Intelligent robotics has become the focus of extensive
research activity. This effort has been motivated by the
wide variety of applications that can benefit from the
developments. These applications often involve mobile
robots, multiple robots working and interacting in the same
work area, and operations in hazardous environments like
nuclear power plants. Applications in the consumer and
service sectors are also attracting interest. These
applications have highlighted the importance of performance,
safety, reliability, and fault tolerance.
This volume is a selection of papers from a NATO Advanced
Study Institute held in July 1989 with a focus on active
perception and robot vision. The papers deal with such
issues as motion understanding, 3-D data analysis, error
minimization, object and environment modeling, object
detection and recognition, parallel and real-time vision,
and data fusion. The paradigm underlying the papers is that
robotic systems require repeated and hierarchical
application of the perception-planning-action cycle. The
primary focus of the papers is the perception part of the
cycle. Issues related to complete implementations are also
discussed.