This book examines the feasibility of creating self-organizing robots, particularly at the molecular level, within current mechanical engineering limitations. It covers relevant topics such as design philosophy and self-organization in biological systems.

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...

Roboticsis undergoingamajortransformationinscopeanddimension.From a largelydominantindustrialfocus, roboticsis rapidly expandinginto human environments and vigorouslyengaged in its new challenges. Interacting with, assisting, serving, and exploring with humans, the emerging robots will - creasingly touch people and their lives. 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,...

This book presents an accurate, efficient pipeline for single camera-based 3D mapping of terrestrial and underwater environments. The authors offer a novel Structure from Motion algorithm that boosts accuracy by registering camera views directly with the maps.

This volume explores interactive multimodal systems and their integration with robots to enhance musical understanding, interpretation, performance, education and enjoyment. It presents the development of anthropomorphic robots and automated instruments.

FSR, the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, is the leading single track conference of robotics for field and service applications. This book presents the results of FSR2012, the eighth conference of Field and Service Robotics, which was originally planned for 2011 with the venue of Matsushima in Tohoku region of Japan. However, on March 11, 2011, a magnitude M9.0 earthquake occurred off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, and a large-scale disaster was caused by the Tsunami which resulted, therefore the conference was postponed by one year to July, 2012. In fact, this earthquake...

The fully automated estimation of the 6 degrees of freedom camera motion and the imaged 3D scenario using as the only input the pictures taken by the camera has been a long term aim in the computer vision community. The associated line of research has been known as Structure from Motion (SfM). An intense research effort during the latest decades has produced spectacular advances; the topic has reached a consistent state of maturity and most of its aspects are well known nowadays. 3D vision has immediate applications in many and diverse fields like robotics, videogames and augmented reality;...

Distributed robotics is a rapidly growing and maturing interdisciplinary research area lying at the intersection of computer science, network science, control theory, and electrical and mechanical engineering. The goal of the Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) is to exchange and stimulate research ideas to realize advanced distributed robotic systems. This volume of proceedings includes 31 original contributions presented at the 2012 International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2012) held in November 2012 at the Johns Hopkins University in...

At the dawn of the new millennium, robotics is undergoing a major transformation in scope and dimension. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics is rapidly expanding into the challenges of unstructured environments. Interacting with, assi- ing, serving, and exploring with humans, the emerging robots will increasingly touch people and their lives. The goal of the new 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...