Handbook of Collective Robotics: Fundamentals and Challenges

This book is devoted to mechatronic, chemical, bacteriological, biological, and hybrid systems, utilizing cooperative, networked, swarm, self-organizing, evolutionary and bio-inspired design principles and targeting underwater, ground, air, and space applications. It addresses issues such as open-ended evolution, self-replication, self-development, reliability, scalability, energy foraging, adaptivity, and artificial sociality. The book has been prepared by 52 authors from world-leading research groups in 14 countries. This book covers not only current but also future key technologies and is aimed at anyone who is interested in learning more about collective robotics and how it might affect our society.

Serge Kernbach is the head of the collective robotics group at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He graduated in electronic engineering and computer science in 1994. During 1996–1998, he received several research grants. In 2007 his doctoral thesis won the faculty award as the best dissertation of the year. Since 2004, he has been a coordinator of several European research projects on the field of collective robotics. Kernbach’s main research interest is focused on artificial collective systems. He is the author and coauthor of over 100 articles in international journals and conferences and has edited a few books related to robotics. Since 2000, he has acquired for IPVS more than €3.5M in various research projects.