Robotics Books

This book is great because it gives step-by-step
explanations on various ways in programming RCX brain
and how to interface with various sensors.
A wonderful motivator for Mechatronics.
Dr. Chung, Lawrence Tech University

The book is exactly what it says in the preface: "(This) book presents a system-engineering methodology for the design, construction, and testing of robotic hardware, software, and mechanical interfacing".

The book is not for LEGO beginners but for advanced (electronics) users. There are some LEGO robot tips as well, and once you get used to engineering language (POC - proof of concept, BOM - Bill of Materials etc.) it is a nice book.

The book is more about circuit interfaces and related techniques so the experimentalist (you) needs much more than one LEGO set: for example "one salvaged RC transmitter-receiver pair" and scout, LEGO speed computer, Radio Shack Electronics Learning Lab etc.

I really didn't like the cartoon type drawings of RCX brick, sensors and ... electrons.

I found the book easy for me to understand. Although I am relatively new to Mindstorms, I needed to be able to move beyond the basics. The programs provided on the cd gave me some more ideas of where I can go as I develop myself. It's light-hearted and full of illustrations that gave me a thorough understanding of the concepts that he discussed. This book is an asset to any collection.

As an experienced circuit designer and a lego mindstorms enthusiast, I found this book very disappointing. I had suspicions about why many copies of it were being auctioned on ebay for $2 each. Now I know why. Right from the first chapter on, I am puzzled about what the hell the author is attempting to communicate. I fail to understand why he uses an obsolete Scout programmable brick (from the Robotics Discovery Kit), or for that matter, why he even interfaces a gutted RC transceiver to it. He doesn't even use it to remotely control the robot. No, he uses the Scout interfaced with a relay driver circuit to turn a wireless receiver on and off remotely as a lame example of wireless control. This is an example of wireless control? Yeah, a bad one if anything.

I'm also not sure of the audience he intends this book for. He put lots of circuit schematics and descriptions in it, but assumes the reader has basic elctronics knowledge, such as diode and transistor theory, as well as circuit analysis skills. If this book was intended for high-school age readers, they better be taking electronics or have had courses in it, or he will lose them with this content. My personal opinion is that this text has some potential as a reference in the 2nd year of a community college electronics program, but no serious circuit designer, programmer, or even hobbyist is gonna get anything new from this. Better info about sensor development and other programming languages is easily found on other lego mindstorms websites.

Another annoying aspect is the author's liberal use of acronyms for just about any set of words he deems necessary, whether it fits or not. There are more TLAs throughout this text than any military field manual ever contained. I don't need him to condense something so useless as 'stand-alone code' to SAC for future use.

The author does include a new and interesting method of object-oriented RCX prgramming with Python and VBA language using Excel. This is probably about the only redeeming aspect of this text for savy programmers, but it too is more of a 'type this' and 'run this' treatment that omits any useful explaination of the code and how it works. I believe the intended audience for this book may just find this way over their head if they are only capable of programming the RCX using RCX code, instead of using other more flexible and challenging languages such as NQC and Java.

Bottom line: if you are even mildly curious about this book, get it at an auction or buy it used thru Amazon (as I did--I only paid $2.50 + $3.50 s/h). Don't even think about paying full retail price for this text; it isn't worth it, and you'll be disgusted that you wasted your money on it. Better and more information on RCX interfacing can be found on the web at other lego mindstorm sites such as http://www.plazaearth.com/usr/gasperi/lego.htm

I have in my collection all of the books published on Lego Mindstorms. While everyone else focus on construction of a Lego model with an accompanying program to add functionality to the model, Wilcher takes a different approach.

This book is not for the absolute beginners. You do need to have some prerequisites in electronics and programming. The book only shows you how to carry out the interfacing between the RCX and the outside world (using eg. RC transmitter/receivers, Basic Stamp) but assume you know about potentiometers, resistors etc and also know how to use multimeters. This book is more for the electronically adept users who wishes to use RCX as part of his tools.

Overall, this is book that I would highly recommend to all who wish to use the RCX other than what all the books have on about. I gave it 4 stars (actually I would have preferred 4.5 stars, but Amazon doesn't have that!) as I would really would see Wilcher going in-depth for some of the projects.

