This book presents best selected papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Smart Computing and Informatics (SCI 2020), held at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Vasavi College of Engineering (Autonomous), Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It presents advanced and multi-disciplinary research towards the design of smart computing and informatics. The theme is on a broader front which focuses on various innovation paradigms in system knowledge, intelligence and sustainability that may be applied to provide realistic solutions to varied problems in society, environment and industries. The scope is also extended towards the deployment of emerging computational and knowledge transfer approaches, optimizing solutions in various disciplines of science, technology and health care.

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. In the mid-1960s and contemporary with Kalman’s pioneering papers on sta- space models and optimal control, L.A. Zadeh began publishing papers on “fuzzy sets”. It took another decade before the fuzzy-logic controller due to Mamdani and Assilion was reported in the literature (ca. 1974), and now the fuzzy-logic control paradigm is entering its fifth decade of development and application. Thus, this new Advances in Industrial Control monograph edited by Ying Bai, Hanqi Zhuang and Dali Wang on fuzzy-logic control and its practical application comes as a timely reminder of the wide range of problems that can be solved by this continually evolving methodology.

This book is a collection of thoroughly well-researched studies presented at the Eighth Future Technologies Conference. This annual conference aims to seek submissions from the wide arena of studies like Computing, Communication, Machine Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Ambient Intelligence, Security, and e-Learning.

Surgical robotics is a rapidly evolving field. With roots in academic research, surgical robotic systems are now clinically used across a wide spectrum of surgical procedures. Surgical Robotics: Systems Applications and Visions provides a comprehensive view of the field both from the research and clinical perspectives. This volume takes a look at surgical robotics from four different perspectives, addressing vision, systems, engineering development and clinical applications of these technologies. The book also: -Discusses specific surgical applications of robotics that have already been deployed in operating rooms -Covers specific engineering breakthroughs that have occurred in surgical robotics -Details surgical robotic applications in specific disciplines of surgery including orthopedics, urology, cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, pediatric surgery and general surgery Surgical Robotics: Systems Applications and Visions is an ideal volume for researchers and engineers working in biomedical engineering.

As the use and relevance of robotics for countless scientific purposes grows all the time, research into the many diverse elements of the subject becomes ever more important and in demand. This volume examines in depth the most topical, complex issues of modelling and identification in robotics. The book is divided into three main parts. The !first part is devoted to robot dynamics modelling and identification of robot and load parameters, incorporating friction torques, discussing identification schemes, and presenting simulations and experiment al results of robot and load dynamic parameters identification. A general concept of robot programming language for research and educational purposes is examined and there is a detailed outline of its basic structures along with hardware requirements, which both constitute an open robot controller architecture. Finally a hybrid controller is derived, and several experimental results of this system are outlined. This impressive discussion of the topic covers both the theoretical and practical, illustrated throughout by examples and experimental results, and will be of value to anyone researching or practising within the field of robotics, automation and system i dentification or to control engineers.

During the period 1982-1985, six books of the series: Scientific Fun­ damentals of Robotics were published by Springer-Verlag. In chronolo­ gical order these were: Dynamics of Manipulation Robots: Theory and Application, by M. Vukobra­ tovic and V. Potkonjak, Control of Manipulation Robots: Theory and Ap­ plication, by M. vukobratovic and D. Stokic, Kinematics and Trajectory Synthesis of Manipulation Robots, by M. Vukobratovic and H. Kircanski, Real-Time Dynamics of Hanipulation Robots by M. Vukobratovic and N. Kircanski, Non-Adaptive and Adaptive Control of Manipulation Robots, by M. Vukobratovic, D. Stokic and N. Kircanski and Computer-Aided De­ sign and Applied Dynamics of Manipulation Robots, by M. Vukobratovic and V. Potkonjak. Within the series, during 1989, two monographs dealing with new sub­ jects will be published. So far, amongst the published monographs, Vol. 1 has been translated into Japanese, Volumes 2 and 5 into Russian, and Volumes 1-6 will appear in Chinese and Hungarian. In the author's opinion, the afore mentioned monographs, in principle, cover with sufficient breadth, the topics devoted to the design of ro­ bots and their control systems, at the level of post-graduate study in robotics. However, if this material was also to apply to the study of robotics at under-graduate level, it would have to be modified so as to obtain the character of a textbook. With this in mind, it must be noted that the subject matter contained in the text cannot be simpli­ fied but can only be elaborated in more detail.

