Book Description:
Autonomous robots are robots which can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. Many kinds of robots have some degree of autonomy. Different robots can be autonomous in different ways. A high degree of autonomy is particularly desirable in fields such as space exploration, where communication delays and interruptions are unavoidable.
Some modern factory robots are "autonomous" within the strict confines of their direct environment. The exact orientation and position of the next object of work and (in the more advanced factories) even the type of object and the required task must be determined. This can vary unpredictably (at least from the robot's point of view). One important area of robotics research is to enable the robot to cope with its environment whether this be on land, underwater, in the air, underground, or in space. This new book presents the latest research from around the globe.

Table of Contents:
Preface

Chapter 1 - Construction Robotics and Automation in Autonomous Robots Research Advances; pp. 1-34
(Albert T. So, Department of Building and Construction, City University of Hong Kong)

Chapter 2 - Navigation and Control Schemes for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: Recent Advances and New Challenges; pp. 35-67
(J.N. Lygouras, V.S. Kodogiannis, Centre for Systems Analysis, School of Computer Science, University of Westminster, London)

Chapter 3 - Robot Vision for Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles;
pp. 69-103
(Jose Maria Armingol, Juan Pablo Carrasco, Juan Manuel Collado, Arturo de la Escalera, Marco Javier Flores, Cristina Hilario, Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Dept. of Systems Engineering and Automation, Univ. Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain)

Chapter 4 - VLSI Architectures for Autonomous Robots – A Review;
pp. 105-120
(K. Sridharan, School of Computer Engineering, Singapore, Department of Electrical Engineering, India, Lam Siew Kei, T. Srikanthanc, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

Chapter 5 - Behavioral multi-agent based control architecture for autonomous robotic systems; pp. 121-140
(Ouahiba Azouaoui, and Houria Yazid, Centre de Développement des Technologies Avancées, Algérie, Ecole de Technologie Supérieure, Montréal)

Chapter 6 - Advanced - Lane Detection for Autonomous Navigation;
pp. 141-178
(Raphael Labayrade, ENTPE, France, Jerome Douret, CITILOG, France, Sio Song Ieng, LRPC, France)

Chapter 7 - Autonomous Vehicle Path Planning Specially According to the Narrow Passage and Goal Position Reaching; pp. 179-222
(Ranka Kulic, Sanja Bauk, Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Montenegro)

Chapter 8 - Peception through Scattering Media for Autonomous Vehicles; pp. 223-267
(Nicolas Hauti, Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussees, Division Raphael Labayrade, Jean-Philippe Tarel, Interactions Vehicules Infrastructure Conducteurs, Versailles, France)

Chapter 9 - Development of a Dynamic Visual Tracking System Based On Multi-Cue Matching and Target Position Prediction; pp. 269-294
(Ming-Yang Cheng, Chun-Kai Wang, Hui-Pin Huang, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan)

Chapter 10 - A Mobile Parallel Manipulator: Conceptual Design and Modeling; pp. 295-312
(Yangmin Li, Qingsong Xu, Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Macau, China)

Chapter 11 - Development of a Construction Robot for Heavy Material Installation:; pp. 313-344
Experiment on a Prototype and Proposal of a New Design Concept
(Seung-Nam Yu, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Korea, Chang-Soo Han, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Korea)

Index