In the last decade the development in vibration analysis was char acterized by increasing demands on precision and by the growing use of electronic computers. At present, improvements in precision are obtained by a more accurate modelling of technical systems. Thus, for instance, a system with one degree of freedom is often not accepted, as it used to be, as a model for vibration analysis in mechanical engineering. As a rule, vehicles and machines have to be modelled as systems with many degrees of freedom such as multibody systems, finite element systems or con tinua. The mathematical...

The International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) initiated and sponsored an International Symposium on Optimization of Mechanical Systems held in 1995 in Stuttgart, Germany. The Symposium was intended to bring together scientists working in different fields of optimization to exchange ideas and to discuss new trends with special emphasis on multi body systems. A Scientific Committee was appointed by the Bureau of IUTAM with the following members: S. Arimoto (Japan) EL. Chernousko (Russia) M. Geradin (Belgium) E.J. Haug (U.S.A.) C.A.M. Soares (Portugal) N. Olhoff (Denmark)...

The papers in this volume provide a vision of the evolution of the robotics disciplines and indicate new directions in which these disciplines are foreseen to develop. Paper topics include, but are not limited to, novel robot design and robot modules/components, service, education, medical, space, welfare and rescue robots, humanoid robots, bio-robotics, multi-robot, embodied multi-agent systems, challenges in control, modeling, kinematical and dynamical analysis of robotic systems, innovations in sensor systems for robots and perception, and recent advances in robotics. In particular, many...