Multiple Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Aerial robots can be considered as an evolution of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This book provides a quite complete overview of issues related to aerial robotics, addressing problems ranging from flight control to terrain perception and mission planning and execution. The major challenges and potentials of heterogeneous UAVs are comprehensively explored. It builds on the results of the European project COMETS, and highlights a number of key research topics in the area of UAV development, including communication, perception, teleoperation and decision making. The monograph emphasizes the current state of technology, the existing problems and potentialities of systems consisting of multiple UAVs which are heterogeneous in view of the different characteristics of the aerial vehicles, the different on-board payloads, and the different on-board information processing capabilities. The book also examines potential applications of UAVs and details a relevant application case: forest fire detection and monitoring.
Multiple Abstraction Hierachies for Mobile Robot Operation in Large Environments
This book focuses on the efficient performance of mobile robots through the use of multi-hierarchical symbolic representations of the environment. A mobile robot intended to perform deliberative actions must possess some symbolic representation of its workspace, but such representations of real environments usually become so large that should be conveniently arranged in order to facilitate and, in some cases, make possible their use. This book addresses all these issues considering symbolic multi-hierarchical structures. Such structures, based on the concept of abstraction, allow a robot to speed up its operation in large environments. Practical solutions tested on real robots (for instance, a robotic wheelchair for elder people) are provided.
Multibody Dynamics : Computational Methods and Applications
This book contains the revised and extended versions of selected conference communications, representing the state-of-the-art in the advances on computational multibody models, from the most abstract mathematical developments to practical engineering applications. This book will be highly valuable for experienced researchers that want to keep updated on the details of the latest driving ideas in this field. It will also be of interest to researchers approaching the field for the first time, since it provides a useful overview of the most active areas and the efforts devoted by many prominent research groups worldwide.
Multi-body Dynamic Modeling of Multi-legged Robots
This book describes the development of an integrated approach for generating the path and gait of realistic hexapod robotic systems. It discusses in detail locomation with straight-ahead, crab and turning motion capabilities in varying terrains, like sloping surfaces, staircases, and various user-defined rough terrains. It also presents computer simulations and validation using Virtual Prototyping (VP) tools and real-world experiments.
Multi-Arm Cooperating Robots : Dynamics and Control
This book will be useful to a wide audience of engineers, ranging from undergraduate and graduate students, new and advanced academic researchers, to practitioners (mechanical and electrical engineers, computer and system scientists). It is intended for readers whose work involves manufacturing, industrial, robotics, automation, computer and control engineering, and who wish to find out about this important new technology and its potential advantages for control engineering applications.
Motion Planning in Medicine : Optimization and Simulation Algorithms for Image-Guided Procedures
The monograph written by Ron Alterovitz and Ken Goldberg combines ideas from robotics, physically-based modeling, and operations research to develop new motion planning and optimization algorithms for image-guided medical procedures. A challenge clinicians commonly face is compensating for errors caused by soft tissue deformations that occur when imaging devices or surgical tools physically contact soft tissue. A number of methods are presented which can be applied to a variety of medical procedures, from biopsies to anaesthesia injections to radiation cancer treatment. They can also be extended to address problems outside the context of medical robotics, including nonholonomic motion planning for mobile robots in field or manufacturing environments.
Morse Theoretic Methods in Nonlinear Analysis and in Symplectic Topology
It covered an ample spectrum of subjects which are re ected in the present volume: Morse theory and related techniques in in nite dim- sional spaces, Floer theory and its recent extensions and generalizations, Morse and Floer theory in relation to string topology, generating functions, structure of the group of Hamiltonian difieomorphisms and related dynamical problems, applications to robotics and many others. We thank all our main speakers for their stimulating lectures and all p- ticipants for creating a friendly atmosphere
Monitoring, Security, and Rescue Techniques in Multiagent Systems
This volume contains extended and improved versions of selected contributions presented at the International Workshop "Monitoring, Security and Rescue Techniques in Multiagent Systems".
Modern Sliding Mode Control Theory : New Perspectives and Applications
This book is a collection of invited chapters covering several areas of modern sliding mode control theory. The authors identify key contributions defining the theoretical and applicative state of the art of the sliding mode control theory and the most promising trends of the ongoing research activities. The contributions is divided in four main parts: Part I: Basic Theory. Part II: Design Methods. Part III: Observers and Fault Detection. Part IV: Applications.