Lots Of good information on NXT G-code,Bluetooth programming for the NXT, and an informative guide to designing your NXT bots.I thought this book was well worth the money. The "LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT-G Programming Guide (Technology in Action) is a very good intro to this book.

The problem with this book is it has black and white photos of black and white pieces. They don't give a close up of what your adding to your structure. Writing is too small to look at without a magnify glass.
Programming was screwed up in some places.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book: Design, Invent, and Build

I read this book and I really enjoyed it. This was the first Mindstorms book that I read and it was really easy to understand and got me off to a quick start. The only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars was that the graphics and text are printed on an off white background and it made it a little harder to read and the graphics themselves are all black and white and some of them were a little hard to figure out the robot designs because of it. But dont let this keep you from getting this great robotics book. [...]

'The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book: Design, Invent, and Build' is an absolutely wonderful book with one MAJOR flaw in that the entire book is in black and white. Packed with 16 chapters written wonderfully with exciting examples and content, this would have been a easy 5 star recommendation but I simply cannot do that. Legos are bold, bright, and full of color, the decision to publish this in black and white was a terrible one. I understand this decision was made to no doubt save costs, but it shouldn't have been published (no matter how good the content is) in this form. Some books would benefit from color, some books require it and this is one of those cases. If you enjoy Legos and want to learn how to use Mindstorms NXT and all the fun, amazing things you can do with them this book will show you how, but I would wait for version 2.0 of this book with color. Not only is the black and white unfavorable, it's downright hard to follow.

Great content, great layout, thumbs WAY down for no color

**** RECOMMENDED

This book contains very clear instructions and diagrams for NXT-G program. The sample robots are creative and very well designed. You can feel the intelligence behind when you build. I especially like the binding of this book, so it can lay open while you build. So I will probablly purchase more book from this press. In fact I have pre-order one. One thing I doesn't like is one of the samples requires two NXT kits, which I don't have at the moment. I guess it's because this book is targeting more senior builders.

I haven't read this book, infact I'm entering this contest so I could get the money to buy this book. But a friend who has read this book stats this is a very good book and if you want to build a robot this could really help. I took his advice becuase he never let me down before. I fliped through the pages and their is a some diagrams to help you out if your a picture person. This is really my friend rating this book 5 stars. But as I hear it is a very good book.

This is a must have for the fan of the Robot Wars tv show or one who wants to build a robot for competition. Lots of great ideas and alot of photos.

A must for any rw fan.You must buy it immediately.Very well Written.Give it 6 stars

I think Robot Wars The technical manuel is th best book ever. It has lots of pictures and has lots of infomation A must for any fan of the Show

Marc Loakes Aged 13

The information inside the Robot Wars Technical Manual is superb. It's got the background of each house bot as well an imaginary story about each one.
BUT and it's a big but, the book is made so poorly that its pages are falling out after only a few days. Every time we open the book the spine splits and a page comes loose. We've had to stick it all back together with tape. We expect better quality for this price.

A great reference for those who have already had a class in classical control. The text includes a terse review of all of the essential analysis and design techniques, but more importantly it includes a wealth of fully solved problems.

The book is good. It covers most Control sys concepts. However, the chapters on Nyquist, Bode, and Root Locus are a little convoluded. I have yet to find a Control Sys. book that covers these concepts well. Otherwise, a great reference for those taking a course, and contains a good number of workable problems and solutions.

This is one of my favorite books. Once you have the basic theory behind you this book shows you the techniques to quickly simplify control blocks ( You want to be able to solve questions more than one way to check yourself) . I just keep this book handy and have alots of added notes for specific control models. It helps round out other books in the end i found this book by itself with some photo copies from other texts was enough for me. There are alot good text books for control theory. I prefer ones with matlab / simulink exercises.
The text Ogata is a famous quality standard univeristy text worldwide which has plenty of exercise/ solutions.( I like that style of text).

I am a student of Graduate School, and my major is Adaptive Control. I consider this book very good book for me, especially because it summarizes and covers most of the basic concept and method about control engineering, which I sometimes forget. So, by having this book now, I can anytime find and reread the part I have forgotten. Of course, it will be better if you also accompany this book with others books which explain more detil about control.

