Wheeled Mobile Robotics: From Fundamentals Towards Autonomous Systems

Wheeled Mobile Robotics: From Fundamentals Towards Autonomous Systemscovers the main topics from the wide area of mobile robotics, explaining all applied theory and application. The book gives the reader a good foundation, enabling them to continue to more advanced topics. Several examples are included for better understanding, many of them accompanied by short MATLAB® script code making it easy to reuse in practical work. The book includes several examples of discussed methods and projects for wheeled mobile robots and some advanced methods for their control and localization.

It is an ideal resource for those seeking an understanding of robotics, mechanics, and control, and for engineers and researchers in industrial and other specialized research institutions in the field of wheeled mobile robotics. Beginners with basic math knowledge will benefit from the examples, and engineers with an understanding of basic system theory and control will find it easy to follow the more demanding fundamental parts and advanced methods explained.

• Offers comprehensive coverage of the essentials of the field that are suitable for both academics and practitioners
• Includes several examples of the application of algorithms in simulations and real laboratory projects
• Presents foundation in mobile robotics theory before continuing with more advanced topics
• Self-sufficient to beginner readers, covering all important topics in the mobile robotics field
• Contains specific topics on modeling, control, sensing, path planning, localization, design architectures, and multi-agent systems

Gregor Klančar received B.Sc. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1999 and 2003 respectively. He is currently employed as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana. He is lecturing the autonomous mobile systems at graduate and advanced control of autonomous systems at postgraduate study. His research work mainly focuses on mobile robotics area, on the area of control and also on supervision of multiagent systems and on modelling and control of dynamical systems. His work on wheeled and satellite mobile robotics area includes motion control, trajectory tracking, localization, agent-based behaviour systems and strategies for enabling cooperative behaviours of agents in some group mission. In 1999 he received the Prešeren award for his diploma thesis and in 2004 he received the Ph.D. award of Prof. Dr. Vratislav Bedjanič for his doctoral dissertation. As a member of the faculty’s robot soccer team he has achieved many successes, cups and awards at the European and World competitions and championships in robot soccer from the area of mobile robotics. He is the author of 30 papers in scientific journals (among those 23 in journals with impact factor), 7 book chapters in the edited books and 85 conference papers. He is also mentor at 7 Msc thesis and 40 diploma works. He is a member of the IFAC technical committees TC 7.5 (Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles) and Slovenian Modelling and Simulation society and Automation Society of Slovenia.

Andrej Zdešar received B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering, in 2010 and 2015, respectively, from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is currently a member of Laboratory of Autonomous Mobile Systems and holds a position of a researcher at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His research interests include the field of autonomous mobile systems, visual servoing, machine vision, trajectory tracking control, model predictive control, probabilistic state estimation and fuzzy systems. He has published 4 journal papers with SCI factor and he is author and co-author of 8 conference contributions. In 2010 he received the Prešeren award from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering for the diploma thesis.

Sašo Blažič received the B.Sc., M. Sc., and Ph. D. degrees in 1996, 1999, and 2002, respectively, from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana. He is currently a Professor with the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering. From 2010 to 2013 he was partly employed by the Slovenian Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies (SPACE-SI). His research interests include adaptive, fuzzy and predictive control of dynamical systems and modelling of nonlinear systems. Recently, the focus of his research has moved towards the areas of autonomous mobile systems, mobile robotics, and the control of satellite systems. He is the author or co-author of 53 journal papers (among those 31 in journals with impact factor), six chapters in the edited books, one patent, one patent application, and numerous conference papers. He was the co-editor of the 6th EUROSIM Congress on Modelling and Simulation in Ljubljana in 2007. He also serves as an editorial board member of the Engineering applications of artificial intelligence, the International journal of artificial intelligence, and Acta polytechnica Hungarica. In 2014 Sašo Blažič received the Vodovnik award which is the highest research award of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. In 1997 he received the University Prešeren award for his student research work, and in 2002 the Prof. Bedjanič award for his Ph.D. thesis. In 2002 he received the award in the category of the best doctor candidates at the International electrotechnical and computer science conference in Portorož, Slovenia, and in 2013 the best paper award at the IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics in Lausanne, Switzerland. Sašo Blažič is an active member in professional societies. From 2010 to 2014 he was chairing the Automatic control society of Slovenia which is a member of the International federation of Automatic control (IFAC). He is a member of the IFAC technical committees TC 7.5 (Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles) and TC 3.2 (Computational Intelligence in Control). He held other positions in the Automatic control society of Slovenia (society secretary 1996-1998, society treasurer 2002-2006, a member of the executive board 2006-2010, 2014-present). He is also a member of the Slovenian Society for Simulation and Modelling and a Point of Contact of UNISEC (University Space Engineering Consortium) Global.

Igor Škrjanc received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering, in 1988, 1991 and 1996, respectively, at the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is currently a Full Professor with the same faculty and Head of Laboratory for Autonomous and Mobile Systems. He is lecturing the basic control theory at graduate and advanced intelligent control at postgraduate study. His main research areas are adaptive, predictive, neuro-fuzzy and fuzzy adaptive control systems. His current research interests include also the field of autonomous mobile systems in sense of localization, direct visual control and trajectory tracking control. He has published 81 papers with SCI factor and 27 other journal papers. He is co-author and author of 11 chapters in international books and co-author of a scientific monograph. He is also author and co-author of 226 conference contributions, 31 lectures at foreign universities. He is also mentor at 5 PhD thesis, 3 Msc thesis and 34 diploma works. And co-mentor of 2 PhD thesis and 1 MSc thesis. He is author of 6 university books, 24 international and domestic projects and 4 patents. In 1988 he received the award for the best diploma work in the field of Automation, Bedjanič award, in 2007 the award of Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Vodovnik award, for outstanding research results in the field of intelligent control, in 2012 the 1st place at the competition organized by IEEE Computational Society, Learning from the data in the frame of IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence 2012, Brisbane, Avstralija: Solving the sales prediction problem with fuzzy evolving methods, and in 2013 the best paper award at IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2008 he received the most important Slovenian research award for his work in the area of computational intelligence in control – Zois award. In year 2009 he received a Humboldt research award for long term stay and research at University of Siegen. He is also a member of IEEE CIS Standards Committee, IFAC TC 3.2 Computational Intellignce in Control Committee and Slovenian Modelling and Simulation society and Automation Society of Slovenia. He also serves as an Associated Editor for IEEE Transaction on Neural Networks and Learning System, IEEE Transaction on Fuzzy Systems, the Evolving Systems journal and International journal of artificial intelligence.