
Reasoning Robots
The Art and Science of Programming Robotic Agents
Michael Thielscher(Author)
Springer (Publisher)
Published on 22. October 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
XIV, 328 pages
978-90-481-6783-8 (ISBN)
Description
The creation of intelligent robots is surely one of the most exciting and ch- lenginggoals of Arti?cial Intelligence. A robot is, ?rst of all, nothing but an inanimate machine with motors and sensors. In order to bring life to it, the machine needs to be programmed so as to make active use of its hardware c- ponents. This turns a machine into an autonomous robot. Since about the mid nineties of the past century, robot programming has made impressive progress. State-of-the-art robots are able to orient themselves and move around freely in indoor environments or negotiate di?cult outdoor terrains, they can use stereo vision to recognize objects, and they are capable of simple object manipulation with the help of arti?cial extremities. At a time where robots perform these tasks more and more reliably,weare ready to pursue the next big step, which is to turn autonomous machines into reasoning robots.Areasoning robot exhibits higher cognitive capabilities like following complex and long-term strategies, making rational decisions on a high level, drawing logical conclusions from sensor information acquired over time, devising suitable plans, and reacting sensibly in unexpected situations. All of these capabilities are characteristics of human-like intelligence and ultimately distinguish truly intelligent robots from mere autonomous machines.
Reviews / Votes
From the reviews:
"This book presents the 'fluent calculus' as one possible approach to solve the frame problem in artificial intelligence. . The book is very understandable and recommendable for anybody who wants to solve AI problems by means of predicate logics and logic programming. It shows that this approach is more and more applicable to the solution of real-world problems. It will be an excellent textbook for appropriate AI or robotics courses and very appropriate for graduate students." (Christian Posthoff, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1092 (18), 2006)
More details
Series
Edition
Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2005
Language
English
Place of publication
Dordrecht
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Research
Illustrations
XIV, 328 p.
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
551 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-481-6783-8 (9789048167838)
DOI
10.1007/1-4020-3069-X
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
07/2005
Springer
€53.49
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Michael Genesereth is an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. He received his Sc.B. in Physics from M.I.T. and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He is best known for his research on Computational Logic and its applications. He has been teaching Logic to Stanford students and others for more than 20 years. He is the current director of the Logic Group at Stanford and founder and research director of CodeX (The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics).Michael Thielscher is a Professor and head of the Computational Logic Group at Dresden University in Germany since 1997. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. His research is mainly in Knowledge Representation, Cognitive Robotics, Commonsense Reasoning, Game Playing, and Constraint Logic Programming. He has developed the action programming language and system FLUX and has published numerous papers and two books on knowledge representation for actions, on comparisons of different action languages, and on implementations of action programming systems. In 1998, his Habilitation thesis was honored with the award for research excellence by the alumni of Darmstadt University of Technology. He co-authored the program FLUXPLAYER, which in 2006 was crowned the world champion at the Second General Game Playing Competition in Boston.
Content
Special Fluent Calculus.- Special FLUX.- General Fluent Calculus.- General FLUX.- Knowledge Programming.- Planning.- Nondeterminism.- Imprecision*.- Indirect Effects: Ramification Problem*.- Troubleshooting: Qualification Problem.- Robotics.