I'm currently taking a Feedback Control Theory course at the undergrad level, and I think this book is an excellent exposition of classical control theory. Our text for the course is Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems, written by people from Stanford. Schaum's Outline actually has more *theory* than the textbook we are using. It eliminates all of the frills and pretty colored diagrams in favor of exposing everything an undergraduate would have trouble with. And for those people who think the emphasis is only on problem solving, this "Outline" has more mathematical proof than the book from Stanford I just mentioned! I highly recommend using this book to get off on the right foot in control systems, whether you are an engineer just learning the material or an undergraduate; it solidifies the foundations of the theory so that practical problems will come more easily. Also, it is a practical book as well.

Not only does his book have a dazzling perspective into all the ways that the body is modified within modern practice he also brings it to a level that even the most novice of readers can grasp. Having been a philosophy student of Mr. Gray's in 1997 I must say it is not quite as enlightening as being in person with him, but it still shows his brilliance and true connection to the cyborg-mentality. Frankly if you can find a way to meet him, every second is worth it. But if you can't, this book is a good close second, and well worth your $ and reading time.

In Cyborg Citizen, the author argues that the creation of cyborgs calls for new definitions of citizenship. Examples can include Internet offerings and the legal and political issues raised by its use, and issues affecting the mechanization of humans with artificial parts. An intriguing survey of changing images of civil rights and liberties.

Why does it seem that all books written about human interaction with emerging technologies are written in postmodernist lingo? Gray's book is not nearly as objectionable in this regard as others (note, especially, the works of Pierre Levy, for truly awe-inspiring levels of incomprehensibiliy). At times he hits on topics that struck me as having a lot of merit (he takes the editors of WIRED to task, for instance, for promoting a sort of hipster-oh-man-this-is-so-awesome approach to technology, and he appropriately skewers libertarianism, etc.). However, I saw two main problems with the book: (1) The author appears to see everything and everybody in the world today as a cyborg of some sort - for example, ultrasound renders the fetus in the womb a cyborg, etc. The concept is so widely applied that it ceases to have meaning. (2) The regrettable lapses into postmodernist drivel, while thankfully infrequent are still discouraging. There is also a little (not a lot) of political correctness a la feminist theory to deal with. For instance, he spends some time skewering (no pun intended) the development of penile implants (cyborg penises!), and points out that the existence of such a phenomena validates the male-centric nature of technology so insightfully criticized by feminist theory. Odd, but no mention of breast implants is made. Purely an oversight, I'm sure!

There are so many serious topics to deal with in the area of our current and future relation to technology - when will someone write a coherent book addressing them?? While this book is an occasionally enjoyable read, in the end it can't be taken all that seriously.

I had a high level of interest upon picking up this book, as cyborg technology and the philosophy behind it, after reading it; however, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I gave it a rating of 3 stars, but I think it deserves more along the lines of a 2.5. This book professes to be about cyborgs, and it is, but Gray's definition of "cyborg" is so incredibly broad that it loses a huge part of its relevancy. He defines a cyborg as "a self-regulating organism that combines the natural and artificial into one system," and takes that as far as it can possibly go, calling unborn fetuses cyborgs if they are viewed by ultrasound, and the average citizen a cyborg for having immunizations. I am a cyborg because I wear glasses.

One aspect of this book that struck me is that nearly everything Gray discusses seems to be along the lines of either common sense of common knowledge to the type of person who would be reading this book in the first place. It is useful as a reference material to springboard off of and steal a few quotes, or perhaps a simple overview of some of the politics of a technological society, but not much more.

By the end of this book, one is tired of the completely over-used word "cyborg"; as it seems to apply to nearly everything and everyone in today's society; as well as Gray's frequent references to the late Christopher Reeves. Like so many movies today, this book is worth a borrow, but I wouldn't plop down my hard earned money for it. If you are looking for in-depth research surrounding the technolgy of cyborgs, look elsewhere.

Written in the personal, post-modern style, down to earth, and occasionally profound, Cyborg Citizen is an instructive meditation on the interpenetration of the machine and the human, the machine and the non-human, the human and the non-human. Hables Gray reviews most of the relevant academic literature (Haraway and others) draws examples of cyborg lifestyles from the news (Christopher Reeves and others), from pop culture (TV, Sci-Fi, comic books) to make his larger point that the signs of cyborgization are everywhere now, and that we are all cyborgs now, whether we know it or not. Though penetrated by technoscience, most of us are not aware of the extent to which we have become drafted in the great cyborg experiment. Hables Gray argues we need to find new ways of thinking about the intersection of science, technology, and living things in order to make better (or at least some!) choices about where the technoscience juggernaut is taking us.

