Algorithmic Foundations Of Robotics Viii

This book contains selected contributions to WAFR, the highly-competitive meeting on the algorithmic foundations of robotics. They address the unique combination of questions that the design and analysis of robot algorithms inspires.

Algorithms are a fundamental component of robotic systems: they control or reason about motion and perception in the physical world. They receive input from noisy sensors, consider geometric and physical constraints, and operate on the world through imprecise actuators. The design and analysis of robot algorithms therefore raises a unique combination of questions in control theory, computational and differential geometry, and computer science. This book contains the proceedings from the 2006 Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics. This biannual workshop is a highly selective meeting of leading researchers in the field of algorithmic issues related to robotics. The 32 papers in this book span a wide variety of topics: from fundamental motion planning algorithms to applications in medicine and biology, but they have in common a foundation in the algorithmic problems of robotic systems.

This book gathers the outcomes of the thirteenth Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), the premier event for showcasing cutting-edge research on algorithmic robotics. The latest WAFR, held at Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán in Mérida, México on December 9–11, 2018, continued this tradition. This book contains fifty-four papers presented at WAFR, which highlight the latest research on fundamental algorithmic robotics (e.g., planning, learning, navigation, control, manipulation, optimality, completeness, and complexity) demonstrated through several applications involving multi-robot systems, perception, and contact manipulation. Addressing a diverse range of topics in papers prepared by expert contributors, the book reflects the state of the art and outlines future directions in the field of algorithmic robotics.

Selected contributions to the Workshop WAFR 2002, held December 15-17, 2002, Nice, France. This fifth biannual Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics focuses on algorithmic issues related to robotics and automation. The design and analysis of robot algorithms raises fundamental questions in computer science, computational geometry, mechanical modeling, operations research, control theory, and associated fields. The highly selective program highlights significant new results such as algorithmic models and complexity bounds. The validation of algorithms, design concepts, or techniques is the common thread running through this focused collection.

Robot algorithms are abstractions of computational processes that control or reason about motion and perception in the physical world. Because actions in the physical world are subject to physical laws and geometric constraints, the design and analysis of robot algorithms raise a unique combination of questions in control theory, computational and differential geometry, and computer science. Algorithms serve as a unifying theme in the multi-disciplinary field of robotics. This volume consists of selected contributions to the sixth Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics. This is a highly competitive meeting of experts in the field of algorithmic issues related to robotics and automation.

This book presents the outcomes of the 12th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR 2016). WAFR is a prestigious, single-track, biennial international meeting devoted to recent advances in algorithmic problems in robotics. Robot algorithms are an important building block of robotic systems and are used to process inputs from users and sensors, perceive and build models of the environment, plan low-level motions and high-level tasks, control robotic actuators, and coordinate actions across multiple systems. However, developing and analyzing these algorithms raises complex challenges, both theoretical and practical. Advances in the algorithmic foundations of robotics have applications to manufacturing, medicine, distributed robotics, human–robot interaction, intelligent prosthetics, computer animation, computational biology, and many other areas. The 2016 edition of WAFR went back to its roots and was held in San Francisco, California – the city where the very first WAFR was held in 1994. Organized by Pieter Abbeel, Kostas Bekris, Ken Goldberg, and Lauren Miller, WAFR 2016 featured keynote talks by John Canny on “A Guided Tour of Computer Vision, Robotics, Algebra, and HCI,” Erik Demaine on “Replicators, Transformers, and Robot Swarms: Science Fiction through Geometric Algorithms,” Dan Halperin on “From Piano Movers to Piano Printers: Computing and Using Minkowski Sums,” and by Lydia Kavraki on “20 Years of Sampling Robot Motion.” Furthermore, it included an Open Problems Session organized by Ron Alterovitz, Florian Pokorny, and Jur van den Berg. There were 58 paper presentations during the three-day event. The organizers would like to thank the authors for their work and contributions, the reviewers for ensuring the high quality of the meeting, the WAFR Steering Committee led by Nancy Amato as well as WAFR’s fiscal sponsor, the International Federation of Robotics Research (IFRR), led by Oussama Khatib and Henrik Christensen. WAFR 2016 was an enjoyable and memorable event.

Algorithms are a fundamental component of robotic systems. Robot algorithms process inputs from sensors that provide noisy and partial data, build geometric and physical models of the world, plan high-and low-level actions at different time horizons, and execute these actions on actuators with limited precision. The design and analysis of robot algorithms raise a unique combination of questions from many elds, including control theory, computational geometry and topology, geometrical and physical modeling, reasoning under uncertainty, probabilistic algorithms, game theory, and theoretical computer science. The Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) is a single-track meeting of leading researchers in the eld of robot algorithms. Since its inception in 1994, WAFR has been held every other year, and has provided one of the premiere venues for the publication of some of the eld's most important and lasting contributions. This books contains the proceedings of the tenth WAFR, held on June 13{15 2012 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The 37 papers included in this book cover a broad range of topics, from fundamental theoretical issues in robot motion planning, control, and perception, to novel applications.

This carefully edited volume is the outcome of the eleventh edition of the Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), which is the premier venue showcasing cutting edge research in algorithmic robotics. The eleventh WAFR, which was held August 3-5, 2014 at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey continued this tradition. This volume contains extended versions of the 42 papers presented at WAFR. These contributions highlight the cutting edge research in classical robotics problems (e.g. manipulation, motion, path, multi-robot and kinodynamic planning), geometric and topological computation in robotics as well novel applications such as informative path planning, active sensing and surgical planning. This book - rich by topics and authoritative contributors - is a unique reference on the current developments and new directions in the field of algorithmic foundations.