Autonomous robotic systems. Advanced research workshop, Univ. of Coimbra, Portugal, June 19--21, 1997 (Q1271354)

[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] This volume includes the key contributions presented at the advanced research workshop ``Autonomous Robotic Systems'' which was held at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, from June 19 to 21, 1997. These contributions represent a wide coverage of the state-of-the-art and the emerging research directions in autonomous robotic systems. The material was developed in an advanced tutorial style making its contents more accessible to interested readers. These contributions are organised in four parts: Sensors and Navigation, Cooperation and Telerobotics, Applications, and Legged and Climbing Robots. The first part concerns sensors and navigation in mobile robotics. An effective navigation system developed for natural unstructured environments, as well as its implementation results on a cross-country rover, are presented. Various active vision systems, with potential application to surveillance tasks, are described, and the integration of active vision in mobile platforms is analysed. A survey of sensors for mobile robot navigation is presented. The synergy of combining inertial sensors with absolute sensors seems to overcome the limitations of either type of systems when used alone. The emerging area of odour sensors in mobile robotics, based on biological systems, is also analysed. The second part focuses on cooperation and telerobotics. Different approaches for the generation of smooth robust motion and desired forces in a natural way, are outlined. Issues of position versus velocity control are discussed and alternatives to force-reflection and pure force feed-forward are described. Cooperation is central to distributed autonomous robot systems. The development of cooperative behaviours is discussed from a local and global coordination point of view and new cooperation methodologies are proposed. Mobile manipulation capabilities are key to many new applications of robotics. The intertial properties of holonomic mobile manipulation systems are discussed, and the basic strategies developed for their dynamic coordination and control are presented. The third part is devoted to applications. Existing and emerging new applications of autonomous systems are discussed. These applications include operations in the forestry sector, floor cleaning in buildings, mining industry, hospitals and tertiary buildings, assistance to the elderly and handicapped, and surgery. The fourth part is concerned with legged and climbing robots. These machines are becoming increasingly important for dealing with highly irregular environments and steep surfaces. A survey of walking and climbing machines, as well as the characterisation of machines with different configurations, are presented.