He explores a variety of different areas where political thinking has either been ineffective or brushed aside by the exigencies of technoscience and capitalism: Frankenfoods, franken-species, cloning, in-vitro fertilization practices are all covered, as are transgendering and cyborgization in pursuit of sexual fulfillment. He does equal justice to all the complexities these collisions entail. That's why I didn't give the book the full 5 stars, actually, because not all these topics deserve examination at the same length. But that's a minor complaint, of course.

After reading Cyborg Citizen you will find examples of cyborgs everywhere. Of course, as tool users and builders and putterers, we've always been cyborgs -- as much shaped by our tools as the things we've shaped with them -- but the recognition of this fact and how it plays out across the realms of the civic, the economic, the scientific and technological as described in Cyborg Citizen will show the reader how far we are from Rousseau's state of nature -- if indeed there ever was such a place -- but that we may not have much further to go before the tools and cyborgs we build remake the world into place where we would not choose to live, indeed, a world where we may not be able to live. Not anti-techoscience, but rather, pro-thoughtful technoscience, Gray lays out the conundrums simply and argues that to be only pro or anti-techoscience is a luxury we cannot afford. Ultimately, he argues that as cyborgs we have to start thinking about what that really means.

This book provides a window to many technologies like motion, speech, and vision. It tackles a wide spectrum of topics and is a good place for a beginner to see whats out there.

It is really difficult to rate this book. If you are a hobbyist who is somewhat Java-savvy and you are looking for a book that gives you rather non-complex code that performs complex tasks primarily by harnessing the power of native as well as open source Java API's, I would give this book four stars. If you are looking for some technical or computational details on some of the interesting topics that the author covers I would give it two stars since there is very little of that in this book. Therefore, considering all possible audiences, I give it 3 stars, or an average rating. This book is not a tutorial on the Java API's that it mentions, but it is the only book I know of that even talks about how to do anything with speech synthesis or voice recognition in Java using the free implementation of the Java Speech API, which is FreeTTS. I actually tried out some of the author's Java speech programs, and they do work as advertised. The author performs his interesting tasks by harnessing the Java Beans activation framework, the Java Communications API for serial port communication, FreeTTS and Sphinx API's for speech applications, the Java Advanced Imaging API and Java Media Framework for computer vision and camera control, and the servlet and JSP API for more complex control of a robot. He has even written his own package that pulls together all of these API's to perform integrated tasks, such as object recognition that integrates image processing, camera control, and speech recognition. Thus, I recommend this for a hobbyist who already knows Java and wants to use that language to control robots at a very high system-level. I do not recommend this book for people looking for theory or algorithms related to the topic of robot control. I notice that Amazon does not show the table of contents so I do that here:
1. A Primer
2. Serial Communication
3. Motion
4. Sensors
5. Speech
6. Vision
7. Navigation
8. Other Topics
9. Sample Programs
A. Definitive Guide API (Author's Software)
B. Microcontroller Reference
C. Robot Parts Reference

If you want to control a microprocessor with your PC using Java programs then this is the book to show you how.

You will need to know Java in order to understand the programs. You'll have to set up the Java communications Api, which is just a matter of downloading it from the Sun website and then placing the files in the correct directories on you PC.

He illustrates the use of the Basic Stamp II [...]. This is a great microprocessor to get started with because it's very easy to use and they have great support for beginners. You don't need to know how to program the Basic Stamp as a prerequisite, you can learn this while doing it using a very simple dialect of Basic programming. You can also use the same microprocessor programs he wrote for the Stamp for use with PicBasic, (with some editing) since they're very similar.

You don't need experience programming microprocessors, you learn as you do.
You do need to know Java in order to understand the PC programs written in Java. Even without previous Java experience you can still compile and run the programs from this book and make the "Robots".

If you want to make a robot based on a PC, and you like java as a programming language, this is the book for you. It covers building a robot from a PC, a Basic Stamp II, and a Serial Servo Controller. The author does an amazing job building up classes from the hardware level to the navigation level.

