Stressing common characteristics and real applications of the most used microcontrollers, this practical guide provides readers with hands-on knowledge of how to implement three families of microcontrollers (HC11, AVR, and 8051). Unlike the rest of the ocean of literature on individual chips, Microcontrollers in Practice supplies side-by-side comparisons and an overview that treats the systems as resources available for implementation. Packed with

This paper presents a novel implementation of the concept of "virtual pheromones" for controlling autonomous mobile robots. Instead of deploying chemicals, RFID tags, or other traceable marks in the environment, the virtual pheromones are stored in a map of the environment maintained and updated by a "pheromone server". This map acts like a shared memory for all the agents, each of them communicating with the server via a radio link. No direct communication

Although very few robots actually go to Mars, we continue to design these machines as if they were organisms operating in a totally unknown and hostile environment. In fact, in most situations, the environment is not only predictable, but it can also be manipulated so that the missions of the autonomous robot may be supported, by including sensors, actuators, computing and communication equipment. One of the most convenient ways to manipulate the