Special Issue on New Frontiers in Research on Robotics and Mechatronics (Part 1)

Robotics and Mechatronics Conference 2010 (ROBOMEC’10) was held at the Asahikawa Taisetsu arena in Asahikawa, Japan, on June 13-16, 2010, sponsored by the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME). Prof. Masashi Furukawa of Hokkaido University served as the General Chair and Prof. Keiji Suzuki of Hokkaido University as the Program Chair. The conference theme was “Robotics, Mechatronics, Big-bang, Frontier,” detailing expectations of major technology expansion in robotics and mechatronics. Over 1,100 presentations were made in 86 sessions, and participants numbered 1500 including those from abroad, making it a great success. The ROBOMEC’10 program committee selected 136 outstanding presentations. We recommended that authors submit original works for this issue, and received 53 papers. This special issue, Part 1 presents 15 papers strictly reviewed and accepted from among them. The remaining accepted papers will appear in the next issue as Part 2. We are pleased with the very high quality of these papers, and are confident that readers will find them both interesting and instructive in the fields of robotics and mechatronics. We thank the authors for their invaluable contributions and the reviewers for their time and effort. We also thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Tatsuo Arai of Osaka University for organizing this special issue.