Jean-Claude Latombe - Böcker

One of the ultimate goals in robotics is the creation of autonomous robots. Such robots will accept high-level descriptions of tasks and will execute them without further human intervention. The input descriptions will specify what the user wants dome rather than how to do it. The robots will be any kind of versatile mechanical device equipped withg actuators and sensors under the control of a computing system. Developing the technologies necesssary for autonomous robots is a formidable undertaking with deeply woven ramifications in automated reasoning, perception and control. "Robot Motion Planning" discusses a central problem in the development of autonomous robots. Motion planning, the central theme of this book, can be loosely defined as follows: how can a robot decide what motions to perform in order to achieve as a goal the arrangement of physical objects? This capability is eminently necessary since, by definition, a robot accomplishes tasks by moving in the real world. The minimum one would expect from an autonomous robot is the ability to plan its own motions.This book is aimed at the graduate level student intending to study further in robotics and spatial reasoning, at researchers in robotics, computer-aided design, computer graphics and computational geometry, and at engineers seeking to develop advanced computer-based systems in design, manufacturing, construction and automation.

Robotics is at the cusp of dramatic transformation. Increasingly complex robots with unprecedented autonomy are finding new applications, from medical surgery, to construction, to home services. Against this background, the algorithmic foundations of robotics are becoming more crucial than ever, in order to build robots that are fast, safe, reliable, and adaptive. Algorithms enable robots to perceive, plan, control, and learn. The design and analysis of robot algorithms raise new fundamental questions that span computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and mathematics. These algorithms are also finding applications beyond robotics, for example, in modeling molecular motion and creating digital characters for video games and architectural simulation. The Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) is a highly selective meeting of leading researchers in the field of robot algorithms. Since its creation in 1994, it has published some of the field’s most important and lasting contributions. This book contains the proceedings of the 9th WAFR, held on December 13-15, 2010 at the National University of Singapore. The 24 papers included in this book span a wide variety of topics from new theoretical insights to novel applications.