The creation of intelligent robots is surely one of the most exciting and ch- lenginggoals of Arti?cial Intelligence. A robot is, ?rst of all, nothing but an inanimate machine with motors and sensors. In order to bring life to it, the machine needs to be programmed so as to make active use of its hardware c- ponents. This turns a machine into an autonomous robot. Since about the mid nineties of the past century, robot programming has made impressive progress. State-of-the-art robots are able to orient themselves and move around freely in indoor environments or negotiate di?cult outdoor terrains, they can use stereo vision to recognize objects, and they are capable of simple object manipulation with the help of arti?cial extremities. At a time where robots perform these tasks more and more reliably,weare ready to pursue the next big step, which is to turn autonomous machines into reasoning robots.Areasoning robot exhibits higher cognitive capabilities like following complex and long-term strategies, making rational decisions on a high level, drawing logical conclusions from sensor information acquired over time, devising suitable plans, and reacting sensibly in unexpected situations. All of these capabilities are characteristics of human-like intelligence and ultimately distinguish truly intelligent robots from mere autonomous machines.

The current state of the art in cognitive robotics, covering the challenges of building AI-powered intelligent robots inspired by natural cognitive systems. A novel approach to building AI-powered intelligent robots takes inspiration from the way natural cognitive systems—in humans, animals, and biological systems—develop intelligence by exploiting the full power of interactions between body and brain, the physical and social environment in which they live, and phylogenetic, developmental, and learning dynamics. This volume reports on the current state of the art in cognitive robotics, offering the first comprehensive coverage of building robots inspired by natural cognitive systems. Contributors first provide a systematic definition of cognitive robotics and a history of developments in the field. They describe in detail five main approaches: developmental, neuro, evolutionary, swarm, and soft robotics. They go on to consider methodologies and concepts, treating topics that include commonly used cognitive robotics platforms and robot simulators, biomimetic skin as an example of a hardware-based approach, machine-learning methods, and cognitive architecture. Finally, they cover the behavioral and cognitive capabilities of a variety of models, experiments, and applications, looking at issues that range from intrinsic motivation and perception to robot consciousness. Cognitive Robotics is aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, balancing technical details and examples for the computational reader with theoretical and experimental findings for the empirical scientist.

This study deals with an underexplored area of the emerging technologies debate: robotics in the healthcare setting. The author explores the role of care and develops a value-sensitive ethical framework for the eventual employment of care robots. Highlighting the range of positive and negative aspects associated with the initiative to design and use care robots, it draws out essential content as a guide to future design both reinforcing this study’s contemporary relevance, and giving weight to its prescriptions. The book speaks to, and is meant to be read by, a range of disciplines from science and engineering to philosophers and ethicists.

A comprehensive overview of an interdisciplinary approach to robotics that takes direct inspiration from the developmental and learning phenomena observed in children's cognitive development. Developmental robotics is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to robotics that is directly inspired by the developmental principles and mechanisms observed in children's cognitive development. It builds on the idea that the robot, using a set of intrinsic developmental principles regulating the real-time interaction of its body, brain, and environment, can autonomously acquire an increasingly complex set of sensorimotor and mental capabilities. This volume, drawing on insights from psychology, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, and robotics, offers the first comprehensive overview of a rapidly growing field. After providing some essential background information on robotics and developmental psychology, the book looks in detail at how developmental robotics models and experiments have attempted to realize a range of behavioral and cognitive capabilities. The examples in these chapters were chosen because of their direct correspondence with specific issues in child psychology research; each chapter begins with a concise and accessible overview of relevant empirical and theoretical findings in developmental psychology. The chapters cover intrinsic motivation and curiosity; motor development, examining both manipulation and locomotion; perceptual development, including face recognition and perception of space; social learning, emphasizing such phenomena as joint attention and cooperation; language, from phonetic babbling to syntactic processing; and abstract knowledge, including models of number learning and reasoning strategies. Boxed text offers technical and methodological details for both psychology and robotics experiments.

This volume investigates the ways emerging technologies in the fields of robotics and bio-robotics are influencing society. It necessarily considers both philosophical and technological study of robots, including what it means for robots to exist as good and moral entities, and how they benefit humans and enhance their quality of life. Contributors address artificial intelligence and social functions as well as technical matters. Chapters are wide-ranging, and consider robots in science fiction; the need for designers to create moral robots; specific technology; and the development of biological robots. Also addressed are robotic technologies already enhancing human bodies, such as exoskeletons that allow paraplegics to walk. The contributors foresee robots becoming involved not only in mundane domestic tasks such as washing dishes, but also in providing health care to the disabled and companionship to the elderly. This volume offers exciting philosophical reflections that unveil new connections between robotics and praxiology and their practical applications.

