Essential Principles for Autonomous Robotics

From driving, flying, and swimming, to digging for unknown objects in space exploration, autonomous robots take on varied shapes and sizes. In part, autonomous robots are designed to perform tasks that are too dirty, dull, or dangerous for humans. With nontrivial autonomy and volition, they may soon claim their own place in human society. These robots will be our allies as we strive for understanding our natural and man-made environments and build positive synergies around us. Although we may never perfect replication of biological capabilities in robots, we must harness the inevitable emergence of robots that synchronizes with our own capacities to live, learn, and grow. This book is a snapshot of motivations and methodologies for our collective attempts to transform our lives and enable us to cohabit with robots that work with and for us. It reviews and guides the reader to seminal and continual developments that are the foundations for successful paradigms. It attempts to demystify the abilities and limitations of robots. It is a progress report on the continuing work that will fuel future endeavors. Table of Contents: Part I: Preliminaries/Agency, Motion, and Anatomy/Behaviors / Architectures / Affect/Sensors / Manipulators/Part II: Mobility/Potential Fields/Roadmaps / Reactive Navigation / Multi-Robot Mapping: Brick and Mortar Strategy / Part III: State of the Art / Multi-Robotics Phenomena / Human-Robot Interaction / Fuzzy Control / Decision Theory and Game Theory / Part IV: On the Horizon / Applications: Macro and Micro Robots / References / Author Biography / Discussion