Academic Freedom : A Guide to the Literature

Robotics: Science and Systems IV spans a wide spectrum of robotics, bringing togetherresearchers working on the foundations of robotics, robotics applications, and analysis of roboticssystems. This volume presents the proceedings of the fourth annual Robotics: Science and Systemsconference, held in 2008 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The paperspresented cover a range of topics, including computer vision, mapping, terrain identification,distributed systems, localization, manipulation, collision avoidance, multibody dynamics, obstacledetection, microrobotic systems, pursuit-evasion, grasping and manipulation, tracking, spatialkinematics, machine learning, and sensor networks as well as such applications as autonomous drivingand design of manipulators for use in functional-MRI. The conference and its proceedings reflect notonly the tremendous growth of robotics as a discipline but also the desire in the robotics communityfor a flagship event at which the best of the research in the field can be presented.