Fundamentals of Space Robotics

Since the birth of modern robotics concept as an academic discipline as defined by Isaac Asimov in the 1940s, robotics has made significant advancement. In contrast to mostly mechanical automated systems represented by the eighteenth century Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player shown in Fig. 2.1 as an example, modern robotics is still evolving and can be defined as an increasingly multi-disciplinary academic subject where robots are designed and created and their use either alone or in interactions with human beings are also studied.