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The present book includes a set of selected extended papers from the 11th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2014), held in Vienna, Austria, from 1 to 3 September 2014. The conference brought together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in the application of informatics to Control, Automation and Robotics. Four simultaneous tracks will be held, covering Intelligent Control Systems, Optimization, Robotics, Automation, Signal Processing, Sensors, Systems Modelling and Control, and Industrial Engineering, Production and Management. Informatics applications are pervasive in many areas of Control, Automation and Robotics. ICINCO 2014 received 301 submissions, from 49 countries, in all continents. After a double blind paper review performed by the Program Committee, 20% were accepted as full papers and thus selected for oral presentation. Additional papers were accepted as short papers and posters. A further selection was made after the Conference, based also on the assessment of presentation quality and audience interest, so that this book includes the extended and revised versions of the very best papers of ICINCO 2014. Commitment to high quality standards is a major concern of ICINCO that will be maintained in the next editions, considering not only the stringent paper acceptance ratios but also the quality of the program committee, keynote lectures, participation level and logistics.

The interest in the field of active flow control (AFC) is steadily increasing. In - cent years the number of conferences and special sessions devoted to AFC org- ized by various institutions around the world continuously rises. New advanced courses for AFC are offered by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Ast- nautics (AIAA), the European Research Community on Flow, Turbulence and Combustion (ERCOFTAC), the International Centre for Mechanical Sciences (CISM), the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI), to name just a few. New books on AFC are published by prominent colleagues of our field and even a new periodical, the ‘International Journal of Flow Control', appeared. Despite these many activities in AFC it was felt that a follow-up of the highly successful ‘ACTIVE FLOW CONTROL'Conference held in Berlin in 2006 was appropriate. As in 2006, ‘ACTIVE FLOW CONTROL II'consisted only of invited lectures. To sti- late multidisciplinary discussions between experimental, theoretical and numerical fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, turbomachinary, mathematics, control engineering, metrology and computer science parallel sessions were excluded. Unfortunately, not all of the presented papers made it into this volume. As the preparation and printing of a book takes time and as this volume should be available at the conf- ence, the Local Organizing Committee had to set up a very ambitious time sch- ule which could not be met by all contributors.

CSIE 2011 is an international scientific Congress for distinguished scholars engaged in scientific, engineering and technological research, dedicated to build a platform for exploring and discussing the future of Computer Science and Information Engineering with existing and potential application scenarios. The congress has been held twice, in Los Angeles, USA for the first and in Changchun, China for the second time, each of which attracted a large number of researchers from all over the world. The congress turns out to develop a spirit of cooperation that leads to new friendship for addressing a wide variety of ongoing problems in this vibrant area of technology and fostering more collaboration over the world. The congress, CSIE 2011, received 2483 full paper and abstract submissions from 27 countries and regions over the world. Through a rigorous peer review process, all submissions were refereed based on their quality of content, level of innovation, significance, originality and legibility. 688 papers have been accepted for the international congress proceedings ultimately.

CSIE 2011 is an international scientific Congress for distinguished scholars engaged in scientific, engineering and technological research, dedicated to build a platform for exploring and discussing the future of Computer Science and Information Engineering with existing and potential application scenarios. The congress has been held twice, in Los Angeles, USA for the first and in Changchun, China for the second time, each of which attracted a large number of researchers from all over the world. The congress turns out to develop a spirit of cooperation that leads to new friendship for addressing a wide variety of ongoing problems in this vibrant area of technology and fostering more collaboration over the world. The congress, CSIE 2011, received 2483 full paper and abstract submissions from 27 countries and regions over the world. Through a rigorous peer review process, all submissions were refereed based on their quality of content, level of innovation, significance, originality and legibility. 688 papers have been accepted for the international congress proceedings ultimately.

Session 1 includes 109 papers selected from 2011 3rd International Asia Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (CAR 2011), held on December 24-25, 2011, Shenzhen, China. This session will act as an international forum for researchers and practitioners interested in the advances in and applications of Intelligent Control Systems. It is an opportunity to present and observe the latest research, results, and ideas in these areas. Intelligent control is a rapidly developing, complex, and challenging field of increasing practical importance and still greater potential. Its applications have a solid core in robotics and mechatronics but branch out into areas as diverse as process control, automotive industry, medical equipment, renewable energy and air conditioning. So, this session will aim to strengthen relationships between industry, research laboratories and universities. All papers published in session 1 will be peer evaluated by at least two conference reviewers. Acceptance will be based primarily on originality and contribution.

