Model rockets can get by with only simple passive stability (i.e. keeping the CG in front of the CP). While this is potentially true with High Power rockets, it is a waste of a vehicle’s potential to simply let it wander wherever it will while burning off those thousands of Newton-seconds of impulse. A straight, vertical flight is essential for obtaining maximum altitude, a goal not just for the rocketeer’s bragging rights but sometimes required when flying scientific payloads. Vertical trajectory systems (a term coined by Dave Ketchledge, see The Next Shuttle and Rocket Science) are a class of active guidance systems whose job it is to keep a rocket going completely vertical regardless of outside disturbances. In its densely packed pages, Steve Ainsworth covers guidance detection (how to know which way “up” is) and control (how to actively change your trajectory). He covers the basics of analytical system design so you know what needs to be done, and then the iterative hardware design process to build the equipment to do it. This is not a book for beginners! A solid understanding of hobby rocket dynamics of at least the level found in the Stine Handbook is a prerequisite. Then again, you wouldn’t be looking for a book like this if you weren’t already there.

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major tra- formation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about bythematurityofthe?eldandtheadvancesinitsrelatedtechnologies.From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and communities,providingsupportinservices,entertainment,education,heal- care, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across - verse research areas and scienti?c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are pr- ing an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the ?eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their signi?cance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing ?eld.

This monograph presents theoretical methods involving the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman formalism in conjunction with set-valued techniques of nonlinear analysis to solve significant problems in dynamics and control. The emphasis is on issues of reachability, feedback control synthesis under complex state constraints, hard or double bounds on controls, and performance in finite time. Guaranteed state estimation, output feedback control, and hybrid dynamics are also discussed. Although the focus is on systems with linear structure, the authors indicate how to apply each approach to nonlinear and nonconvex systems. The main theoretical results lead to computational schemes based on extensions of ellipsoidal calculus that provide complete solutions to the problems. These computational schemes in turn yield software tools that can be applied effectively to high-dimensional systems. Ellipsoidal Techniques for Problems of Dynamics and Control: Theory and Computation will interest graduate and senior undergraduate students, as well as researchers and practitioners interested in control theory, its applications, and its computational realizations.

This book presents the most recent research advances in the theory, design, control and application of robotic systems, which are intended for a variety of purposes such as manipulation, manufacturing, automation, surgery, locomotion and biomechanics.

"This introductory, algebra-based, two-semester college physics book is grounded with real-world examples, illustrations, and explanations to help students grasp key, fundamental physics concepts. ... This online, fully editable and customizable title includes learning objectives, concept questions, links to labs and simulations, and ample practice opportunities to solve traditional physics application problems."--Website of book.

The naval aviation safety review.

Papers presented at the 2003 Neural Information Processing Conference by leading physicists, neuroscientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists. The annual Neural Information Processing (NIPS) conference is the flagship meeting on neural computation. It draws a diverse group of attendees -- physicists, neuroscientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists. The presentations are interdisciplinary, with contributions in algorithms, learning theory, cognitive science, neuroscience, brain imaging, vision, speech and signal processing, reinforcement learning and control, emerging technologies, and applications. Only thirty percent of the papers submitted are accepted for presentation at NIPS, so the quality is exceptionally high. This volume contains all the papers presented at the 2003 conference.

Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.