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By the dawn of the new millennium,robotics has undergonea major transformation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been broughtabout by the maturity of the ?eld and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant - dustrial focus, roboticshas been rapidly expandinginto the challengesof the human world.The new generationofrobotsis expectedto safely anddependablyco-habitat withhumansinhomes,workplaces,andcommunities,providingsupportinservices, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has p- duced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scienti?c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neu- sciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the ?eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their signi?cance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developmentswill stimulate more exchangesand collaborationsamongthe research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing ?eld. This volume is the outcome of the eight edition of the biennial Workshop Al- rithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR). Edited by G. Chirikjian, H. Choset, M.
