Finiteelementmethodhasbeenthedominanttechniqueincomputationalmech- icsinthepastdecades,andithasmadesigni?cantcontributionstothedevelopments in engineering and science. Nevertheless, FEM is not well suited to problems h- ing severe mesh distortion owing to extremely large deformations of materials, encountering moving discontinuities such as crack propagation along arbitrary and complex paths, involving considerable meshings and remeshings in structural optimization problems, or having multidomain of in?uence in multiphenomena physical problems. It is impossible to completely overcome those mesh-related dif?culties by a mesh-based method. The highly structured nature of ?nite e- ment approximations imposes severe penalties in seeking the solutions of those problems. Distinguishing with ?nite element, ?nite difference, and ?nite volume methods, meshless method discretizes the continuum body only with a set of nodal points andtheapproximationisconstructedentirelyintermsofnodes.Thereisnoneedof mesh or elements in this method. It does not possess the mesh-related dif?culties and provides an approach with more ?exibility in the applications in engineering and science. The meshless method started to capture the interest of a broader community of researchers only several years ago, and now it becomes a growing and evolving ?eld. It is showing that this is a very rich area to be explored, and has great promise for many very challenging computational problems. On the one hand, great advances of meshless methods have been achieved. On the other hand, there are many aspects of meshless methods that could bene?t from improvements. A broadercommunityofresearcherscanbringdiverseskillsandbackgroundstobear on the task of improving this method.

Finiteelementmethodhasbeenthedominanttechniqueincomputationalmech- icsinthepastdecades,andithasmadesigni?cantcontributionstothedevelopments in engineering and science. Nevertheless, FEM is not well suited to problems h- ing severe mesh distortion owing to extremely large deformations of materials, encountering moving discontinuities such as crack propagation along arbitrary and complex paths, involving considerable meshings and remeshings in structural optimization problems, or having multidomain of in?uence in multiphenomena physical problems. It is impossible to completely overcome those mesh-related dif?culties by a mesh-based method. The highly structured nature of ?nite e- ment approximations imposes severe penalties in seeking the solutions of those problems. Distinguishing with ?nite element, ?nite difference, and ?nite volume methods, meshless method discretizes the continuum body only with a set of nodal points andtheapproximationisconstructedentirelyintermsofnodes.Thereisnoneedof mesh or elements in this method. It does not possess the mesh-related dif?culties and provides an approach with more ?exibility in the applications in engineering and science. The meshless method started to capture the interest of a broader community of researchers only several years ago, and now it becomes a growing and evolving ?eld. It is showing that this is a very rich area to be explored, and has great promise for many very challenging computational problems. On the one hand, great advances of meshless methods have been achieved. On the other hand, there are many aspects of meshless methods that could bene?t from improvements. A broadercommunityofresearcherscanbringdiverseskillsandbackgroundstobear on the task of improving this method.

The Handbook of Intelligent Vehicles provides a complete coverage of the fundamentals, new technologies, and sub-areas essential to the development of intelligent vehicles; it also includes advances made to date, challenges, and future trends. Significant strides in the field have been made to date; however, so far there has been no single book or volume which captures these advances in a comprehensive format, addressing all essential components and subspecialties of intelligent vehicles, as this book does. Since the intended users are engineering practitioners, as well as researchers and graduate students, the book chapters do not only cover fundamentals, methods, and algorithms but also include how software/hardware are implemented, and demonstrate the advances along with their present challenges. Research at both component and systems levels are required to advance the functionality of intelligent vehicles. This volume covers both of these aspects in addition to the fundamentals listed above.

The Handbook of Intelligent Vehicles provides a complete coverage of the fundamentals, new technologies, and sub-areas essential to the development of intelligent vehicles; it also includes advances made to date, challenges, and future trends. Significant strides in the field have been made to date; however, so far there has been no single book or volume which captures these advances in a comprehensive format, addressing all essential components and subspecialties of intelligent vehicles, as this book does. Since the intended users are engineering practitioners, as well as researchers and graduate students, the book chapters do not only cover fundamentals, methods, and algorithms but also include how software/hardware are implemented, and demonstrate the advances along with their present challenges. Research at both component and systems levels are required to advance the functionality of intelligent vehicles. This volume covers both of these aspects in addition to the fundamentals listed above.