Modern Control Theory
This book presents a unified, systematic description of basic and advanced problems, methods and algorithms of the modern control theory treated as a foundation for the design of computer control and management systems.
Modeling decisions : Information fusion and aggregation operators
This book covers the underlying science and application issues related to aggregation operators, focusing on tools used in practical applications that involve numerical information. Starting with detailed introductions to information fusion and integration, measurement and probability theory, fuzzy sets, and functional equations.
Model-based Fault Diagnosis Techniques : Design Schemes, Algorithms, and Tools
The objective of this book is to introduce basic model-based FDI schemes, advanced analysis and design algorithms and the needed mathematical and control theory tools at a level for graduate students and researchers as well as for engineers.
Model Abstraction in Dynamical Systems : Application to Mobile Robot Control
The subject of this book is model abstraction of dynamical systems. The p- mary goal of the work embodied in this book is to design a controller for the mobile robotic car using abstraction. Abstraction provides a means to rep- sent the dynamics of a system using a simpler model while retaining important characteristics of the original system. A second goal of this work is to study the propagation of uncertain initial conditions in the framework of abstraction. The summation of this work is presented in this book.
Mobile Robots : The Evolutionary Approach
The design and control of autonomous intelligent mobile robotic systems operating in unstructured changing environments includes many objective difficulties. There are several studies about the ways in which, robots exhibiting some degree of autonomy, adapt themselves to fit in their environments. The application and use of bio-inspired and intelligent techniques such as reinforcement learning, artificial neural networks, evolutionary computation and so forth in the design and improvement of robot designs is an emergent research topic. Researchers have obtained robots that display an amazing slew of behaviours and perform a multitude of tasks. These include perception of environment, planning and navigation in rough terrain, pushing boxes, negotiating an obstacle course, etc.
MICAI 2008 : Advances in Artificial Intelligence ;7th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Atizapán de Zaragoza, Mexico, October 27-31, 2008 Proceedings
The 96 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 363 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on logic and reasoning, knowledge-based systems, knowledge representation and acquisition, ontologies, natural language processing, machine learning, pattern recognition, data mining, neural networks, genetic algorithms, hybrid intelligent systems, computer vision and image processing, robotics, planning and scheduling, uncertainty and probabilistic reasoning, fuzzy logic, intelligent tutoring systems, multi-agent systems and distributed ai, intelligent organizations, bioinformatics and medical applications, as well as applications.
MICAI 2007 : Advances in artificial intelligence ; 6th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Aguascalientes, Mexico, November 4-10, 2007, Proceedings
The Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (MICAI), a yearly international conference series organized by the Mexican Society for Artificial Intelligence (SMIA), is a major international AI forum and the main event in the academic life of the country’s growing AI community.
MICAI 2006 : Advances in Artificial Intelligence ; 5th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Apizaco, Mexico, November 13-17, 2006, Proceedings
This volume contains the papers presented during the oral session of the 5 Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, held on November 13–17, 2006, at the Technologic Institute of Apizaco, Mexico. The conference received for evaluation 448 submissions by 1207 authors from 42 different countries
MICAI 2005 : Advances in Artificial Intelligence ; 4th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Monterrey, Mexico, November 14-18, 2005, Proceedings
Constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2005, held Mexico, in November 2005. This book is organized in topical sections on knowledge representation and management, logic and constraint programming, uncertainty reasoning, multiagent systems and distributed AI, and others.
Metaheuristic Optimization Algorithms in Civil Engineering : New Applications
Discusses the application of metaheuristic algorithms in a number of important optimization problems in civil engineering. Advances in civil engineering technologies require greater accuracy, efficiency and speed in terms of the analysis and design of the corresponding systems. As such, it is not surprising that novel methods have been developed for the optimal design of real-world systems and models with complex configurations and large numbers of elements.
Medical Technologies in Neurosurgery
The tremendous progress evolving in medical technologies in recent years increasingly influences our daily neurological practice. Ethical aspects in the application of technologies from differing viewpoints are discussed in detail. Additionally, typical examples for the application of medical technologies in the operating room include image processing, robotic devices, and intraoperative imaging are clearly presented.



















