Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems 8

The International Symposia on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) started at Riken, Japan in 1992. Since then, the DARS symposia have been held every two years: in 1994 and 1996 in Japan (Riken, Wako), in 1998 in Germany (Karlsruhe), in 2000 in the USA (Knoxville, TN), in 2002 in Japan (Fukuoka), in 2004 in France (Toulouse), and in 2006 in the USA (Minneapolis, MN). The 9th DARS symposium, which was held during November 17-19 in T- kuba, Japan, hosted 84 participants from 13 countries. The 48 papers presented there were selected through rigorous peer review with a 50% acceptance ratio. Along with three invited talks, they addressed the spreading research fields of DARS, which are classifiable along two streams: theoretical and standard studies of DARS, and interdisciplinary studies using DARS concepts. The former stream includes multi-robot cooperation (task assignment methodology among multiple robots, multi-robot localization, etc.), swarm intelligence, and modular robots. The latter includes distributed sensing, mobiligence, ambient intelligence, and mul- agent systems interaction with human beings. This book not only offers readers the latest research results related to DARS from theoretical studies to application-oriented ones; it also describes the present trends of this field. With the diversity and depth revealed herein, we expect that DARS technologies will flourish soon.

The 9th DARS symposium was held during November 17-19 in Tsukuba, Japan. This volume not only offers readers the latest research results related to DARS from theoretical studies to application-oriented ones, it also describes the present trends of this field.

Post-conference proceedings of the 9th conference on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems to be held Nov. 17-19, 2008 in Tsukuba, Japan

Distributed Sensing.- Multi-Robot Uniform Frequency Coverage of Significant Locations in the Environment.- Measuring the Accuracy of Distributed Algorithms on Multi-robot Systems with Dynamic Network Topologies.- Network Topology Reconfiguration Based on Risk Management.- Energy-Efficient Distributed Target Tracking Using Wireless Relay Robots.- Cooperative Object Tracking with Mobile Robotic Sensor Network.- Deployment and Management of Wireless Sensor Network Using Mobile Robots for Gathering Environmental Information.- Global Pose Estimation of Multiple Cameras with Particle Filters.- Mobiligence.- Motion Control of Dense Robot Colony Using Thermodynamics.- Modeling of Self-organized Competition Hierarchy with Body Weight Development in Larval Cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus.- Intelligent Mobility Playing the Role of Impulse Absorption.- Ambient Intelligence.- Cognitive Ontology: A Concept Structure for Dynamic Event Interpretation and Description from Visual Scene.- Subjective Timing Control in Synchronized Motion of Humans.- Robot Software Framework Using Object and Aspect Oriented Programming Paradigm.- Distributed Context Assessment for Robots in Intelligent Environments.- Swarm Intelligence.- Jamology: Physics of Self-driven Particles and Toward Solution of All Jams.- Towards an Engineering Science of Robot Foraging.- A Modular Robot Driven by Protoplasmic Streaming.- A Distributed Scalable Approach to Formation Control in Multi-robot Systems.- Guiding a Robot Flock via Informed Robots.- Theoretical and Empirical Study of Pedestrian Outflow through an Exit.- Understanding the Potential Impact of Multiple Robots in Odor Source Localization.- Analyzing Multi-agent Activity Logs Using Process Mining Techniques.- Altruistic Relationships for Optimizing Task Fulfillmentin Robot Communities.- Multi-robot Cooperation.- Robotic Self-replication, Self-diagnosis, and Self-repair: Probabilistic Considerations.- Analysis of Multi-robot Play Effectiveness and of Distributed Incidental Play Recognition.- Sparsing of Information Matrix for Practical Application of SLAM for Autonomous Robots.- Trajectory Generation for Multiple Robots of a Car Transportation System.- Distributed Control and Coordination of Cooperative Mobile Manipulator Systems.- Rearrangement Task by Multiple Robots Using a Territorial Approach.- A Task Planner for an Autonomous Social Robot.- A Stochastic Clustering Auction (SCA) for Centralized and Distributed Task Allocation in Multi-agent Teams.- Corridors for Robot Team Navigation.- Practical Control of Modular Robots.- Efficient Distributed Reinforcement Learning through Agreement.- Morphology Independent Learning in Modular Robots.- Reconfigurable Modular Robots Adaptively Transforming a Mechanical Structure (Numerical Expression of Transformation Criteria of "CHOBIE II" and Motion Experiments).- Toward Flexible and Scalable Self-reconfiguration of M-TRAN.- Reconfigurable Teams: Cooperative Goal Seeking with Self-Reconfigurable Robots.- "Deformable Wheel"-A Self-recovering Modular Rolling Track.- Exploit Morphology to Simplify Docking of Self-reconfigurable Robots.- Reconfigurable Modular Universal Unit (MUU) for Mobile Robots.- Multi-robot Systems.- Design and Analysis for AGV Systems Using Competitive Co-evolution.- Cooperative Control of Multi-robot Nonholonomic Systems with Dynamics Uncertainties and Control Time-Delays.- Guaranteed-Performance Multi-robot Routing under Limited Communication Range.- Pipeless Batch Plant with Operating Robots for a Multiproduct Production System.- Control Methodology ofTransfer Crane with Look-Ahead Rule in Harbor Transportation System.- A Novel Marsupial Robot Society: Towards Long-Term Autonomy.- Predicting the Movements of Robot Teams Using Generative Models.- Interactive Mobile Robotic Drinking Glasses.- Human-Robot Interaction.- Adaptive Supervisory Control of a Communication Robot That Approaches Visitors.- Behavior Design of a Human-Interactive Robot through Parallel Tasks Optimization.- Tracking and Following People and Robots in Crowded Environment by a Mobile Robot with SOKUIKI Sensor.