The ?eld of robotics continues to ?ourish and develop. In common with general scienti?c investigation, new ideas and implementations emerge quite spontaneously and these are discussed, used, discarded or subsumed at c- ferences, in the reference journals, as well as through the Internet. After a little more maturity has been acquired by the new concepts, then archival publication as a scienti?c or engineering monograph may occur. The goal of the Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics is to publish new developments and advances in the ?elds of robotics research - rapidly and informally but with...