Control of Autonomous Mobile Robots

An example of a reactive, mobile, embedded control system that has received considerable attention during the last decade is the autonomous mobile robot. The flurry of research activities in this area can be directly traced to the many exciting current and future applications where robotic systems are safer/cheaper/more effective than their human counterparts. Examples of current applications include•  Domestic service robots, such as autonomous vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, and pool cleaners;•  Planetary exploration robots, such as the NASA Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity;•  Autonomous robots for military applications, including surveillance and search-and-destroy robots; and•  Robots for monitoring, exploring, and securing unsafe environments, such as bomb sniffers, disaster site robots, and mine sweepers.