Michael Ferguson

I was taken back when I first got the book as all the sample code seemed to be in Parallax's PBASIC. I thought this was a Java robotics book! But as I got into it, the robot is programmed in Java and talks to BASIC Stamp microcontrollers via serial interface. The microcontrollers handle critical peripherals. He does say that you could use another microcontroller instead of the BASIC Stamp, and suggests the Parallax Javelin Stamp which is programmed in Java as well. In fact, on his web site, he has the Javelin code to replace the PBASIC code in the book if you should decide to go that route and keep everything pure Java (which I recommend as I really like the Javelin Stamp). The book does go into a number of topics such as vision, speech, etc. and does a good job of covering each subject. To me, this is a keeper. It is a good reference.

I enjoy the 3rd edition of this book. What it does well is that it breaks up the problem of building a robot into multiple sections in which builders get ideas on what to change for their robots. This includes changes in anything from what sensors to use to recommendations and ideas about building your own chassis from wood to plastic to well, whatever. It also gives you a nice reference to places to get parts and also references to other books to get even more information on individual topics. It doesn't really get into the level that other McComb books did such as the Lasers, Ray Guns, and Light Cannons: Projects from the Wizard's Workbench by Gordon McComb - it instead just briefly surveys a great many topics across a very very wide spectrum of possibilities. It's great for ideas- but it seems to lack a bit of a universal thread such as a representative building example that goes through the whole design process. But then again, it's not an engineering textbook... it's a bonanza.

Why spend a lot of money on this year's big thing in robots - Roboreptile - and wind up with something that can only do a few basic commands and then falls over? Instead, buy this book, and you and your child can bond while building your own robots.

This is a very healthy update to the 2nd edition, and makes it well worth your while to purchase, read, and use as a reference book. The third edition has been updated to show most of the latest technologies that robot builders have been using. Gordon has done a very good job at organizing a wide variety of current information into his book, and Myke Predko is a welcome addition to the authoring team, bringing with him is vast knowledge of microcontrollers.

This book covers much of the basics of building robots, such as electronics, motors and motor control. There are plenty of diagrams, schematics, and details on the basics of building robots. There is even quite a bit of source code, and instructions on where to find and buy supplies for the projects outlined in the book. There are experiments with range finding, sound, ultrasonics, infrared, and a host of other popular technologies.

The first four parts of the book are on the technologies and skills needed to build robots, but part five gives you some sample robots to build where you can apply your knowledge. This includes a roverbot, a walking robot, and robots with arms that have gripping capabilities. The final sections of the book cover more advanced topics such as navigation, sensor integration, object detection, speech synthesis, and even computer vision. It's a great source for complete instructions unlike many other hastily constructed books on the subject that omit individual robot construction steps or get them wrong entirely. I highly recommend it for the budding robot building enthusiast.

A good way to describe this book is a cross between a textbook, a trade journal, and a catalog. Being definately a large volume, it attempts to cover a lot of information in bite sized chapters. I would think the best use for this book is as a reference. You can build some of the projects listed in it as stand alone applications, but they work best when combining them with your own ideas, or supplementing info from other book projects.

All in all, this book is a good addition to a robot reference library.

This is a good reference book for beginning robot builders. However, if you are really interested in getting started then invest the money into a cheap kit like Parallax's Basic Stamp2. Then move up to one of their robotics kits to get a hands on feel.

I read the first 80 pages of this book at B&N, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of information. This book is not for beginners who are only somewhat interested in robotics. You have to make an effort with this book. But if you're looking to make science-fair quality projects or impress MIT, this book can't be beat.

3ds Max Animation with Biped
I've been working with 3ds max over 3 years and this book is Very Simple and not really helpful for beginners and advanced users.

This book was exactly what I was looking for. It had detailed instructions for how to perform nearly every task in Character Studio (now just called the biped system in 3DS MAX). It's not going to have anything conceptual in it.

If you want a comprehensive animation guide, you need to get the animation bible (The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators) in addition to this. Make sure you know everything about squash and stretch, anticipation, etc. Come to think of it, start with the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (you can find a lot of this info online, because it's so old, but it's good to have it when you're not on the interwebs as well).

Actually, you can start with whatever excites you most, but you won't get anywhere interesting without the foundational concepts in these two other books. They apply to even the realistic kinds of animation you see in action movies. In fact if you're going to Mo-Cap everything you ever do, you should still know them.

