Welcome Message

It is a pleasure to welcome everybody to the beautiful garden city and country, Singapore, for the 2013 IFToMM International Symposium on Robotics and Mechatronics (ISRM). This is the third in the series following the previous ones held in Hanoi, Vietnam (2009) and Shanghai, China (2011).

ISRM 2013 is an event organized by the Technical Committee on Robotics and Mechatronics under the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM). The aim of this symposium is to promote timely scholarly exchange for the robotics and mechatronics R&D community. The ISRM 2013 proceedings present state-of-the-art research findings in robotics and mechatronics in the 78 articles by authors from 15 countries throughout five continents. Major topics of the papers are in parallel manipulators, bio-inspired robotics, mobile robotics, locomotion and gait planning, sensors and sensing systems, actuators and drive mechanisms, compliant mechanisms, and motion tracking and localization. All papers have been rigorously reviewed by at least two international peer reviewers, and are organized into a 3-day conference with 14 technical sessions held from 2 to 4 October 2013 in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

As the trend of 21^st century R&D work is moving toward interdisciplinary and socially relevant, ISRM 2013 invited two distinguished plenary speakers, Prof. Yoshihiko Nakamura (University of Tokyo, Japan) and Dr. Ser Yong Lim (Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore) to share their experiences and perspectives in carrying out robotics and mechatronics R&D for disaster relief, especially the decommissioning and safety of nuclear facilities, as well as for advanced manufacturing, especially ultra-precision manufacturing and highly challenging automation works. Sustainable environmentally safe development and economic growth of the society we live in through manufacturing productivity improvement and improved quality of life are very critical to nation building. Robotics and mechatronics are at the heart of these interdisciplinary and advance society-relevant areas.

The organizers would like to thank members of the International Program Committee, the Scientific Committee of ISRM and the Local Organizing Committee for their efforts in reviewing the submitted articles, and the authors in addressing the comments and suggestions of the reviewers in their final submissions. The financial support received from IFToMM for the Young Delegation Program (YDP) is also acknowledged. The technical support received from Singapore Committee for Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (SiCToMM), the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Robotics Research Center (RRC), Intelligent Systems Center (Intellisys) in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), Singapore University of Technology and Design, and National University of Singapore are all acknowledged. Strong support received from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China is also much appreciated.

I-Ming Chen
General Chairman ISRM 2013