  In this paper, we introduce a new sensor-based control method that regulates
(by means of robot motions) the heat transfer between a radiative source and an
object of interest. This valuable sensorimotor capability is needed in many
industrial, dermatology and field robot applications, and it is an essential
component for creating machines with advanced thermo-motor intelligence. To
this end, we derive a geometric-thermal-motor model which describes the
relationship between the robot's active configuration and the produced dynamic
thermal response. We then use the model to guide the design of two new thermal
servoing controllers (one model-based and one adaptive), and analyze their
stability with Lyapunov theory. To validate our method, we report a detailed
experimental study with a robotic manipulator conducting autonomous thermal
servoing tasks. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time
that temperature regulation has been formulated as a motion control problem for
robots.
