Global Perspectives on Robotics and Autonomous Systems: Development and Applications


Book Description

There is an increasing demand to develop intelligent robotics and autonomous systems to deal with dynamically changing and complex, unstructured, and unpredictable environments. Such robots should be able to handle task varieties, environment dynamics and goal variations, and their complexity. This also highlights the need for having intelligent robotics and autonomous systems with capabilities assuring reliable and robust functions resolving real-time complex problems that are associated with many applications across diverse domains. This requires unconventional ways to develop creative and innovative, energy-efficient, and eco- and environmentally friendly solutions that consider new ways of creative thinking while drawing inspiration from nature as a model leading to creating new designs, intelligent systems, intelligent structures/mechanisms, reconfigurability, and more. Global Perspectives on Robotics and Autonomous Systems: Development and Applications describes the evolution of robotics and autonomous systems, their development, their technologies, and their applications. This book discusses the concept of autonomy, requirements, and its role in shaping the behavior of these robots so that they can make their own effective and safe decisions and act on them reliably while assuring real-life requirements. Covering topics such as digital transformation, fused deposition modeling (FDM), and organizational unbundling process, this premier reference source is an essential resource for engineers, computer scientists, industry professionals, manufacturers, smart systems developers, data analysts, students and educators of higher educations, researchers, and academicians.




Virtual Reality


Book Description

The idea of virtual realities has a long and complex historical trajectory, spanning from Plato's concept of the cave and the simulacrum, to artistic styles such as Trompe L'oeil, and more recently developments in 3D film, television and gaming. However, this book will pay particular attention to the time between the 1980s to the 1990s when virtual reality and cyberspace were represented, particularly in fiction, as a wondrous technology that enabled transcendence from the limitations of physical embodiment. The purpose of this critical historical analysis of representations of virtual reality is to examine how they might deny, repress or overlook embodied experience. Specifically, the author will contend that embodiment is a fundamental aspect of immersion in virtual reality, rather than something which is to be transcended. In this way, the book aims to challenge distorted ideas about transcendence and productively contribute to debates about embodiment and technology.




Smart Autonomous Aircraft


Book Description

With the extraordinary growth of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in research, military, and commercial contexts, there has been a need for a reference that provides a comprehensive look at the latest research in the area. Filling this void, Smart Autonomous Aircraft: Flight Control and Planning for UAV introduces the advanced methods of flight contr




Understanding Virtual Reality


Book Description

Understanding Virtual Reality: Interface, Application, and Design, Second Edition arrives at a time when the technologies behind virtual reality have advanced dramatically. The book helps users take advantage of the ways they can identify and prepare for the applications of VR in their field. By approaching VR as a communications medium, the authors have created a resource that will remain relevant even as underlying technologies evolve. Included are a history of VR, systems currently in use, the application of VR, and the many issues that arise in application design and implementation, including hardware requirements, system integration, interaction techniques and usability. - Features substantive, illuminating coverage designed for technical or business readers and the classroom - Examines VR's constituent technologies, drawn from visualization, representation, graphics, human-computer interaction and other fields - Provides (via a companion website) additional case studies, tutorials, instructional materials, and a link to an open-source VR programming system - Includes updated perception material and new sections on game engines, optical tracking, VR visual interface software, and a new glossary with pictures




Envisioning Cyberspace


Book Description

Here is the first integrated approach to the design of virtual environments. Through examples of the pioneering work of designers from all over the world, this innovative guide shows architects, designers, and programmers how to create the landmarks and context of cyberspace--and possibilities in this field for the future. 105 illustrations, 30 in color.




Seeing Degree Zero


Book Description

In the fields of literature and the visual arts, 'zero degree' represents a neutral aesthetic situated in response to, and outside of, the dominant cultural order. Taking Roland Barthes' 1953 book Writing Degree Zero as just one starting point, this volume examines the historical, theoretical and visual impact of the term and draws directly upon the editors' ongoing collaboration with artist and writer Victor Burgin. The book is composed of key chapters by the editors and Burgin, a series of collaborative texts with Burgin and four commissioned essays concerned with the relationship between Barthes and Burgin in the context of the spectatorship of art. It includes an in-depth dialogue regarding Burgin's long-term reading of Barthes and a lengthy image-text, offering critical exploration of the Image (in echo of earlier theories of the Text). Also included are translations of two projections works by Burgin, 'Belledonne' and 'Prairie', which work alongside and inform the collected essays. Overall, the book provides a combined reading of both Barthes and Burgin, which in turn leads to new considerations of visual culture, the spectatorship of art and the political aesthetic.




Spatial Augmented Reality


Book Description

Like virtual reality, augmented reality is becoming an emerging platform in new application areas for museums, edutainment, home entertainment, research, industry, and the art communities using novel approaches which have taken augmented reality beyond traditional eye-worn or hand-held displays. In this book, the authors discuss spatial augmented r







Algorithmic Architecture


Book Description

Why does the word design owe its origin to Latin and not Greek roots? Where do the limits of the human mind lie? How does ambiguity enter the deterministic world of computation? Who was Parmenides and why is his philosophy still puzzling today? This unique volume challenges the reader to tackle all these complex questions and more. Algorithmic Architecture is not a typical theory-based architectural book; it is not a computer programming or language tutorial book either. It contains a series of provocative design projects, and yet it is not just a design or graphic art book per se. Following the tradition of architecture as a conglomeration of various design fields - engineering, theory, art, and recently, computation - the challenge of this book is to present a concept that, like architecture, is a unifying theme for many diverse disciplines. An algorithm is not only a step-by-step problem-solving procedure, a series of lines of computer codes or a mechanistic linguistic expression, but is also an ontological construct with deep philosophical, social, design, and artistic repercussions. Consequently, this book presents many, various and often seemingly disparate points of view that lead to the establishment of one common theme; algorithmic architecture.