If you've looked around for books on learning Character Studio, you've undoubtedly noticed there's not much of a selection. 3ds Max Animation with Biped is probably as good a book on the basics as you're going to find. Also addresses some of the more advanced features of CS including combining mo cap files in Motion Mixer and building multiple Biped crowds. Michele Bousquet does a good job breaking things down into easy to understand terms. If you're wanting to learn a few things about Max's 'other' Bone system...get the book.

This is by far the best book covering Biped. 3ds Max Animation with Biped is for the beginner who wants to learn how to use Biped. Few books cover the Biped in any detail.
The examples are straight forward and well explained. The authors know "How to Teach". Very few books about 3ds Max are well written. Most leave details out and confuse the reader. I have purchased almost all the books written about 3ds Max and have been greatly disappointed by most. Michele Bousquet and Michale McCarthy have done an excellent job in writing this book.

I had a little biped experience before reading this book and have learnt nothing new from it. Only buy if you are a complete beginner. Nicely laid out, clear and well explained.

I have used this book for a course in Artificial Intelligence at the college level many times. The book was published in 1992, which is outdated in many areas. However, the historical development in AI is highly readable. Many predictions in the book turn out to be true. The new book by the same author is not good at all.

Ray has developed many applications in AI with his own company and enjoyed much success. He is a great role model for young entrepreneurs.

I read this book only recently, having read the author's two most recent books "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and his book "Kurzweil vs The Critics of Strong AI". Both are excellent books, and reflect the author's extreme optimism about the future of artificial intelligence. He is definitely one of the best apologists for AI, and documents well its living history. Reading this book after the recent ones gives an interesting comparison between what was real in AI then and what is real now. Indeed, the AI landscape has changed dramatically, and there were a few companies specializing in AI in business at the time of publication of this book, that are not around any longer. But for every company that has failed, there have been many more to take their place. Their character as companies has changed, due in part to the rise of the Internet. In fact, it is network engineering that has resulted in many of the applications of AI in the last 5 years, and those applications of course are not mentioned in this book, due to its date of publication.

The author begins the book with a discussion of what he calls "The Second Industrial Revolution", which, he claims, is now in progress, and is based on the rise of thinking machines. These machines will extend and leverage human mental abilities, he says, challenging the human uniqueness in this regard. He expresses caution over the idea of making our military defenses controlled by intelligent machines, at the same time expressing his confidence that machine intelligence will indeed be sophisticated enough for this to happen. This revolution is here he says, will be more radical than the first one, but cannot be stopped, and he encourages therefore the constructive use of its technology. Thus is the author's motivation to write this book: to give the reader an overview of what was possible in AI at the time, and encourage the benevolent use of it.

The author not only discusses the technology of AI, but also attempts to give the reader insight into just what AI is. This entails a discussion of philosophy, since philosophical debate dominated AI in its early years. Such debates are still common, but due to the frequent vituperation involved in them (which the author recognizes and mentions in the book), not much is to be gained from these. Time is better spent on actually trying to build thinking machines, and not engaging in conversations that lead nowhere. Since this book appeared, many philosophers have left their "arm chairs" and have joined in the practical research in artificial intelligence. This trend will no doubt continue in this century, thus giving rise to the "industrial philosopher".

A fairly detailed history of the field of artificial intelligence is given in the book, with several articles written by some of the more recognized individuals in the field. All of these are interesting reading, and shed light on the different attitudes and prejudices regarding AI. For readers who are new to AI, this will be welcomed, as well as the many discussions on the mathematical foundations of AI and its intersection with cognitive science.

The author refrains from including any mathematical notation or equations in the book, and this has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows a more general readership but sacrifices some of the clarity of thought that mathematics allows. The author does give a good discussion of pattern recognition though, especially edge detection. His discussion on this topic is interesting in that it brings up his demarcation between "logical" and "parallel" thinking. Logical thinking is referred to as "sequential" and "conscious", with a resulting limitation in computational ability. It is to be distinguished from parallel thinking which can process multiple levels of abstraction, and can occur without conscious direction. Pattern recognition is in his view an example of the latter, and he justifies this view in the book in some detail. More evidence for his view from laboratory experiments is needed however. Pattern recognition algorithms and technologies have exhibited considerable advance since this book was published.