Experimental Robotics XV is the collection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan on October 3-6, 2016. 73 scientific papers were selected and presented after peer review. The papers span a broad range of sub-fields in robotics including aerial robots, mobile robots, actuation, grasping, manipulation, planning and control and human-robot interaction, but shared cutting-edge approaches and paradigms to experimental robotics. The readers will find a breadth of new directions of experimental robotics. The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics is a series of bi-annual symposia sponsored by the International Foundation of Robotics Research, whose goal is to provide a forum dedicated to experimental robotics research. Robotics has been widening its scientific scope, deepening its methodologies and expanding its applications. However, the significance of experiments remains and will remain atthe center of the discipline. The ISER gatherings are a venue where scientists can gather and talk about robotics based on this central tenet.

Exploiting new advanced structures and electromechanical systems, e. g., adaptive structures, high-precision systems, micro electromechanical systems, distributed sensors/actuators, precision manipulation and controls, etc., has been becoming one of the mainstream research and development activities (structure & motion) in recent years. These new systems and devices could bring a new technological revolution in modern industries and further, directly or indirectly, impact human life. In the search for and research in innovative technologies, it is proved that piezoelectric materials are very versatile in both sensor and actuator applications. Consequently, piezoelectric technology has been widely applied to a large number of industrial applications and devices, varying from thin-film micro sensors/actuators to large space structures in addition to those relatively conventional applications, e. g., sensors, actuators, hydrophones, precision manipulators, mobile robots, micro motors, etc. There have been a few books on piezoelectricity published in the past; however, a unified presentation of piezoelectric shells and distributed senSing/control applications is still lacking. This book is intended to fill the gap and to pro~de practising engineers and researchers with an introduction to advanced piezoelectric shell theories and distributed sensor/actuator technologies in structural identification and control. This book represents a collection of the author's recent research and development on piezoelectric shells and related applications to distributed measurement and control of continuaj it reflects six best-paper awards, including [ xviii] • Contents. two ASME Best-Paper Awards in recent years.

A zero-suppressed decision diagram (ZDD) is a data structure to represent objects that typically contain many zeros. Applications include combinatorial problems, such as graphs, circuits, faults, and data mining. This book consists of four chapters on the applications of ZDDs. The first chapter by Alan Mishchenko introduces the ZDD. It compares ZDDs to BDDs, showing why a more compact representation is usually achieved in a ZDD. The focus is on sets of subsets and on sum-of-products (SOP) expressions. Methods to generate all the prime implicants (PIs), and to generate irredundant SOPs are shown. A list of papers on the applications of ZDDs is also presented. In the appendix, ZDD procedures in the CUDD package are described. The second chapter by Tsutomu Sasao shows methods to generate PIs and irredundant SOPs using a divide and conquer method. This chapter helps the reader to understand the methods presented in the first chapter. The third chapter by Shin-Ichi Minato introduces the''frontier-based''method that efficiently enumerates certain subsets of a graph. The final chapter by Shinobu Nagayama shows a method to match strings of characters. This is important in routers, for example, where one must match the address information of an internet packet to the proprer output port. It shows that ZDDs are more compact than BDDs in solving this important problem. Each chapter contains exercises, and the appendix contains their solutions. Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Introduction to Zero-Suppressed Decision Diagrams / Efficient Generation of Prime Implicants and Irredundant Sum-of-Products Expressions / The Power of Enumeration--BDD/ZDD-Based Algorithms for Tackling Combinatorial Explosion / Regular Expression Matching Using Zero-Suppressed Decision Diagrams / Authors'and Editors'Biographies / Index

Compressed sensing (CS) allows signals and images to be reliably inferred from undersampled measurements. Exploiting CS allows the creation of new types of high-performance sensors including infrared cameras and magnetic resonance imaging systems. Advances in computer vision and deep learning have enabled new applications of automated systems. In this book, we introduce reconstruction-free compressive vision, where image processing and computer vision algorithms are embedded directly in the compressive domain, without the need for first reconstructing the measurements into images or video. Reconstruction of CS images is computationally expensive and adds to system complexity. Therefore, reconstruction-free compressive vision is an appealing alternative particularly for power-aware systems and bandwidth-limited applications that do not have on-board post-processing computational capabilities. Engineers must balance maintaining algorithm performance while minimizing both the number of measurements needed and the computational requirements of the algorithms. Our study explores the intersection of compressed sensing and computer vision, with the focus on applications in surveillance and autonomous navigation. Other applications are also discussed at the end and a comprehensive list of references including survey papers are given for further reading.

