This book provides a comprehensive overview of contraception. It provides the most recent evidence to guide clinical practice and management.

This book gathers the latest fundamental research contributions, innovations, and applications in the field of design and analysis of complex robotic mechanical systems, machines, and mechanisms, as presented by leading researchers at the combined IFToMM Symposium of RoManSy and USCToMM Symposium on Mechanical Systems and Robotics (MSR-RoManSy), held in St. Petersburg, FL, USA, on May 22–25, 2024. It covers highly diverse topics, including soft, wearable, and origami robotic systems; applications to walking, flying, climbing, underground, swimming, and space systems; human rehabilitation and performance augmentation; design and analysis of mechanisms and machines; human–robot collaborative systems; service robotics; mechanical systems and robotics education; and the commercialization of mechanical systems and robotics. The contributions, which were selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting and impactful research results that will inspire novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary research collaborations among researchers from around the globe.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of condition monitoring, damage assessment and maintenance engineering, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the UNIfied Conference of DAMAS (International Conference on Damage Assessment of Structures), IncoME (International Conference on Maintenance Engineering) and TEPEN (The Efficiency and Performance Engineering) Conferences, held in Huddersfield, UK on August 29 – September 1, 2023. Topics include machinery dynamics, sensors and measurement systems, signal processing, structural damage identification and machine fault diagnosis, plant maintenance and reliability, machine health monitoring, asset management, life-cycle cost optimisation, prognostics and health management, maintenance performance measurement, manufacturing process monitoring, and robot-based monitoring and diagnostics. The contributions, which were selected through a rigorous internationalpeer-review process, share exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster new multidisciplinary collaborations.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of condition monitoring, damage assessment and maintenance engineering, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the UNIfied Conference of DAMAS (International Conference on Damage Assessment of Structures), IncoME (International Conference on Maintenance Engineering) and TEPEN (The Efficiency and Performance Engineering) Conferences, held in Huddersfield, UK on August 29 – September 1, 2023. Topics include machinery dynamics, sensors and measurement systems, signal processing, structural damage identification and machine fault diagnosis, plant maintenance and reliability, machine health monitoring, asset management, life-cycle cost optimisation, prognostics and health management, maintenance performance measurement, manufacturing process monitoring, and robot-based monitoring and diagnostics. The contributions, which were selected through a rigorous internationalpeer-review process, share exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster new multidisciplinary collaborations.

This book presents the proceedings of the 17th Chinese Intelligent Systems Conference, held in Fuzhou, China, on Oct 16-17, 2021. It focuses on new theoretical results and techniques in the field of intelligent systems and control. This is achieved by providing in-depth study on a number of major topics such as Multi-Agent Systems, Complex Networks, Intelligent Robots, Complex System Theory and Swarm Behavior, Event-Triggered Control and Data-Driven Control, Robust and Adaptive Control, Big Data and Brain Science, Process Control, Intelligent Sensor and Detection Technology, Deep learning and Learning Control Guidance, Navigation and Control of Flight Vehicles and so on. The book is particularly suited for readers who are interested in learning intelligent system and control and artificial intelligence. The book can benefit researchers, engineers, and graduate students.

This book offers an enhanced and comprehensive understanding of control theory and its practical applications. The theoretical chapters on control tools have been meticulously revised and improved to provide a clearer and more insightful exploration of the fundamental concepts and ideas. The explanations have been refined, and new examples have been added to aid comprehension. Additionally, a new chapter on discrete-time systems has been included, delving into an important aspect of control theory. Advanced topics in control are also covered in greater detail, ensuring a comprehensive treatment of the subject matter.

This book focuses on the latest applications of nonlinear approaches in engineering and addresses a range of scientific problems. Examples focus on issues in automotive technology with a strong emphasis on application, physical meaning, and methodologies of the approaches. The book’s chapters are written by world-class experts who advance the future of engineering by discussing the development of more optimal, accurate, efficient, cost, and energy-effective systems. Topics covered are of high interest in engineering and physics, and an attempt has been made to expose engineers and researchers to a broad range of practical topics and approaches.

This book gathers papers presented during the 4th International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Control Applications. It covers new control system models, troubleshooting tips and complex system requirements, such as increased speed, precision and remote capabilities.

This book presents intuitive explanations of the principles of microgrids, including their structure and operation and their applications. It also discusses the latest research on microgrid control and protection technologies and the essentials of microgrids as well as enhanced communication systems.

A cooperative system is defined to be multiple dynamic entities that share information or tasks to accomplish a common, though perhaps not singular, objective. Examples of cooperative control systems might include: robots operating within a manufacturing cell, unmanned aircraft in search and rescue operations or military surveillance and attack missions, arrays of micro satellites that form a distributed large aperture radar, employees operating within an organization, and software agents. The term entity is most often associated with vehicles capable of physical motion such as robots, automobiles, ships, and aircraft, but the definition extends to any entity concept that exhibits a time dependent behavior. Critical to cooperation is communication, which may be accomplished through active message passing or by passive observation. It is assumed that cooperation is being used to accomplish some common purpose that is greater than the purpose of each individual, but we recognize that the individual may have other objectives as well, perhaps due to being a member of other caucuses.

This is the fifth book of the Kluwer's series Advances in Robot Kine­ matics. The book presents the most recent research advances in the theory, design, control and application of robotic systems, which are intended for a variety of purposes such as manipulation, manufactur­ ing, automation, surgery, locomotion and biomechanics. The issues addressed are fundamentally kinematic in nature, including synthesis, calibration, redundancy, force control, dexterity, inverse and forward kinematics, kinematic singularities, as well as over-constrained systems. Methods used include line geometry, quaternion algebra, screw alge­ bra, and linear algebra. These methods are applied to both parallel and serial multi-degree-of-freedom systems. The results should interest researchers, teachers and students, in fields of engineering and mathe­ matics related to robot theory, design, control and application. Each contribution in this book had been rigorously reviewed by two or three independent reviewers and 53 articles had been recommended for publication. We are happy to observe that Advances in Robot Kine­ matics has always attracted the most outstanding authors and has de­ veloped a remarkable scientific community in the area. Many important and original scientific results were for the first time reported and dis­ cussed in these books. All articles in this book were also reported at the eight international symposium on Advances in Robot Kinematics that was organised in June 2002 in Caldes de Malavella in Spain.

This book gives a basic introduction to navigation, from key concepts, basic principles, main technologies, equipment systems to the knowledge frame of navigation. The ten chapters fall into three parts: Chapters I~III introduce the elementary knowledge of navigation; Chapters IV~IX are devoted to the basic principles, and the optimization principle of integrated navigation as well; and Chapter X discusses the application of marine navigation, indicating the basic outline of the marine navigation system. The book clearly reflects the systematic idea of navigation knowledge from multiple perspectives, which is helpful for readers to build a holistic understanding of navigation from the concept, principle, characteristics, technology to the equipment system. At the end of each chapter, reflections beyond the fundamental knowledge of navigation are included to help readers further develop their scientific thinking and general literacy. This book is written primarily for students majoring in navigation, and it may also be of interest to researchers and practitioners engaged in navigation.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Applications, ICIEA 2024, held in Nice, France, during January 10-12, 2024. The 16 full papers and 3 short papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 90 submissions. They focus on the most recent and relevant research, theories and practices in industrial engineering and its applications.