Introduction to Robotics

The publication of Introduction to Robotics is one among the results of many years' work by the authors of this book in the study of robotics. During the first stage of this work, devoted to locomotion robots and anthropomorphic mechanisms in particular, a number of papers were published in the period 1974-76. The most prominent of them is M. VukobratoviC's Legged Locomotion Systems and Anthropomorphic Mechanisms, published in English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
The contributions by the associates of the Mibajlo Pupin Institute's Robotics Department in the second stage of their work in the field of robotics are included in Scientific Fundamentals of Robotics - a series of monograpbs covering the study of manipulation robots. Six volumes of this series were published in English by Springer-Verlag during 1982-85. Some of these volumes were translated into other languages. Volume 1 was translated into Japanese and published by Springer-Verlag, Volume 2 was published by Nauka in Russian (the translation of Volume 5 into Russian is finished and will be published by Mir in 1988), and all six volumes of the series were translated into Chinese. The work on writing the series for Springer-Verlag continues.
The topics treated in the books that have been published by Springer-Verlag are as follows. The first in the series provides a study of dynamics and the application of dynamic models to the dynamic calculations of robot mechanisms, and the second book studies the problems of synthesizing control laws for manipulation robots on the basis of their complete dynamic models. Volume 3 describes efficient methods for forming the kinematic models of manipulation robots and the synthesis of robot trajectories in unobstacled and obstacled operating environments. Volume 4 deals with the algorithms for efficient construction of the mathematical models of robot dynamics, that are suitable for use in nonadaptive and adaptive control of robot mechanisms as well as the analysis of the numerical complexity of various control laws intended to permit their microcomputer implementation. Volume 5 treats the synthesis of nonadaptive and adaptive control and the analysis of the numerical com- plexity of various control laws. Volume 6 outlines the convenience of using the mathematical models of manipulation robot dynamics in choosing different types of robot actuators, and the results concerning some specific manipulation tasks in which dynamic reactions occur on a robot gripper.