There has been a great deal of excitement in the last ten years over the emer- gence of new mathematical techniques for the analysis and control of nonlinear systems: Witness the emergence of a set of simplified tools for the analysis of bifurcations, chaos, and other complicated dynamical behavior and the develop- ment of a comprehensive theory of geometric nonlinear control. Coupled with this set of analytic advances has been the vast increase in computational power available for both the simulation and visualization of nonlinear systems as well as for the implementation in real time of...

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications ESSAYS ON MATHEMATICAL ROBOTICS is based on the proceedings of a workshop that was an integral part of the 1992-93 IMA program on "Control Theory." The workshop featured a mathematicalintroductionto kinematics and fine motion planning; dynam ics and control of kinematically redundant robot arms including snake-like robots, multi-fingered robotic hands; methods of non-holonomic motion planning for space robots, multifingered robot hands and mobile robots; new techniques in analytical mechanics for writing the dynamics of com plicated...