Book Description:
This book presents new and important research on autonomous robots which 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.

Table of Contents:
Preface

A Survey on Visual Simultaneous Localization and Map-building;pp. 1-54
(Zhenhe Chen, Ranga Rodrigo, Jagath Samarabandu)

Graph Learning: A Three Step Approach to On Board Learning;pp.55-76
(Patrick McDowell, Theresa Beaubouef, Southeastern Louisiana University, USA, Brian Bourgeois, Naval Research Laboratory
Stennis Space Center, MS)

The Research Achievements and Future Applications of Space Robotic System;pp. 77-124
(Wenfu Xu, Bin Liang, Department of Control Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, ChinaYu Liu, Robotic Institute, Harbin Institute of Technology, China)

Unified Solution Scheme for Inverse Dynamics of Robotic Systems;pp. 125-173
(Daigoro Isobe, Department of Engineering Mechanics and Energy, University of Tsukuba, Japan)

A Low Cost Intelligent Infrared System for Support in Vehicle Navigation Tasks;pp. 175-188
(G.N Marichal, E. J. González, L. Acosta, Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas, Automática, Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores,
Universidad de La Laguna, Spain)

Balancing Exploration and Exploitation using PSO for a Distributed Multi-Robot Coordination;pp. 189-203
(Yan Meng, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA)

ViRbot: A System for the Operation of Mobile Robots;pp. 205-227
(Jesus Savage, Bio-Robotics Laboratory, School of Engineering, F. Arámbula Cosío, M.A. Padilla Castañeda, Adalberto Hernandez, Image Analysis and Visualization Lab., Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)

Robotic Pool Player: A Prototype;pp. 229-250 (Chua Shing Chyi, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Multimedia University, Malaysia)

Index