This volume explores the diversity of distributed eyes and other unusual visual systems in nature. It compares the unique themes of optics, neural processing, and behavioral control that emerge from these visual systems with more-canonical eyes. This volume attempts to answer a number of questions about distributed visual systems. What are distributed visual systems good for, how do they function, and why have they arisen independently in so many phyla? Why are eye designs and visual system arrangements much more diverse in invertebrates? Each chapter includes an overview of the visual systems that exist in their group of animals, relates vision to ecology, and takes a comparative approach.

This monograph introduces novel responses to the different problems that arise when multiple robots need to execute a task in cooperation, each robot in the team having a monocular camera as its primary input sensor. Its central proposition is that a consistent perception of the world is crucial for the good development of any multi-robot application. The text focuses on the high-level problem of cooperative perception by a multi-robot system: the idea that, depending on what each robot sees and its current situation, it will need to communicate these things to its fellows whenever possible to share what it has found and keep updated by them in its turn. However, in any realistic scenario, distributed solutions to this problem are not trivial and need to be addressed from as many angles as possible. Distributed Consensus with Visual Perception in Multi-Robot Systems covers a variety of related topics such as: • distributed consensus algorithms; • data association and robustness problems; • convergence speed; and • cooperative mapping. The book first puts forward algorithmic solutions to these problems and then supports them with empirical validations working with real images. It provides the reader with a deeper understanding of the problems associated to the perception of the world by a team of cooperating robots with onboard cameras. Academic researchers and graduate students working with multi-robot systems, or investigating problems of distributed control or computer vision and cooperative perception will find this book of material assistance with their studies.

The 6th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2002) was held in June 2002 in Fukuoka, Japan, a decade after the first DARS symposium was convened. This book, containing the proceedings of the symposium, provides broad coverage of the technical issues in the current state of the art in distributed autonomous systems composed of multiple robots, robotic modules, or robotic agents. DARS 2002 dealt with new strategies for realizing complex, modular, robust, and fault-tolerant robotic systems, and this volume covers the technical areas of system design, modeling, simulation, operation, sensing, planning, and control. The papers that are included here were contributed by leading researchers from Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, and make up an invaluable resource for researchers and students in the field of distributed autonomous robotic systems.

This volume contains the proceedings from the workshops held in conjunction with the IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2000, on 1-5 May 2000 in Cancun, Mexico. The workshopsprovidea forum for bringing together researchers,practiti- ers, and designers from various backgrounds to discuss the state of the art in parallelism.Theyfocusondi erentaspectsofparallelism,fromruntimesystems to formal methods, from optics to irregular problems, from biology to networks of personal computers, from embedded systems to programming environments; the following workshops are represented in this volume: { Workshop on Personal Computer Based Networks of Workstations { Workshop on Advances in Parallel and Distributed Computational Models { Workshop on Par. and Dist. Comp. in Image, Video, and Multimedia { Workshop on High-Level Parallel Prog. Models and Supportive Env. { Workshop on High Performance Data Mining { Workshop on Solving Irregularly Structured Problems in Parallel { Workshop on Java for Parallel and Distributed Computing { WorkshoponBiologicallyInspiredSolutionsto ParallelProcessingProblems { Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Real-Time Systems { Workshop on Embedded HPC Systems and Applications { Recon gurable Architectures Workshop { Workshop on Formal Methods for Parallel Programming { Workshop on Optics and Computer Science { Workshop on Run-Time Systems for Parallel Programming { Workshop on Fault-Tolerant Parallel and Distributed Systems All papers published in the workshops proceedings were selected by the p- gram committee on the basis of referee reports. Each paper was reviewed by independent referees who judged the papers for originality, quality, and cons- tency with the themes of the workshops.

Following the highly successful International Conference on Computer Vision - stems held in Las Palmas, Spain (ICVS’99), this second International Workshop on Computer Vision Systems, ICVS 2001 was held as an associated workshop of the International Conference on Computer Vision in Vancouver, Canada. The organization of ICVS’99 and ICVS 2001 was motivated by the fact that the - jority of computer vision conferences focus on component technologies. However, Computer Vision has reached a level of maturity that allows us not only to p- form research on individual methods and system components but also to build fully integrated computer vision systems of signi cant complexity. This opens a number of new problems related to system architecture, methods for system synthesis and veri cation, active vision systems, control of perception and - tion, knowledge and system representation, context modeling, cue integration, etc. By focusing on methods and concepts for the construction of fully integrated vision systems, ICVS aims to bring together researchers interested in computer vision systems. Similar to the previous event in Las Palmas, ICVS 2001 was organized as a single-track workshop consisting of high-quality, previously unpublished papers on new and original research on computer vision systems. All contributions were presented orally. A total of 32 papers were submitted and reviewed thoroughly by program committee members. Twenty of them have been selected for p- sentation. We would like to thank all members of the organizing and program committee for their help in putting together a high-quality workshop.