Finiteelementmethodhasbeenthedominanttechniqueincomputationalmech- icsinthepastdecades,andithasmadesigni?cantcontributionstothedevelopments in engineering and science. Nevertheless, FEM is not well suited to problems h- ing severe mesh distortion owing to extremely large deformations of materials, encountering moving discontinuities such as crack propagation along arbitrary and complex paths, involving considerable meshings and remeshings in structural optimization problems, or having multidomain of in?uence in multiphenomena physical problems. It is impossible to completely overcome those mesh-related dif?culties by a mesh-based method. The highly structured nature of ?nite e- ment approximations imposes severe penalties in seeking the solutions of those problems. Distinguishing with ?nite element, ?nite difference, and ?nite volume methods, meshless method discretizes the continuum body only with a set of nodal points andtheapproximationisconstructedentirelyintermsofnodes.Thereisnoneedof mesh or elements in this method. It does not possess the mesh-related dif?culties and provides an approach with more ?exibility in the applications in engineering and science. The meshless method started to capture the interest of a broader community of researchers only several years ago, and now it becomes a growing and evolving ?eld. It is showing that this is a very rich area to be explored, and has great promise for many very challenging computational problems. On the one hand, great advances of meshless methods have been achieved. On the other hand, there are many aspects of meshless methods that could bene?t from improvements. A broadercommunityofresearcherscanbringdiverseskillsandbackgroundstobear on the task of improving this method.

Finiteelementmethodhasbeenthedominanttechniqueincomputationalmech- icsinthepastdecades,andithasmadesigni?cantcontributionstothedevelopments in engineering and science. Nevertheless, FEM is not well suited to problems h- ing severe mesh distortion owing to extremely large deformations of materials, encountering moving discontinuities such as crack propagation along arbitrary and complex paths, involving considerable meshings and remeshings in structural optimization problems, or having multidomain of in?uence in multiphenomena physical problems. It is impossible to completely overcome those mesh-related dif?culties by a mesh-based method. The highly structured nature of ?nite e- ment approximations imposes severe penalties in seeking the solutions of those problems. Distinguishing with ?nite element, ?nite difference, and ?nite volume methods, meshless method discretizes the continuum body only with a set of nodal points andtheapproximationisconstructedentirelyintermsofnodes.Thereisnoneedof mesh or elements in this method. It does not possess the mesh-related dif?culties and provides an approach with more ?exibility in the applications in engineering and science. The meshless method started to capture the interest of a broader community of researchers only several years ago, and now it becomes a growing and evolving ?eld. It is showing that this is a very rich area to be explored, and has great promise for many very challenging computational problems. On the one hand, great advances of meshless methods have been achieved. On the other hand, there are many aspects of meshless methods that could bene?t from improvements. A broadercommunityofresearcherscanbringdiverseskillsandbackgroundstobear on the task of improving this method.

The Handbook of Intelligent Vehicles provides a complete coverage of the fundamentals, new technologies, and sub-areas essential to the development of intelligent vehicles; it also includes advances made to date, challenges, and future trends. Significant strides in the field have been made to date; however, so far there has been no single book or volume which captures these advances in a comprehensive format, addressing all essential components and subspecialties of intelligent vehicles, as this book does. Since the intended users are engineering practitioners, as well as researchers and graduate students, the book chapters do not only cover fundamentals, methods, and algorithms but also include how software/hardware are implemented, and demonstrate the advances along with their present challenges. Research at both component and systems levels are required to advance the functionality of intelligent vehicles. This volume covers both of these aspects in addition to the fundamentals listed above.

The Handbook of Intelligent Vehicles provides a complete coverage of the fundamentals, new technologies, and sub-areas essential to the development of intelligent vehicles; it also includes advances made to date, challenges, and future trends. Significant strides in the field have been made to date; however, so far there has been no single book or volume which captures these advances in a comprehensive format, addressing all essential components and subspecialties of intelligent vehicles, as this book does. Since the intended users are engineering practitioners, as well as researchers and graduate students, the book chapters do not only cover fundamentals, methods, and algorithms but also include how software/hardware are implemented, and demonstrate the advances along with their present challenges. Research at both component and systems levels are required to advance the functionality of intelligent vehicles. This volume covers both of these aspects in addition to the fundamentals listed above.