There have been many advances in AI since the time of publication, due in large measure to the rise of the Internet. Most of these advances have been breathtaking, such as in computer chess, games with imperfect information, Bayesian networks, financial engineering, network intelligence, literary creativity, automatic theorem proving, to name just a few. The author discusses his projections for the future of AI in the book, and it is interesting to compare them with what really came about within the decade later. There is no doubt that more exciting developments are on the way, and the optimism expressed by the author in all of his writings is also characteristic of all who are responsible for these developments. The machines, getting more intelligent with every decade that passes in the 21st century, will bear the signature of these individuals: a tell-tale sign and proof of the genius of the human species.

can i know more detail about what is the artificial intellegence thank a lot.

If this book doesn't have you sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation of the next paragraph, then you probably have no interest whatsoever in logic, mathematics, physics, computer technology, and artificial intelligence.

For me, it was breathtaking. There were times when I had to take a rest after each paragraph just to fully assimilate the ramifications of what Kurzweil was describing.

Higher intellects may be able to absorb this subject matter with less amazement. However, I enjoyed the ride.

Ray Kurzweil takes the time to explain in explicit detail where we have been and where we might be going in the area of artificial intelligence.

He is not only an inventor and a researcher, but he is also a teacher. A teacher is not satisfied until the student understands the material.

Some may say that this book is dated, but any introductory college AI course will cover the topics described in this book from the 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's.

This book changed my life. I have continued my personal study of artificial intelligence after being inspired by this book.

      Computers can be programmed in accordance with the laws of logic, and can give results to mathematical problems when the programmer creates the proper procedure.

      Any device that can do this must be intelligent, in the same sense as human beings.

      Therefore, computers are intelligent.

      I have saved you the trouble of reading this compilation of nonsense and outright lies (I especially liked the whopper where it was said that a computer had passed the Turing test.  If you look up Turing's paper, for example in The Mind's I, by Hofstadter, you'll see just how big a lie this is).

      If your religion tells you that computers are intelligent, I won't argue.  For the non-faith-based, you need evidence and reason, and Kurzweil has absolutely none.

There's some interesting information scattered through this mess, but it's not worth buying for it.

Slotine's book is a great introduction to nonlinear controls, the best I know of. When a colleague comes into my office and asks for an introduction to nonlinear control, I invariably send them off with this book. (In fact, it's currently let out now, and I can't remember who has it.)

Many controls people think that you can't introduce controls without the abusive math found in most texts. Slotine minimizes a lot of that dense math and, in my opinion, focuses on the important concepts of nonlinear control without getting bogged down.

On the negative side, as others have pointed out, Slotine's book doesn't have the detailed mathematical treatment of other books on nonlinear control. A researcher in nonlinear controls will have to get additional resources to really dig in to a particular field. Slotine's minimization of math does border on marginalization. But I believe this was his purpose!

In conclusion, if you're looking for an introduction or (relatively gentle) exposure to the field of nonlinear systems, nonlinear controls, chaos, or adaptive controls, then I think Slotine's is the best book around.

As a student, I've found this book very useful in the areas of sliding control and linearization. It is easy to read and well written.

As a graduate student, I've been exposed to several books on control theory and Applied Nonlinear Control may be my favorite. This book does a good job at presenting control solutions for a rich class of systems. I specifically enjoyed learning about sliding control and on-line parameter estimation for adaptive contol. At times the book is difficult to follow for it frequently refers to specific equations and theorems of previous sections, but that is unavoidable considering the nature of the topic.

Slotine's book is less mathematical than some and many may find this refreshing, although this also removes some of the insight. For those students without a really deep mathematical background who are required or elect to take a course on nonlinear controls this is a decent starting point. When this came out, it caused somewhat of a furor as much of it is a simplication of Isidori's Nonlinear Control Systems book. This is a little less general and much more readable. However, be advised that there are misunderstandings in the book concerning sliding mode control, and the section on spacecraft attitude control has been used and abused over many years. Nothing wrong with the latter material however, it has just been "rediscovered" many times. There are also a number of mathematical mistakes in the book. Nevertheless the book is very readable and the section on Lyapunov functions is an excellent introduction.

This is a good entry point for learning non-linear control. It is at the advanced undergraduate level, and does not require an advanced background. As an applied textbook, it provides tools for analyzing non-linear system. For a more rigourous theoretical development of non-linear control theory, try Nonlinear Control Design by Marino and Patrizio.