This book explores an approach to social robotics based solely on autonomous unsupervised techniques and positions it within a structured exposition of related research in psychology, neuroscience, HRI, and data mining.  The authors present an autonomous and developmental approach that allows the robot to learn interactive behavior by...

This work examines the challenges of distributed map merging and localization in multi-robot systems, which enables robots to acquire the knowledge of their surroundings needed to carry out coordinated tasks. After identifying the main issues associated with this problem, each chapter introduces a different distributed strategy for solving...

Simplicity in nature is the ultimate sophistication. The world's magnificence has been enriched by the inner drive of instincts, the profound drive of our everyday life. Instinct is an inherited behavior that responds to environmental stimuli. Instinctive computing is a computational simulation of biological and cognitive instincts, which...

Autonomy for Marine Robots provides a timely and insightful overview of intelligent autonomy in marine robots. A brief history of this emerging field is provided, along with a discussion of the challenges unique to the underwater environment and their impact on the level of intelligent autonomy required.  Topics covered at length...

The New Shop Class connects the worlds of the maker and hacker with that of the scientist and engineer. If you are a parent or educator or a budding maker yourself, and you feel overwhelmed with all of the possible technologies, this book will get you started with clear discussions of what open source technologies like 3D printers,...