Humanoid Encounters 2010 2015

The World's most amazing Humanoid encounter cases. The bizarre, real, global reports of; UFO occupants - Ultraterrestrials, Extraterrestrials, Cryptoterrestrials, Robots & more. Mysterious beings - Bigfoot, Flying Humanoids, Werewolves, Mermaids, Dwarves and even stranger exotic humanoids. Albert S. Rosales is the world's leading expert on humanoid encounter cases.

The World's most amazing Humanoid encounter cases. The bizarre, real, global reports of; UFO occupants - Ultraterrestrials, Extraterrestrials, Cryptoterrestrials, Robots & more. Mysterious beings - Bigfoot, Flying Humanoids, Werewolves, Mermaids, Dwarves and even stranger exotic humanoids. Albert S. Rosales is the world's leading expert on humanoid encounter cases.

In this detailed book, Dr Peter McCue reflects on the enormous range of paranormal phenomena to have been reported along Britain's roads, and examines the theory that certain areas seem to be hotspots for such occurrences, such as the A75 and B721 roads in southern Scotland, and the Blue Bell Hill area in Kent. He delves into the sightings of apparitional vehicles; encounters with 'colliding apparitions'; 'phantom hitch-hikers'; out-of-place big cats; phantom black dogs; UFOs; 'missing time' (strange memory gaps); vehicle interferences (such as mysterious breakdowns); and incidents in which drivers and passengers seem to have been translocated in space or time. This thorough book debates the evidence and theories in a critical but open-minded way, and is a welcome addition to the genre.

Based on four empirical studies, Moritz Merkle examines the introduction of humanoid robots to the frontline service encounter in a customer-centric approach focusing on customer expectations and customer responses. The author identifies desirable robotic behavioral cues and shows that service robots meet great acceptance among customers. After service failures, customers are even more likely to forgive service robots than human employees. Further, he shows how crucial it is to manage customer expectations that depend on cultural dimensions and internal reference categories.

Papers from a flagship conference reflect the latest developments in the field, including work in such rapidly advancing areas as human-robot interaction and formal methods. Robotics: Science and Systems VII spans a wide spectrum of robotics, bringing together researchers working on the algorithmic or mathematical foundations of robotics, robotics applications, and analysis of robotics systems. This volume presents the proceedings of the seventh annual Robotics: Science and Systems conference, held in 2011 at the University of Southern California. The papers presented cover a wide range of topics in robotics, spanning mechanisms, kinematics, dynamics and control, human-robot interaction and human-centered systems, distributed systems, mobile systems and mobility, manipulation, field robotics, medical robotics, biological robotics, robot perception, and estimation and learning in robotic systems. The conference and its proceedings reflect not only the tremendous growth of robotics as a discipline but also the desire in the robotics community for a flagship event at which the best of the research in the field can be presented.

This book investigates a biologically inspired method of robot arm control, developed with the objective of synthesising human-like motion dynamically, using nonlinear, robust and adaptive control techniques in practical robot systems. The control method caters to a rising interest in humanoid robots and the need for appropriate control schemes to match these systems. Unlike the classic kinematic schemes used in industrial manipulators, the dynamic approaches proposed here promote human-like motion with better exploitation of the robot’s physical structure. This also benefits human-robot interaction. The control schemes proposed in this book are inspired by a wealth of human-motion literature that indicates the drivers of motion to be dynamic, model-based and optimal. Such considerations lend themselves nicely to achievement via nonlinear control techniques without the necessity for extensive and complex biological models. The operational-space method of robot control forms the basis of many of the techniques investigated in this book. The method includes attractive features such as the decoupling of motion into task and posture components. Various developments are made in each of these elements. Simple cost functions inspired by biomechanical “effort” and “discomfort” generate realistic posture motion. Sliding-mode techniques overcome robustness shortcomings for practical implementation. Arm compliance is achieved via a method of model-free adaptive control that also deals with actuator saturation via anti-windup compensation. A neural-network-centered learning-by-observation scheme generates new task motions, based on motion-capture data recorded from human volunteers. In other parts of the book, motion capture is used to test theories of human movement. All developed controllers are applied to the reaching motion of a humanoid robot arm and are demonstrated to be practically realisable. This book is designed to be of interest to those wishing to achieve dynamics-based human-like robot-arm motion in academic research, advanced study or certain industrial environments. The book provides motivations, extensive reviews, research results and detailed explanations. It is not only suited to practising control engineers, but also applicable for general roboticists who wish to develop control systems expertise in this area.

Social robotics is a cutting edge research area gathering researchers and stakeholders from various disciplines and organizations. The transformational potential that these machines, in the form of, for example, caregiving, entertainment or partner robots, pose to our societies and to us as individuals seems to be limited by our technical limitations and phantasy alone. This collection contributes to the field of social robotics by exploring its boundaries from a philosophically informed standpoint. It constructively outlines central potentials and challenges and thereby also provides a stable fundament for further research of empirical, qualitative or methodological nature.