at the models and algorithms of navigation and motion planning in global coordinates systems with complete information about the robot’s location and velocity. The second part considers the motion of the robots in the potential field, which is defined by the environmental states of the robot's expectations and knowledge. The robot's motion in the unknown environments and the corresponding tasks of environment mapping using sensed information is covered in the third part. The fourth part deals with the multi-robot systems and swarm dynamics in two and three dimensions. Provides a self-contained, theoretical guide to understanding mobile robot control and navigation Features implementable algorithms, numerical examples, and simulations Includes coverage of models of motion in global and local coordinates systems with and without direct communication between the robots Supplemented by a companion website offering codes, videos, and PowerPoint slides Autonomous Mobile Robots and Multi-Robot Systems: Motion-Planning, Communication and Swarming is an excellent tool for researchers, lecturers, senior undergraduate and graduate students, and engineers dealing with mobile robots and related issues.

An introduction to the science and practice of autonomous robots that reviews over 300 current systems and examines the underlying technology. Autonomous robots are intelligent machines capable of performing tasks in the world by themselves, without explicit human control. Examples range from autonomous helicopters to Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner. In this book, George Bekey offers an introduction to the science and practice of autonomous robots that can be used both in the classroom and as a reference for industry professionals. He surveys the hardware implementations of more than 300 current systems, reviews some of their application areas, and examines the underlying technology, including control, architectures, learning, manipulation, grasping, navigation, and mapping. Living systems can be considered the prototypes of autonomous systems, and Bekey explores the biological inspiration that forms the basis of many recent developments in robotics. He also discusses robot control issues and the design of control architectures. After an overview of the field that introduces some of its fundamental concepts, the book presents background material on hardware, control (from both biological and engineering perspectives), software architecture, and robot intelligence. It then examines a broad range of implementations and applications, including locomotion (wheeled, legged, flying, swimming, and crawling robots), manipulation (both arms and hands), localization, navigation, and mapping. The many case studies and specific applications include robots built for research, industry, and the military, among them underwater robotic vehicles, walking machines with four, six, and eight legs, and the famous humanoid robots Cog, Kismet, ASIMO, and QRIO. The book concludes with reflections on the future of robotics—the potential benefits as well as the possible dangers that may arise from large numbers of increasingly intelligent and autonomous robots.

It has long been the goal of engineers to develop tools that enhance our ability to do work, increase our quality of life, or perform tasks that are either beyond our ability, too hazardous, or too tedious to be left to human efforts. Autonomous mobile robots are the culmination of decades of research and development, and their potential is seemingly unlimited. Roadmap to the Future Serving as the first comprehensive reference on this interdisciplinary technology, Autonomous Mobile Robots: Sensing, Control, Decision Making, and Applications authoritatively addresses the theoretical, technical, and practical aspects of the field. The book examines in detail the key components that form an autonomous mobile robot, from sensors and sensor fusion to modeling and control, map building and path planning, and decision making and autonomy, and to the final integration of these components for diversified applications. Trusted Guidance A duo of accomplished experts leads a team of renowned international researchers and professionals who provide detailed technical reviews and the latest solutions to a variety of important problems. They share hard-won insight into the practical implementation and integration issues involved in developing autonomous and open robotic systems, along with in-depth examples, current and future applications, and extensive illustrations. For anyone involved in researching, designing, or deploying autonomous robotic systems, Autonomous Mobile Robots is the perfect resource.

First book to describe a way of determining the best method to use to enable a robot to navigate.

Mobile robots have been increasingly applied in many different scenarios, such as space exploration and search and rescue, where the robots are required to travel over uneven terrain while outdoors. This book provides a new framework and the related algorithms for designing autonomous mobile robotic systems in such unknown outdoor environments.

This edited and reviewed volume consists of papers that were originally presented at a workshop in the Scientific Center at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. It gives an overview of the field and presents the latest developments in the areas of modeling and planning for sensor based robots. The particular topics addressed include active vision, sensor fusion, environment modeling, motion planning, robot navigation, distributed control architectures, reactive behavior, and others.