Preface

This book provides state of the art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the field of humanoid robotics and its applications. The book contains chapters that aim to discover the future abilities of humanoid robots by presenting a variety of integrated research in various scientific and engineering fields such as locomotion, perception, adaptive behavior, human-robot interaction, neuroscience and machine learning.

Without a dose of imagination it is hard to predict whether human-like robots will become viable real-world citizens or whether they will be confined to certain specific purposes. However, we can safely predict that humanoids will change the way we interact with machines and will have the ability to blend perfectly into an environment already designed for humans.

This book's intended audience includes upper-level undergraduates and graduates studying robotics. It is designed to be accessible and practical, with an emphasis on useful information to those working in the fields of robotics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computational methods and other fields of science directly or indirectly related to the development and usage of future humanoid robots. The editor of the book has extensive research and development experience, and he has patents and publications in the area of humanoid robotics, and his experience is reflected in editing the content of the book.

> **Riadh Zaier**  Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University Sultanate of Oman

**Part 1** 

**Periodic Tasks and Locomotion Control** 