Distributed robotics is an interdisciplinary and rapidly growing area, combining research in computer science, communication and control systems, and electrical and mechanical engineering. Distributed robotic systems can autonomously solve complex problems while operating in highly unstructured real-world environments. They are expected to play a major role in addressing future societal needs, for example, by improving environmental impact assessment, food supply, transportation, manufacturing, security, and emergency and rescue services. The goal of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) is to provide a forum for scientific advances in the theory and practice of distributed autonomous robotic systems. This volume of proceedings include 47 original contributions presented at the 13th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2016), which was held at the Natural History Museum in London, UK, from November 7thto 9th, 2016. The selected papers in this volume are authored by leading researchers from around the world, thereby providing a broad coverage and perspective of the state-of-the-art technologies, algorithms, system architectures, and applications in distributed robotic systems. The book is organized into seven parts, representative of critical long-term and emerging research thrusts in the multi-robot community: Distributed Coverage and Exploration; Multi-Robot Control; Multi-Robot Estimation; Multi-Robot Planning; Modular Robots and Smart Materials; Swarm Robotics; and Multi-Robot Systems in Applications.

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.

The general topic of the symposium follows mechanisms development through all stages of conception, modeling, analysis, synthesis and control to advanced product design. This volume brings together the latest results in the field and celebrates a series of conferences that has been running for 40 years. The contributors and the editor are world leaders in their field.

The applications involving electromagnetic fields are so pervasive that it is difficult to estimate their contribution to the industrial output: generation of electricity, power transmission lines, electric motors, actuators, relays, radio, TV and microwave transmission and reception, magnetic storage, and even the mundane little magnet used to hold a paper note on the refrigerator are all electromagnetic in nature. One would be hard pressed to find a device that works without relaying on any electromagnetic principle or effect. This text provides a good theoretical understanding of the electromagnetic field equations but also treats a large number of applications. In fact, no topic is presented unless it is directly applicable to engineering design or unless it is needed for the understanding of another topic. In electrostatics, for example, the text includes discussions of photocopying, ink-jet printing, electrostatic separation and deposition, sandpaper production, paint spraying, and powder coating. In magnetics, the applications discussed include electric motors, implantable magnets, nuclear magnetic resonance, magnetic stirring of molten materials, and electromagnetic braking and bearings. Electric motors and transformers are used to demonstrate the ideas of magnetic forces and torques and of induction; the applications discussed include the new super-efficient electric drives, linear induction motors, and implantable transformers to power life-sustaining devices. The discussion of wave-propagation phenomena will include applications of new materials to aerospace systems, such as the so-called stealth materials, as well as the use of electromagnetic weaves for materials processing, such as grain drying with microwaves, microwave detection of explosives, and remote sensing of the earth and its resources.

Knowledge and Technology Integration in Production and Services presents novel application scenarios for balanced distributed and integrated systems based on knowledge and up-to-date technology and provides a great opportunity for discussion of concepts, models, methodologies, technological developments, case studies, new research ideas, and other results among specialists. It comprises the proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology for BALANCED AUTOMATION SYSTEMS in Manufacturing and Services (BASYS'02), which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in September 2002 in Cancun, Mexico.

Restoring human motor and cognitive function has been a fascinating research area during the last century. Interfacing the human nervous system with electro-mechanical rehabilitation machines is facing its crucial passage from research to clinical practice, enhancing the potentiality of therapists, clinicians and researchers to rehabilitate, diagnose and generate knowledge. The 2012 International Conference on Neurorehabilitation (ICNR2012) brings together researchers and students from the fields of Clinical Rehabilitation, Applied Neurophysiology and Biomedical Engineering, covering a wide range of research topics: · Clinical Impact of Technology · Brain-Computer Interface in Rehabilitation · Neuromotor & Neurosensory modeling and processing · Biomechanics in Rehabilitation · Neural Prostheses in Rehabilitation · Neuro-Robotics in Rehabilitation · Neuromodulation This Proceedings book includes general contributions (2-page extended abstracts) from oral and poster sessions, as well as from special sessions. A section is also dedicated to pre-post conference workshops, including invited contributions from internationally recognized researchers. A selection of most relevant papers have been considered for publication in international journals (e.g. JNER, JACCES, …)., therefore they will appear soon in their extended versions in Special Issues. These Proceedings also contain brief descriptions of keynote lectures from invited world-class professors, and a number of thematic round tables covering technological and institutional issues.

This volume contains revised and extended research articles written by prominent researchers participating in the ICF4C 2011 conference. 2011 International Conference on Future Communication, Computing, Control and Management (ICF4C 2011) has been held on December 16-17, 2011, Phuket, Thailand. Topics covered include intelligent computing, network management, wireless networks, telecommunication, power engineering, control engineering, Signal and Image Processing, Machine Learning, Control Systems and Applications, The book will offer the states of arts of tremendous advances in Computing, Communication, Control, and Management and also serve as an excellent reference work for researchers and graduate students working on Computing, Communication, Control, and Management Research.