This book contains 26 papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "CAD Based Programming for Sensory Robots," held in IL CIOCCa, Italy, July 4-6, 1988. CAD based robot programming is considered to be the process where CAD (Computer Based) models are used to develop robot programs. If the program is generated, at least partially, by a programmer interacting, for example, with a computer graph i c d sp i 1 ay of the robot and its workce 11 env ironment, the process is referred to as graphical off-line programming. On the other hand, if the robot program is generated automatically, for example, by a computer, then the process is referred to as automatic robot programmi ng. The key element here is the use of CAD models both for interact i ve and automat i c generat i on of robot programs. CAD based programmi ng, therefore, bri ngs together computer based model i ng and robot programmi ng and as such cuts across several discipl ines including geometric model ing, robot programming, kinematic and dynamic modeling, artificial intelligence, sensory monitoring and so-on.

This open access book presents detailed findings about the ethical, legal, and social acceptance of robots in the German and European context. The key resource is the Bremen AI Delphi survey of scientists and politicians and a related population survey. The focus is on trust in robotic assistance, human willingness to use this assistance, and the expected personal well-being in human-robot interaction. Using recent data from Eurostat, the European Social Survey, and the Eurobarometer survey, the analysis is extended to Germany and the EU. The acceptance of robots in care and everyday life is viewed against their acceptance in other contexts of life and the scientific research. The book reports on how the probability of five complex future scenarios is evaluated by experts and politicians. These scenarios cover a broad range of topics, including the worst-case scenario of cutthroat competition for jobs, the wealth promise of AI, communication in human-robot interaction, robotic assistance, and ethical and legal conflicts. International economic competition alone will ensure that countries invest sustainably in the future technologies of AI and robots. But will these technologies also be accepted by the population? The book raises the core issue of how governments can gain the needed social, ethical, and user acceptance of AI and robots in everyday life. This highly topical book is of interest to researchers, professionals and policy makers working on various aspects of human-robot interaction. This is an open access book.

The contributions in Toward Learning Robots address the question of how a robot can be designed to acquire autonomously whatever it needs to realize adequate behavior in a complex environment. In-depth discussions of issues, techniques, and experiments in machine learning focus on improving ease of programming and enhancing robustness in unpredictable and changing environments, given limitations of time and resources available to researchers. The authors show practical progress toward a useful set of abstractions and techniques to describe and automate various aspects of learning in autonomous systems. The close interaction of such a system with the world reveals opportunities for new architectures and learning scenarios and for grounding symbolic representations, though such thorny problems as noise, choice of language, abstraction level of representation, and operationality have to be faced head-on. Contents Introduction: Toward Learning Robots * Learning Reliable Manipulation Strategies without Initial Physical Models * Learning by an Autonomous Agent in the Pushing Domain * A Cost-Sensitive Machine Learning Method for the Approach and Recognize Task * A Robot Exploration and Mapping Strategy Based on a Semantic Hierarchy of Spatial Representations * Understanding Object Motion: Recognition, Learning and Spatiotemporal Reasoning * Learning How to Plan * Robo-Soar: An Integration of External Interaction, Planning, and Learning Using Soar * Foundations of Learning in Autonomous Agents * Prior Knowledge and Autonomous Learning

The robot population is rising on Earth and other planets. (Mars is inhabited entirely by robots.) As robots slip into more domains of human life--from the operating room to the bedroom--they take on our morally important tasks and decisions, as well as create new risks from psychological to physical. This makes it all the more urgent to study their ethical, legal, and policy impacts. To help the robotics industry and broader society, we need to not only press ahead on a wide range of issues, but also identify new ones emerging as quickly as the field is evolving. For instance, where military robots had received much attention in the past (and are still controversial today), this volume looks toward autonomous cars here as an important case study that cuts across diverse issues, from liability to psychology to trust and more. And because robotics feeds into and is fed by AI, the Internet of Things, and other cognate fields, robot ethics must also reach into those domains, too. Expanding these discussions also means listening to new voices; robot ethics is no longer the concern of a handful of scholars. Experts from different academic disciplines and geographical areas are now playing vital roles in shaping ethical, legal, and policy discussions worldwide. So, for a more complete study, the editors of this volume look beyond the usual suspects for the latest thinking. Many of the views as represented in this cutting-edge volume are provocative--but also what we need to push forward in unfamiliar territory.

This six-volume set presents cutting-edge advances and applications of expert systems. Because expert systems combine the expertise of engineers, computer scientists, and computer programmers, each group will benefit from buying this important reference work. An "expert system" is a knowledge-based computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a human expert. The primary role of the expert system is to perform appropriate functions under the close supervision of the human, whose work is supported by that expert system. In the reverse, this same expert system can monitor and double check the human in the performance of a task. Human-computer interaction in our highly complex world requires the development of a wide array of expert systems. Expert systems techniques and applications are presented for a diverse array of topics including Experimental design and decision support The integration of machine learning with knowledge acquisition for the design of expert systems Process planning in design and manufacturing systems and process control applications Knowledge discovery in large-scale knowledge bases Robotic systems Geograhphic information systems Image analysis, recognition and interpretation Cellular automata methods for pattern recognition Real-time fault tolerant control systems CAD-based vision systems in pattern matching processes Financial systems Agricultural applications Medical diagnosis