IFAC Postprint Volume – serie

The series of IFAC Symposia on Analysis, Design and Evaluation of Man-Machine Systems provides the ideal forum for leading researchers and practitioners who work in the field to discuss and evaluate the latest research and developments. This publication contains the papers presented at the 6th IFAC Symposium in the series which was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

There is an increasing range of applications in which a robot has to operate in large unstructured and uncertain environments - including military cross country missions, fire fighting, construction, nuclear plant inspections, inspecting and repairing subsea structures, assembling space stations, as well as in intelligent automobiles. Uncertainty dominates the problem domain for intelligent autonomous vehicles (IAVs) through sensing the environment and vehicle state, interpreting the data, assessing the situation, adapting to changes in the environment or tasking, replanning, navigation and piloting.

IFAC, recognising the industrial, technical and economic significance of IAV research, established an International Working Party to promote research and dissemination of results in IAV systems. The IAV-93 Southampton Workshop and these resulting proceedings exemplify the vitality and significant progress made by leading IAV researchers worldwide.

The past few years have seen rapid developments in computer technology, giving rise to a range of system control options which can be applied in the process industries. These include; open systems, expert systems, neural networks, fuzzy systems and object-oriented systems, all of which are covered in this key volume, which provides an invaluable summary of the latest international research in this area.