This book describes the design, mathematical modeling, control system development and experimental validation of a versatile mobile pipe inspection robot. It also discusses a versatile robotic system for pipeline inspection, together with an original, adaptable tracked mobile robot featuring a patented motion unit. Pipeline inspection is a common field of application for mobile robots because the monitoring of inaccessible, long and narrow pipelines is a very difficult task for humans. The main design objective is to minimize the number of robots needed to inspect different types of horizontal and vertical pipelines, with both smooth and rough surfaces. The book includes extensive information on the various design phases, mathematical modeling, simulations and control system development. In closing, the prototype construction process and testing procedures are presented and supplemented with laboratory and field experiments.

Pipeline Rules of Thumb Handbook: A Manual of Quick, Accurate Solutions to Everyday Pipeline Engineering Problems, Ninth Edition, the latest release in the series, serves as the "go-to" source for all pipeline engineering answers. Updated with new data, graphs and chapters devoted to economics and the environment, this new edition delivers on new topics, including emissions, decommissioning, cost curves, and more while still maintaining the quick answer standard display of content and data that engineers have utilized throughout their careers. Glossaries are added per chapter for better learning tactics, along with additional storage tank and LNG fundamentals. This book continues to be the high-quality, classic reference to help pipeline engineers solve their day-to-day problems. - Contains new chapters that highlight costs, safety and environmental topics, including discussions on emissions - Helps readers learn terminology, with updated glossaries in every chapter - Includes renovated graphs and data tables throughout

This textbook provides practical and concrete guidance for the step-by-step implementation of decision-making for infrastructure asset management. Examples are used to illustrate how data from condition assessment are used to develop performance models, to estimate the effectiveness of investments that are prioritized and scheduled to accomplish reliable and convenient infrastructure for the wellbeing of the public and regional economic competitiveness. Book illustrates numerous worked problems to clarify ambiguity in developing a decision-making platform to prioritize assets and distribute budgets effectively and efficiently. Ensures reader understanding of the benefits and challenges of infrastructure asset management; Provides a step-by-step guide for the development of each component of an asset management decision-making system; Includes worked examples to clarify decision-making and budget allocation process.

This book reports on research on innovative human systems integration and human-machine interaction, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence and automation, as well as computational modeling and simulation. It covers a wide range of applications in the area of design, construction and operation of products, systems and services, including lifecycle development and human-technology interaction. The book describes advanced methodologies and tools for evaluating and improving interface usability, new models, as well as case studies and best practices in virtual, augmented and mixed reality systems, with a special focus on dynamic environments. It also discusses different factors concerning the human, hardware, and artificial intelligence software. Based on the proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2018), held on January 7-9, 2018, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the book also examines the forces that are currently shaping the nature of computing and cognitive systems, such as the need for decreasing hardware costs; the importance of infusing intelligence and automation, and the related trend toward hardware miniaturization and power reduction; the necessity for a better assimilation of computation in the environment; and the social concerns regarding access to computers and systems for people with special needs. It offers a timely survey and a practice-oriented reference guide to policy- and decision-makers, human factors engineers, systems developers and users alike.

This monograph is framed within the context of off-road mobile robotics. In particular, it discusses issues related to modelling, localization, and motion control of tracked mobile robots working in planar slippery conditions. Tracked locomotion constitutes a well-known solution for mobile platforms operating over diverse challenging terrains, for that reason, tracked robotics constitutes an important research field with many applications (e.g. agriculture, mining, search and rescue operations, military activities). The specific topics of this monograph are: historical perspective of tracked vehicles and tracked robots; trajectory-tracking model taking into account slip effect; visual-odometry-based localization strategies; and advanced slip-compensation motion controllers ensuring efficient real-time execution. Physical experiments with a real tracked robot are presented showing the better performance of the suggested novel approaches to known techniques. Keywords: longitudinal slip, visual odometry, slip-compensation control, robust predictive control, trajectory tracking. Related subjects: Robotics – Mechanical Engineering – Mechanics – Computer Science – Artificial Intelligence - Applications

Presents the normal kinematic and dynamic equations for robots, including mobile robots, with coordinate transformations and various control strategies This fully updated edition examines the use of mobile robots for sensing objects of interest, and focus primarily on control, navigation, and remote sensing. It also includes an entirely new section on modeling and control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), which exhibits unique complex three-dimensional dynamics. Mobile Robots: Navigation, Control and Sensing, Surface Robots and AUVs, Second Edition starts with a chapter on kinematic models for mobile robots. It then offers a detailed chapter on robot control, examining several different configurations of mobile robots. Following sections look at robot attitude and navigation. The application of Kalman Filtering is covered. Readers are also provided with a section on remote sensing and sensors. Other chapters discuss: target tracking, including multiple targets with multiple sensors; obstacle mapping and its application to robot navigation; operating a robotic manipulator; and remote sensing via UAVs. The last two sections deal with the dynamics modeling of AUVs and control of AUVs. In addition, this text: Includes two new chapters dealing with control of underwater vehicles Covers control schemes including linearization and use of linear control design methods, Lyapunov stability theory, and more Addresses the problem of ground registration of detected objects of interest given their pixel coordinates in the sensor frame Analyzes geo-registration errors as a function of sensor precision and sensor pointing uncertainty Mobile Robots: Navigation, Control and Sensing, Surface Robots and AUVs is intended for use as a textbook for a graduate course of the same title and can also serve as a reference book for practicing engineers working in related areas.

The 4-volume set LNAI 13013 – 13016 constitutes the proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2021, which took place in Yantai, China, during October 22-25, 2021. The 299 papers included in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 386 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Robotics dexterous manipulation; sensors, actuators, and controllers for soft and hybrid robots; cable-driven parallel robot; human-centered wearable robotics; hybrid system modeling and human-machine interface; robot manipulation skills learning; micro_nano materials, devices, and systems for biomedical applications; actuating, sensing, control, and instrumentation for ultra-precision engineering; human-robot collaboration; robotic machining; medical robot; machine intelligence for human motion analytics; human-robot interaction for service robots; novel mechanisms, robots and applications; space robot and on-orbit service; neural learning enhanced motion planning and control for human robot interaction; medical engineering.