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.