1. Modelling Techniques: General Kinematic and Dynamic Issues.- Sensory-based control: Robustness issues and modeling techniques - applications to proximity sensing.- The inverse function approach to sensor-driven kinematic control of redundant manipulators.- 2. Sensor Signal Processing.- Sensor data processing for flexible manufacturing processes.- Self-tuning algorithms in robot joint control and sensor signal processing.- A sensory data-driven rule-based strategy for error recovery in robotic assembly.- 3. Force Control.- Hybrid position force control implementation on a parallel manipulator.- Sensor based control of robot movement and force.- Force-feedback control of parallel kinematics manipulators.- 4. Further Control Topics.- Recent advances in experimental robot control.- On the optimal local path planning of robot manipulators.- Frequency domain analysis of robot joint dynamics.- 5. Vision Based Control.- Extracting dense motion information from an image sequence: Optic flow estimation and related segmentation issues.- Dynamic vision: Theoretical capabilities and practical problems.- Vision sensor integration for direct manipulator end-point control.- 6. Further Kinematic and Dynamic Issues.- Kinematics and dynamics in a hierarchically organized robot control system.- Sonar techniques for autonomous navigation with a mobile robot.- Pseudomuscular linear actuators: modelling and simulation experiences in the motion of articulated chains.- 7. Computational Issues.- A decentralized multiprocessor system for control of complex robotized systems.- Methodologies for multi-sensor system integration: building descriptions to make decisions.- 8. Learning from Sensor Input.- Redundant robotic manipulators I: Regularizing by mechanical impedance.- Redundant robotic manipulators II: Learning dynamics via repeated trials.- Applications of sensor based control.- Multisensory assembly and error recovery.- Round-table discussions.- List of Speakers.- List of Other Attendees.

This volume contains a series of papers originally presented at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) entitled Kinematic and Dynamic Issues in Sensor Based Control. The workshop, one of a series concerned with topics in sensory robotics, took place at II Ciocco, Castelvecchio di Pascoli, Italy in October 1987. Attendance was by invitation only and the majority of participants are recognised leaders in their field- some from the robotics community, others with a more general control background. The main topics of interest were grouped into eight sessions represented by the eight main sections of the book: 1: Modelling Techniques: General Kinematic and Dynamic Issues 2: Sensor Signal Processing 3: Force Control 4: Further Control Topics 5: Vision Based Control 6: Further Kinematic and Dynamic Issues 7: Computational Issues 8: Learning from Sensor Input Also included are brief reports of the roundtable discussions which sought to determine important future directions of research in this area. My thanks to all those who made the workshop possible: The NATO Scientific Affairs Division and the panel on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control who provided most of the financial support; the workshop committee, Dr. B. Espiau, Dr. P. Coiffet, Dr. P.