Preface

*This book is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Pınar Boyraz Baykas, who passed away in November 2020. I wish to thank her for her work in this book, and for everything else she did in life as a person and a scientist. She will be missed very much, but will always remain in our hearts.*

As a formal definition from "International Organization for Standardization", service robots are platforms that perform useful tasks for humans or equipment excluding industrial automation applications. From this perspective, the field of service robotics covers a very wide area including; personal care and assistance, agriculture, logistics, mobility, medical, and defense-oriented robots. All these types of robots may have different levels of autonomy, and they become smarter using artificial intelligence techniques day by day. Parallel to this improvement, the service robotics market has been growing very rapidly, especially during the last few years. With the development of the field of service robotics, the definition of social roles, labor, and jobs will change, some of them will become obsolete and some new ones will be introduced into our lives in the future. Since service robotics contains many types of robots, the variety of problems to be solved is also large. Many popular robotic problems, ranging from mechanism design to simultaneous localization and mapping SLAM, from motion planning to system security, can be examined in this context. This book intends to present the reader with the latest solutions for such research problems and innovative applications of different types of service robots.

In Chapter 1, the authors detail three different enabling approaches for obtaining safe human-robot interactions with two main applications in medical and service robotics. These enablers are mainly joint mechanism designs using variablestiffness-actuators (VSA), hyper-redundant robotic platforms to improve shapecontrollability in narrow channels, and finally a smart-skin design for multi-modal perception of force, stretch, and pressure interactions to improve environmental awareness and therefore intelligence of robotic platforms.

Application of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technology has a huge impact in achieving independent mobility and enhances the quality of life for persons with disabilities. Chapter 2 is a survey of the known applications of AI to one of the segments of modern healthcare, namely the prosthetic and orthotic industry and in the field of assistive technology. The contents of this chapter cover the description of basic mathematical tools and technologies from AI that are suitable for the solution of problems arising in this field.

Chapter 3 features both hardware and software design aspects and integration for a heavy-lift drone. The application has interesting end-use as it also integrates a robotic arm on the drone for repair, painting, surveillance and different tasks where interaction forces may or may not be present. The combined robotic platform also details object tracking and localization applications so that the higher-level tasks involving manipulation and surveillance can be implemented.

Chapter 4 considers guidance-based control laws as an alternative to motion planning for autonomous systems. The applicability of the guidance laws to autonomous systems is investigated in a manner similar to the approach for guided munitions. For this purpose, the motion planning of the selected robotic platform, which comprises a robotic arm, tracked land vehicle, and quadrotor is orchestrated in order to move them to predefined target points. Having designed the control systems compatible to the selected guidance laws for the considered systems, the corresponding guidance scheme is constructed. Eventually, the applicability of the method is tested and demonstrated through simulation studies where it is observed that the desired target chase can be made in a successive manner for all cases.

Chapter 5 explains the conversion procedure of a conventional electric wheelchair into an autonomous personal transportation testbed. Autonomous and semiautonomous wheelchairs are good applications of service robotics. The conversion process includes information about by-wire technology, sensors, computational system and human interface. Besides the conversion procedure, the application of several basic autonomous driving algorithms on the developed testbed such as localization and mapping, are illustrated in this chapter.

Chapter 6 is another interesting intelligent wheelchair application that focuses on the security more than its autonomy. An identification model is achieved for the intelligent platform with high rate of accuracy. This is done through the design of an identification process using Integrated Circuit Metric (ICMetric) technology. The generated process of ICMetrics number is heavily based on magnetometer, gyroscope, and accelerometer sensors of the platform.

Chapter 7 proposes a methodology of software development for the continuous operation of the dual-arm picking robot. The methods used in this chapter are mainly from image processing and software engineering areas. It focuses on developing an intelligent software system to be used in agricultural context for picking operation. A hierarchical control software is framed by means of the "Sense Plan Act" (SPA) paradigm. The Finite State Machine (FSM) based experimental design is provided using the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework in this chapter.

The last chapter discusses some possible outcomes of the inevitable impact of robotization on the societal structure. Undoubtedly, the increasing adaptation of robotics will contribute to the extermination of some work areas while some others will emerge. Moreover, the shift towards increased decentralization and democratization of the means of production also exhibits new potential for new models for welfare distribution and socio-economical roles. A review and collection of opinions from leading figures and experts from diverse fields including science and

**V**

business are presented on how these new technological developments may affect the job market, economy, and more broadly the society as a whole by critically

> **Dr. Volkan Sezer** Associate Professor,

> > Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul Technical University,

Chalmers University of Technology,

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

**Dr. Pinar Boyraz Baykas,** Associate Professor,

Gothenburg, Sweden

Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey

**Dr. Sinan Oncu** Associate Professor,

Department of Control and Automation Engineering,

Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2),

discussing both the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios.

business are presented on how these new technological developments may affect the job market, economy, and more broadly the society as a whole by critically discussing both the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios.

**Dr. Volkan Sezer**

Associate Professor, Department of Control and Automation Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
