Advances in Robot Control: From Everyday Physics to Human-Like Movements

This volume provides a unique collection of papers written in honor of the 70th birthday of Suguru Arimoto who has long been recognized as a pioneer in the field of robot control. A variety of his research is reflected in this book, which includes contributions from leading experts in the field, who have also been closely associated with Suguru Arimoto at various stages in his distinguished career. The book is build around two themes: the physics-based robot control for coping with the so-called everyday physics problems on one hand, and the challenge of reproducing beautiful, human-like movements on the other hand. These themes defined much of Arimoto’s research in the field of robot control and are the cornerstones of his perception of human robotics. Topics covered in the book address natural motion and adaptive control of robot manipulators, visual servoing, passivity-based and iterative learning control, artificial potentials for nonholonomic systems, force control of haptic devices and muscle-activated systems, modeling and analysis of human-like movements in reaching and grasping tasks. Each chapter is self-contained and treats the subject cohesively and in depth. This volume will provide an important reference for graduate students and researchers, as well as for engineers and scientists working in the field of robotics.