During the past decade model predictive control (MPC), also referred to as receding horizon control or moving horizon control, has become the preferred control strategy for quite a number of industrial processes. There have been many significant advances in this area over the past years, one of the most important ones being its extension to nonlinear systems. This book gives an up-to-date assessment of the current state of the art in the new field of nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC). The main topic areas that appear to be of central importance for NMPC are covered, namely receding horizon control theory, modeling for NMPC, computational aspects of on-line optimization and application issues. The book consists of selected papers presented at the International Symposium on Nonlinear Model Predictive Control – Assessment and Future Directions, which took place from June 3 to 5, 1998, in Ascona, Switzerland.The book is geared towards researchers and practitioners in the area of control engineering and control theory. It is also suited for postgraduate students as the book contains several overview articles that give a tutorial introduction into the various aspects of nonlinear model predictive control, including systems theory, computations, modeling and applications.

A reactive system is one that is in continual interaction with its environment and executes at a pace determined by that environment. Examples of reactive systems are network protocols, air-traffic control systems, industrial-process control systems etc. Reactive systems are ubiquitous and represent an important class of systems. Due to their complex nature, such systems are extremely difficult to specify and implement. Many reactive systems are employed in highly-critical applications, making it crucial that one considers issues such as reliability and safety while designing such systems. The design of reactive systems is considered to be problematic, and p.oses one of the greatest challenges in the field of system design and development. In this paper, we discuss specification-modeling methodologies for reactive systems. Specification modeling is an important stage in reactive system design where the designer specifies the desired properties of the reactive system in the form of a specification model. This specification model acts as the guidance and source for the implementation. To develop the specification model of complex systems in an organized manner, designers resort to specification modeling methodologies. In the context of reactive systems, we can call such methodologies reactive-system specification modeling methodologies.

Models in system design follow the general tendency in electronics in terms of size, complexity and difficulty of maintenance. While a model should be a manageable representation of a system, this increasing complexity sometimes forces current CAD-tool designers and model writers to apply modeling techniques to the model itself. Model writers are interested in instrumenting their model, so as to extract critical information before the model is complete. CAD tools designers use internal representations of the design at various stages. The complexity has also led CAD-tool developers to develop formal tools, theories and methods to improve relevance, completeness and consistency of those internal representations. Information modeling involves the representation of objects, their properties and relationships. Performance Modeling When it comes to design choices and trade-offs, performance is generally the final key. However performance estimations have to be extracted at a very early stage in the system design. Performance modeling concerns the set of tools and techniques that allow or help the designer to capture metrics relating to future architectures. Performance modeling encompasses the whole system, including software modeling. It has a strong impact on all levels of design choices, from hardware/software partitioning to the final layout. Information Modeling Specification and formalism have in the past traditionally played little part in the design and development of EDA systems, their support environments, languages and processes. Instead, EDA system developers and EDA system users have seemed to be content to operate within environments that are often extremely complex and may be poorly tested and understood. This situation has now begun to change with the increasing use of techniques drawn from the domains of formal specification and database design. This section of this volume addresses aspects of the techniques being used. In particular, it considers a specific formalism, called information modeling, which has gained increasing acceptance recently and is now a key part of many of the proposals in the EDA Standards Roadmap, which promises to be of significance to the EDA industry. In addition, the section looks at an example of a design system from the point of view of its underlying understanding of the design process rather than through a consideration of particular CAD algorithms. Meta-Modeling: Performance and Information Modeling contains papers describing the very latest techniques used in meta-modeling. It will be a valuable text for researchers, practitioners and students involved in Electronic Design Automation.

Micro-TAS'98 is the third of a series of symposia initiated by MBSA (University of Twente) in 1994, on the subject of miniaturizing, and integrating within a monolithic structure, the chemical, biochemical and biological procedures commonly used for analysis and synthesis. The primary tool used to develop micro-total analysis systems (mu- TAS) has been micro-photolithographic patterning and micromachining. These powerful tools of Micro System Technology (MST or MEMS) have been applied in highly imaginative ways to develop microchip chemical arrays, fully integrated pump and fluid manifolds, and electrokinetically driven micro-channel systems to be used for genetic analysis, clinical diagnostics and environmental monitoring, and to integrate reactions as diverse as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the large volume, partial oxidation of ammonia. This text illustrates the rapid expansion of the field, the extensive industrial involvement, the increasing number of participating researchers, the expanding range of concepts and applications that utilize MST and microfluidic devices, and new MST-compatible plastic micro-machining to meet the needs of the life science community. This volume contains the proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Micro-Total Analysis Systems, mu-TAS'98, held on October 13-16 in Banff, Alberta, Canada. State-of-the-art invited and contributed papers presented by the world's leading mu- TAS research groups provide a highly informative picture of the growth since 1994 and of the promising future of this exciting and rapidly growing field.