Robotics

Bruno Siciliano is Professor of Control and Robotics at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and a Fellow of both IEEE and ASME. He is Co-Editor of the Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics series, and the Springer Handbook of Robotics. His research interests include identification and adaptive control, impedance and force control, visual tracking and servoing, redundant and cooperative manipulators, lightweight flexible arms, space robots, human-centered and service robotics. He has co-authored 6 books, 6 edited volumes, and over 240 technical papers.

Lorenzo Sciavicco is Professor of Control and Robotics at the Third University of Rome in Italy. He has been one of the pioneers of robot control research. His research interests include automatic control theory and applications, manipulator inverse kinematics techniques, redundant manipulator control, force/motion control of manipulators, and cooperative robot manipulation. He has co-authored 3 books, 1 edited volume, and over 100 technical papers.

Luigi Villani is Associate Professor of Control and Robotics at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy. His research interests include identification and adaptive control, impedance and force control, visual tracking and servoing, redundant and cooperative manipulators,and service robotics. He has co-authored 2 books, 1 edited volume, and over 120 technical papers.

Giuseppe Oriolo is Associate Professor of Control and Robotics at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in Italy. He is an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics. His research interests include nonlinear control and robotics, visual servoing, redundant manipulators, mobile and nonholonomic robots, motion planning, sensor-based navigation and exploration, and service robotics. He has co-authored 2 books and over 120 technical papers.

The classic text on robot manipulators now covers visual control, motion planning and mobile robots too!

Based on the successful Modelling and Control of Robot Manipulators by Sciavicco and Siciliano (Springer, 2000), Robotics provides the basic know-how on the foundations of robotics: modelling, planning and control. It has been expanded to include coverage of mobile robots, visual control and motion planning. A variety of problems is raised throughout, and the proper tools to find engineering-oriented solutions are introduced and explained.

The text includes coverage of fundamental topics like kinematics, and trajectory planning and related technological aspects including actuators and sensors.

To impart practical skill, examples and case studies are carefully worked out and interwoven through the text, with frequent resort to simulation. In addition, end-of-chapter exercises are proposed, and the book is accompanied by an electronic solutions manual containing the MATLAB^® code for computer problems; this is available free of charge to those adopting this volume as a textbook for courses.