With the recent proliferation of service-oriented architectures (SOA), cloud computing technologies, and distributed-interconnected systems, distributed fusion is taking on a larger role in a variety of applications—from environmental monitoring and crisis management to intelligent buildings and defense. Drawing on the work of leading experts around the world, Distributed Data Fusion for Network-Centric Operations examines the state of the art of data fusion in a distributed sensing, communications, and computing environment. Get Insight into Designing and Implementing Data Fusion in a Distributed Network Addressing the entirety of information fusion, the contributors cover everything from signal and image processing, through estimation, to situation awareness. In particular, the work offers a timely look at the issues and solutions involving fusion within a distributed network enterprise. These include critical design problems, such as how to maintain a pedigree of agents or nodes that receive information, provide their contribution to the dataset, and pass to other network components. The book also tackles dynamic data sharing within a network-centric enterprise, distributed fusion effects on state estimation, graph-theoretic methods to optimize fusion performance, human engineering factors, and computer ontologies for higher levels of situation assessment. A comprehensive introduction to this emerging field and its challenges, the book explores how data fusion can be used within grid, distributed, and cloud computing architectures. Bringing together both theoretical and applied research perspectives, this is a valuable reference for fusion researchers and practitioners. It offers guidance and insight for those working on the complex issues of designing and implementing distributed, decentralized information fusion.

This book describes the application of a high-level technology to solve problems in distributed systems that have networked structures with millions to billions of nodes. The main difference from other works is that the approach is based on holistically and simultaneously analysing these systems using a spatial pattern-matching mode, which produces solutions hundreds of times faster than usual. The latest version of the technology is described, together with implementation details and basic Spatial Grasp Language. In addition, the book highlights numerous solutions, covering graph and network problems, their use in large social, industrial, and business ecosystems, social robotics and driverless transport, and the possibility of extrapolating from known gestalt laws on distributed systems, which could potentially be applied in civil and defence contexts. The book is intended for system scientists, business and industry managers, economists, application programmers, security and defence personnel, as well as university students.

Large-scale video networks are of increasing importance in a wide range of applications. However, the development of automated techniques for aggregating and interpreting information from multiple video streams in real-life scenarios is a challenging area of research. Collecting the work of leading researchers from a broad range of disciplines, this timely text/reference offers an in-depth survey of the state of the art in distributed camera networks. The book addresses a broad spectrum of critical issues in this highly interdisciplinary field: current challenges and future directions; video processing and video understanding; simulation, graphics, cognition and video networks; wireless video sensor networks, communications and control; embedded cameras and real-time video analysis; applications of distributed video networks; and educational opportunities and curriculum-development. Topics and features: presents an overview of research in areas of motion analysis, invariants, multiple cameras for detection, object tracking and recognition, and activities in video networks; provides real-world applications of distributed video networks, including force protection, wide area activities, port security, and recognition in night-time environments; describes the challenges in graphics and simulation, covering virtual vision, network security, human activities, cognitive architecture, and displays; examines issues of multimedia networks, registration, control of cameras (in simulations and real networks), localization and bounds on tracking; discusses system aspects of video networks, with chapters on providing testbed environments, data collection on activities, new integrated sensors for airborne sensors, face recognition, and building sentient spaces; investigates educational opportunities and curriculum development from the perspective of computer science and electrical engineering. This unique text will be of great interest to researchers and graduate students of computer vision and pattern recognition, computer graphics and simulation, image processing and embedded systems, and communications, networks and controls. The large number of example applications will also appeal to application engineers.

The International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence 2012 (DCAI 2012) is a stimulating and productive forum where the scientific community can work towards future cooperation in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence areas. This conference is a forum in which applications of innovative techniques for solving complex problems will be presented. Artificial intelligence is changing our society. Its application in distributed environments, such as the internet, electronic commerce, environment monitoring, mobile communications, wireless devices, distributed computing, to mention only a few, is continuously increasing, becoming an element of high added value with social and economic potential, in industry, quality of life, and research. These technologies are changing constantly as a result of the large research and technical effort being undertaken in both universities and businesses. The exchange of ideas between scientists and technicians from both the academic and industry sector is essential to facilitate the development of systems that can meet the ever increasing demands of today's society. This edition of DCAI brings together past experience, current work, and promising future trends associated with distributed computing, artificial intelligence and their application in order to provide efficient solutions to real problems. This symposium is organized by the Bioinformatics, Intelligent System and Educational Technology Research Group (http://bisite.usal.es/) of the University of Salamanca. The present edition will be held in Salamanca, Spain, from 28th to 30th March 2012.

Distributed robotics is an interdisciplinary and rapidly growing area, combining research in computer science, communication and control systems, and electrical and mechanical engineering. Distributed robotic systems can autonomously solve complex problems while operating in highly unstructured real-world environments. They are expected to play a major role in addressing future societal needs, for example, by improving environmental impact assessment, food supply, transportation, manufacturing, security, and emergency and rescue services. The goal of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) is to provide a forum for scientific advances in the theory and practice of distributed autonomous robotic systems. This volume of proceedings include 47 original contributions presented at the 13th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2016), which was held at the Natural History Museum in London, UK, from November 7th to 9th, 2016. The selected papers in this volume are authored by leading researchers from around the world, thereby providing a broad coverage and perspective of the state-of-the-art technologies, algorithms, system architectures, and applications in distributed robotic systems. The book is organized into seven parts, representative of critical long-term and emerging research thrusts in the multi-robot community: Distributed Coverage and Exploration; Multi-Robot Control; Multi-Robot Estimation; Multi-Robot Planning; Modular Robots and Smart Materials; Swarm Robotics; and Multi-Robot Systems in Applications.