Recent Advances in Mobile Robotics

Book excerpt: Mobile robots are the focus of a great deal of current research in robotics. Mobile robotics is a young, multidisciplinary field involving knowledge from many areas, including electrical, electronic and mechanical engineering, computer, cognitive and social sciences. Being engaged in the design of automated systems, it lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computational vision, and robotics. Thanks to the numerous researchers sharing their goals, visions and results within the community, mobile robotics is becoming a very rich and stimulating area. The book Recent Advances in Mobile Robotics addresses the topic by integrating contributions from many researchers around the globe. It emphasizes the computational methods of programming mobile robots, rather than the methods of constructing the hardware. Its content reflects different complementary aspects of theory and practice, which have recently taken place. We believe that it will serve as a valuable handbook to those who work in research and development of mobile robots.