One of the ultimate goals in Robotics is to create autonomous robots. Such robots will accept high-level descriptions of tasks and will execute them without further human intervention. The input descriptions will specify what the user wants done rather than how to do it. The robots will be any kind of versatile mechanical device equipped with actuators and sensors under the control of a computing system. Making progress toward autonomous robots is of major practical inter­ est in a wide variety of application domains including manufacturing, construction, waste management, space exploration, undersea work, as­ sistance for the disabled, and medical surgery. It is also of great technical interest, especially for Computer Science, because it raises challenging and rich computational issues from which new concepts of broad useful­ ness are likely to emerge. Developing the technologies necessary for autonomous robots is a formidable undertaking with deep interweaved ramifications in auto­ mated reasoning, perception and control. It raises many important prob­ lems. One of them - motion planning - is the central theme of this book. It can be loosely stated as follows: How can a robot decide what motions to perform in order to achieve goal arrangements of physical objects? This capability is eminently necessary since, by definition, a robot accomplishes tasks by moving in the real world. The minimum one would expect from an autonomous robot is the ability to plan its x Preface own motions.

This book presents theories and techniques for perception of textures by computer. Texture is a homogeneous visual pattern that we perceive in surfaces of objects such as textiles, tree barks or stones. Texture analysis is one of the first important steps in computer vision since texture provides important cues to recognize real-world objects. A major part of the book is devoted to two-dimensional analysis of texture patterns by extracting statistical and structural features. It also deals with the shape-from-texture problem which addresses recovery of the three-dimensional surface shapes based on the geometry of projection of the surface texture to the image plane. Perception is still largely mysterious. Realizing a computer vision system that can work in the real world requires more research and ex­ periment. Capability of textural perception is a key component. We hope this book will contribute to the advancement of computer vision toward robust, useful systems. vVe would like to express our appreciation to Professor Takeo Kanade at Carnegie Mellon University for his encouragement and help in writing this book; to the members of Computer Vision Section at Electrotechni­ cal Laboratory for providing an excellent research environment; and to Carl W. Harris at Kluwer Academic Publishers for his help in preparing the manuscript.

If you have ever hiked up a steep hill to reach a viewpoint, you will know that sensing can involve the expenditure of effort. More generally, the choice of which movement an intelligent system chooses to make is usually based on information gleaned from sensors. But the information required to make the motion decision may not be immediately to hand, so the system . first has to plan a motion whose purpose is to acquire the needed sensor information. Again, this conforms to our everyday experience: I am in the woods and don't know which direction to go, so I climb up to the ridge to get my bearings; I am lost in a new town, so I plan to drive to the next junction where there is sure to be a roadsign, failing that I will ask someone who seems to be from the locality. Why, if experiences such as these are so familiar, has the problem only recently been recognised and studied in Robotics? One reason is that until quite recently Robotics research was dominated by work on robot arms with limited reach and fixed in a workcell.

Autonomous robot vehicles are vehicles capable of intelligent motion and action without requiring either a guide or teleoperator control. The recent surge of interest in this subject will grow even grow further as their potential applications increase. Autonomous vehicles are currently being studied for use as reconnaissance/exploratory vehicles for planetary exploration, undersea, land and air environments, remote repair and maintenance, material handling systems for offices and factories, and even intelligent wheelchairs for the disabled. This reference is the first to deal directly with the unique and fundamental problems and recent progress associated with autonomous vehicles. The editors have assembled and combined significant material from a multitude of sources, and, in effect, now conviniently provide a coherent organization to a previously scattered and ill-defined field.

This book presents a good overview of the current research landscape of assembly, handling and industrial robotics.

Bondgraphs are a well-established technique for the modelling of complex engineering systems. The subject of this book is an integrated modelling and simulation of mechatronics systems in a visual computer environment. The modelling is based on system top-down and bottom-up approach. The mathematical models are generated in a form of differential-algebraic equations and solved using numerical and symbolic algebra methods. The authors carefully explain a systematic procedure for developing the models using simple visual commands and construct a bondgraph at every level of decomposition. The integrated approach they develop is applied to mechanical, electrical and control systems, multibody dynamics, and continuous systems. The book contains a powerful computer simulation package on the accompanying CD-ROM. The BondSim package supports top-down and bottom-up model development using component libraries.