This supplementary introductory text for courses in robotics or industrial robotics requires minimal knowledge of physics and mathematics. It treats many fundamental subjects in robotics and includes a glossary in English, French and German.

This introductory text treats the following subjects: the basic characteristics of industrial robot mechanisms; the pose and movement of an object, which are described by homogenous transformation matrices; a geometric model of robot mechanism; a short introduction into kinematics and dynamics of robots; robot sensors and the planning of robot trajectories; basic control schemes resulting in either desired end-effector trajectory or force; robot grippers and feeding devices, which are described together with the basics of robot vision; the planning of robot assembly; and finally, robot standards and safety are briefly dealt with. The book concludes with a glossary in English, French and German.

This volume is supplementary reading for courses in robotics or industrial robotics and requires minimal knowledge of physics and mathematics.

Winner of the Outstanding Academic Title distinction from the library magazine CHOICE in 2011 Contains a glossary in English, French and German Includes robotics course material (slides) on extras.springer.com Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext
Matjaz Mihelj graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1996. In October 1997 he became a research staff member and in October 1998 a teaching assistant for robotic courses in the Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering and Robotics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Ljubljana. He received M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in biomedical engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana in 1999 and 2002, respectively. For his diploma thesis he was awarded by the Slovenian Ministry of Science and Technology and ISKRA Holding with the Bedjani award. In 2001 he was a visiting researcher at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. From May 2005 till April 2006 he spent one year as a visiting researcher at the Automatic Control Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). The research on the rehabilitation robotics performed at ETH Zurich was awarded with the Swiss Technology Award. Since 2009 he has been affiliated as an associate professor. He gives fifth year control system lectures on the man/machine interaction topic with the main focus on multimodal systems based on haptic devices. His current research interests are in man/machine interaction, haptic interfaces as well as modeling and control of biological systems with the main focus on restoration of lost functions in people with disabilities. Dr. Mihelj is a member of IFMBE and IFESS. Janez Podobnik received the B.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He was born in 1980 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He attended Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he obtained the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2004. His B.Sc. thesis covered stability of haptic interface. He received a Ph.D. degree from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana in 2009. He is currently a teaching assistant in the Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering and Robotics, at the same faculty. His research interests include various applications of haptic interface.

Inhalt
Homogenous transformation matrices.- Geometric description of the robot mechanism.- Two-segment robot manipulator.- Robot sensors.- Trajectory planning.- Robot control.- Robot environment.- Standards and safety in robotics.