It is widely anticipated that autonomous vehicles will have a transformational impact on military forces and will play a key role in many future force structures. As a result, many tasks have already been identified that unmanned systems could undertake more readily than humans. However, for this to occur, such systems will need to be agile, versatile, persistent, reliable, survivable and lethal. This will require many of the vehicles ‘cognitive’ or higher order functions to be more fully developed, whereas to date only the ‘component’ or physical functions have been successfully automated and deployed. The book draws upon a broad range of others’ work with a view to providing a product that is greater than the sum of its parts. The discussion is intentionally approached from the perspective of improving understanding rather than providing solutions or drawing firm conclusions. Consequently, researchers reading this book with the hope of uncovering some novel theory or approach to automating an unmanned vehicle will be as disappointed as the capability planner who anticipates a catalogue of technical risks and feasibility options against his favoured list of component technologies and potential applications. Nevertheless, it is hoped that both will at least learn something of the other’s world and that progress will ensue as a result. For the defence policy and decision maker, this is a "must-read" book which brings together an important technology summary with a considered analysis of future doctrinal, legal and ethical issues in unmanned and autonomous systems. For research engineers and developers of robotics, this book provides a unique perspective on the implications and consequences of our craft; connecting what we do to the deployment and use of the technology in current and future defence systems. Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte

Unmanned marine vehicles (UMVs) include autonomous underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, semi-submersibles and unmanned surface craft. Considerable importance is being placed on the design and development of such vehicles, as they provide cost-effective solutions to a number of littoral, coastal and offshore problems. This book highlights the advanced technology that is evolving to meet the challenges being posed in this exciting and growing area of research.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being increasingly used in different applications in both military and civilian domains. These applications include surveillance, reconnaissance, remote sensing, target acquisition, border patrol, infrastructure monitoring, aerial imaging, industrial inspection, and emergency medical aid. Vehicles that can be considered autonomous must be able to make decisions and react to events without direct intervention by humans. Although some UAVs are able to perform increasingly complex autonomous manoeuvres, most UAVs are not fully autonomous; instead, they are mostly operated remotely by humans. To make UAVs fully autonomous, many technological and algorithmic developments are still required. For instance, UAVs will need to improve their sensing of obstacles and subsequent avoidance. This becomes particularly important as autonomous UAVs start to operate in civilian airspaces that are occupied by other aircraft. The aim of this volume is to bring together the work of leading researchers and practitioners in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles with a common interest in their autonomy. The contributions that are part of this volume present key challenges associated with the autonomous control of unmanned aerial vehicles, and propose solution methodologies to address such challenges, analyse the proposed methodologies, and evaluate their performance.

This book describes new theories and applications of artificial neural networks, with a special focus on answering questions in neuroscience, biology and biophysics and cognitive research. It covers a wide range of methods and technologies, including deep neural networks, large scale neural models, brain computer interface, signal processing methods, as well as models of perception, studies on emotion recognition, self-organization and many more. The book includes both selected and invited papers presented at the XXII International Conference on Neuroinformatics, held on October 12-16, 2020, Moscow, Russia.

Military robots are affecting both the decision to go to war and the means by which wars are conducted. This book covers the history of military robotics, analyzes their current employment, and examines the ramifications of their future utilization. Robotic systems are the future of military conflicts: their development is already revolutionizing the nature of human conflict-and eroding the standards of acceptable behavior in wartime. Written by a professor who teaches strategy and leadership for the U.S. Air Force, one of the global leaders in the development and utilization of military robots, this book both addresses the history of military robotics and discusses the troubling future ramifications of this game-changing technology. Organized both chronologically and thematically, the book's chapters describe the development and evolution of unmanned warfare; clarify the past, current, and future capabilities of military robotics; and offer a detailed and convincing argument that limits should be placed upon their development before it is too late. This standout work presents an eye-opening analysis that military personnel, civil servants, and academic instructors who teach military history, social policy, and ethics can ill afford to ignore, and will also provide the general public with information that will correct misconceptions about military robotics derived through popular culture and the news media.

This book contains original, peer-reviewed, and selected research papers that were presented at the 2023 International Conference on Marine Equipment & Technology and Sustainable Development, which took place in Beijing, China on April 1st 2023. The papers cover a range of topics, including but not limited to: the vision and goals of building a maritime community with a shared future, marine machinery and transportation, marine ecology, environmental protection and conservation, marine safety, future ships and marine equipment, marine engineering, marine information and technology, maritime policy, and global governance. The papers included in this volume provide the latest findings on methodologies, algorithms, and applications in marine equipment and technology, as well as sustainable development. As a result, this book is an invaluable resource for researchers, engineers, and university students who are interested in these fields.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP TC 5, TC 12, WG 8.4, 8.9, 12.9 International Cross-Domain Conference for Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction, CD-MAKE 2019, held in Canterbury, UK, in August 2019. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 45 submissions. The cross-domain integration and appraisal of different fields provides an atmosphere to foster different perspectives and opinions; it will offer a platform for novel ideas and a fresh look on the methodologies to put these ideas into business for the benefit of humanity.

A beyond human knowledge and reach, robotics is strongly involved in tackling challenges of new emerging multidisciplinary fields. Together with humans, robots are busy exploring and working on the new generation of ideas and problems whose solution is otherwise impossible to find. The future is near when robots will sense, smell and touch people and their lives. Behind this practical aspect of human-robotics, there is a half a century spanned robotics research, which transformed robotics into a modern science. The Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality is a compilation of emerging application areas of robotics. The book covers robotics role in medicine, space exploration and also explains the role of virtual reality as a non-destructive test bed which constitutes a premise of further advances towards new challenges in robotics. This book, edited by two famous scientists with the support of an outstanding team of fifteen authors, is a well suited reference for robotics researchers and scholars from related disciplines such as computer graphics, virtual simulation, surgery, biomechanics and neuroscience.

Drones and the Law: International Responses to Rapid Drone Proliferation presents innovative solutions to the controversial issues raised by the drones and a critical assessment of its growing use as a weapon system in modern warfare and privacy issues.

There is increasing interest in the potential of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) technology and their wide ranging applications including defence missions, reconnaissance and surveillance, border patrol, disaster zone assessment and atmospheric research. High investment levels from the military sector globally is driving research and development and increasing the viability of autonomous platforms as replacements for the remotely piloted vehicles more commonly in use. UAV/UAS pose a number of new challenges, with the autonomy and in particular collision avoidance, detect and avoid, or sense and avoid, as the most challenging one, involving both regulatory and technical issues. Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications covers the problem of detect, sense and avoid in UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) in depth and combines the theoretical and application results by leading academics and researchers from industry and academia. Key features: Presents a holistic view of the sense and avoid problem in the wider application of autonomous systems Includes information on human factors, regulatory issues and navigation, control, aerodynamics and physics aspects of the sense and avoid problem in UAS Provides professional, scientific and reliable content that is easy to understand, and Includes contributions from leading engineers and researchers in the field Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications is an invaluable source of original and specialised information. It acts as a reference manual for practising engineers and advanced theoretical researchers and also forms a useful resource for younger engineers and postgraduate students. With its credible sources and thorough review process, Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications provides a reliable source of information in an area that is fast expanding but scarcely covered.