This book contains selected contributions to WAFR, the highly-competitive meeting on the algorithmic foundations of robotics. They address the unique combination of questions that the design and analysis of robot algorithms inspires.

This proceedings book helps bring insights from this array of technical sub-topics together, as advanced robot algorithms draw on the combined expertise of many fields—including control theory, computational geometry and topology, geometrical and physical modeling, reasoning under uncertainty, probabilistic algorithms, game theory, and theoretical computer science. Intelligent robots and autonomous systems depend on algorithms that efficiently realize functionalities ranging from perception to decision making, from motion planning to control. The works collected in this SPAR book represent the state of the art in algorithmic robotics. They originate from papers accepted to the 14th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), traditionally a biannual, single-track meeting of leading researchers in the field of robotics. WAFR has always served as a premiere venue for the publication of some of robotics’ most important, fundamental, and lasting algorithmic contributions, ensuring the rapid circulation of new ideas. Though an in-person meeting was planned for June 15–17, 2020, in Oulu, Finland, the event ended up being canceled owing to the infeasibility of international travel during the global COVID-19 crisis.

This book gathers the outcomes of the thirteenth Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), the premier event for showcasing cutting-edge research on algorithmic robotics. The latest WAFR, held at Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán in Mérida, México on December 9–11, 2018, continued this tradition. This book contains fifty-four papers presented at WAFR, which highlight the latest research on fundamental algorithmic robotics (e.g., planning, learning, navigation, control, manipulation, optimality, completeness, and complexity) demonstrated through several applications involving multi-robot systems, perception, and contact manipulation. Addressing a diverse range of topics in papers prepared by expert contributors, the book reflects the state of the art and outlines future directions in the field of algorithmic robotics.

Algorithms are a fundamental component of robotic systems: they control or reason about motion and perception in the physical world. They receive input from noisy sensors, consider geometric and physical constraints, and operate on the world through imprecise actuators. The design and analysis of robot algorithms therefore raises a unique combination of questions in control theory, computational and differential geometry, and computer science. This book contains the proceedings from the 2006 Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics. This biannual workshop is a highly selective meeting of leading researchers in the field of algorithmic issues related to robotics. The 32 papers in this book span a wide variety of topics: from fundamental motion planning algorithms to applications in medicine and biology, but they have in common a foundation in the algorithmic problems of robotic systems.

The ?eld of robotics continues to ?ourish and develop. In common with general scienti?c investigation, new ideas and implementations emerge quite spontaneously and these are discussed, used, discarded or subsumed at c- ferences, in the reference journals, as well as through the Internet. After a little more maturity has been acquired by the new concepts, then archival publication as a scienti?c or engineering monograph may occur. The goal of the Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics is to publish new developments and advances in the ?elds of robotics research – rapidly and informally but with a high quality. It is hoped that prospective authors will welcome the opportunity to publish a structured presentation of some of the emerging robotics methodologies and technologies. The edited volume by Antonio Bicchi, Henrik Christensen and Domenico Prattichizzo is the outcome of the second edition of a workshop jointly sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Noticeably, the previous volume was published in the Springer Lecture Notes on Control and Information Sciences. The authors are recognised as leading scholars internationally. A n- ber of challenging control problems on the forefront of today’s research in robotics and automation are covered, with special emphasis on vision, sensory-feedback control, human-centered robotics, manipulation, planning, ?exible and cooperative robots, assembly systems.

This volume gathers together cutting-edge research from the Third Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics and gives a solid overview of the state of the art in robot algorithms. The papers cover core problems in robotics, such as motion planning, sensor-based planning, manipulation, and assembly planning. They also examine the application o

Industrieroboter gehoren heute zum Alltag. In den letzten zehn Jahren verlagerte sich der Schwerpunkt der Neuentwicklungen weg von den Robotern selbst, hin zu alternativen Formen der kunstlichen Intelligenz, mit denen die Gerate ausgestattet werden. Dem Rechnung tragend, beschaftigt sich die zweite Auflage dieses Handbuchs vor allem mit Anwendungen und Strategien zur Problemlosung in der Industrie. Angesprochen werden Themen wie Graphiksimulatoren, objektorientierte Software, Kommunikationssysteme und Mikro- und Nanoroboter. (04/99)