This book addresses optimization in robotics, in terms of both the configuration space and the metal structure of the robot arm itself; and discusses, describes and builds different types of heuristics and algorithms in MATLAB.
In addition, the book includes a wealth of examples and exercises. In particular, it enables the reader to write a MATLAB code for all the related problems in robotics. The book also offers detailed descriptions of and builds from scratch several types of optimization algorithms using MATLAB and simplified methods, especially for inverse problems and avoiding singularities. Each chapter features examples and exercises to enhance the reader’s comprehension. Accordingly, the book offers the reader a better understanding of robot analysis from an optimization standpoint.
Prof. Hazim Nasir Ghafil is a member of the teaching staff at the Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Kufa, Iraq, where he taught MATLAB for three years before joining the University of Miskolc, Hungary, for his Ph.D. studies. At the University of Miskolc, he is an optimization expert and is currently working on his dissertation on the design of robots from an optimization standpoint at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Informatics. He has published several papers on optimization and robot path planning.
Dr. Károly Jármai is a Professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Miskolc, where he graduated as a mechanical engineer and received his doctorate (Dr. univ.) in 1979. He teaches design of steel structures, welded structures, composite structures and optimization in Hungarian and in English for foreign students. His research interests include structural optimization, mathematical programming techniques and expert systems. Dr. Jármai wrote his C.Sc. (Ph.D.) dissertation at the Hungarian Academy of Science in 1988, became a European Engineer (Eur. Ing. FEANI, Paris) in 1990, and completed his habilitation (Dr. habil.) at Miskolc in 1995. Having successfully defended his doctor of technical science thesis (D.Sc.) in 1995, he subsequently received awards from the Engineering for Peace Foundation in 1997 and a scholarship as Széchenyi Professor between the years 1997–2000. He is the co-author (with József Farkas) of three books in English: Analysis and Optimum Design of Metal Structures, Economic Design of Metal Structures, Design and Optimization of Metal Structures, and three monographs in Hungarian, and has published over 593 professional papers, lecture notes, textbook chapters and conference papers.
Dr. Jármai is a founding member of the ISSMO (International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization), a Hungarian delegate, vice chairman of commission XV and a subcommittee chairman XV-F of the IIW (International Institute of Welding). He has held several leading positions at the GTE (Hungarian Scientific Society of Mechanical Engineers) and has been the president of this society at the University of Miskolc since 1991. He was a visiting researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden in 1991 and visiting professor at Osaka University in 1996–1997, at the National University of Singapore in 1998 and at the University of Pretoria several times between 2000 and 2005. He was the vice-rector of the university from 2013–2017 for the fields of strategy and research. He currently serves on the editorial boards of several national and international journals.
