In recent years, the field of robots for medical applications has been expanding rapidly. Robots effectively augment their operators’ skills, enabling them to achieve accuracy and high precision during complex procedures. The use of robots improves the quality of life of patients and the quality of medical research. Therefore, the research and development of robots for medical applications will become more active in aging societies. This special issue focuses on the design and control of robots as well as integrated technologies for robots for medical applications. These include navigation, simulator, image guidance, training, and validation technologies for robots.

The special issue consists of 17 papers with various studies related to medical robots. There are 7 papers on assistant robots, including their passive and active controls, devices, and sensors. There are 10 papers related to minimally invasive surgery and neurosurgery involving robots, including papers on sensors, actuators, navigation, haptic display devices, the mechanical design of devices, and other topics. The editors are confident that this special issue will greatly contribute to further progress in robotics

We sincerely thank the authors for their fine contributions and the reviewers for their generous contributions of time and effort. We would also like to thank the Editorial Board of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for their help with this special issue.

In recent years, advances in CMOS imagers and AI have rapidly expanded the application fields of image processing. Spatial resolution, sensitivity, dynamic range, etc. for devices have dramatically improved, while various recognition functions have been implemented with the introduction of learning-based information processing, making progress day by day. However, the temporal resolution or temporal dynamics of an image has been limited to the video rate level of processing, because image processing has been required to realize the functions of the human eye. In the case of processing for high-speed moving objects or controlling machine dynamics as machine eyes, rather than processing in the range visible to the human eye, high-speed vision, i.e., high-speed image processing in a bandwidth that covers the dynamics of the object, and a system that utilizes such processing, are required. This special issue summarizes such advanced research on high-speed vision, highlighting its current status and future development in the areas of devices, systems, and application developments.

High-speed vision has entered a new era, as the basic technology and various applications have been developed and new functions are being added one after another. We hope that this timely special issue will help its readers grasp this major technological trend and create new system values.

“Hyper-adaptability” is the capability of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) to manage the impairment of sensory, motor, and cognitive functions by reactivating and recruiting pre-existing networks that are latent but available. In studying hyper-adaptability, interdisciplinary research that integrates mathematical modeling and robotic technologies with neuroscience findings is important. Thanks to support from Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in the form of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, the Hyper-adaptability Research Project started in July 2019.

The research works reported in this special issue are the latest achievements of the Hyper-adaptability Research Project. The special issue consists of three review articles and 10 research papers. These contributions cover a wide range of hyper-adaptability research activities, including neurophysiological experiments, functional neuroimaging, mathematical modeling of brain and musculoskeletal systems, cognitive psychological experiments, and robotic / virtual reality interventions for neurorehabilitation, carried out to clarify the mechanisms of hyper-adaptability.

We thank the authors for submitting their latest achievements and the reviewers for dedicating their time and effort to the review process. We also thank the editorial board of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for supporting the publication of this special issue.

The decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the plant affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, will continue for a long time to come, but few young people are willing to take on the challenge because they tend to have the impression that decommissioning work is a post-accident cleanup. However, decommissioning is the most important issue for Fukushima and is of global importance.

Therefore, the National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College (Fukushima KOSEN), which is located closest to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, established a council of cooperation and started the Creative Robot Contest for Decommissioning in cooperation with other National Institute of Technologies (KOSEN) to increase the awareness and interest in decommissioning among the young.

The robot contest, themed on issues related to the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, has been held annually since 2016 for students of KOSEN across Japan, and the 7th Creative Robot Contest for Decommissioning is scheduled to be held in December 2022.

Although the ideas and robots developed by KOSEN students from all over Japan to solve the problems involved in the decommissioning will not directly contribute to future decommissioning work, the ideas and technologies learned can be used in other fields, and the participating students are expected to be active in a wide range of fields as well.

This special issue contains review papers of the Creative Robot Contest for Decommissioning, development reports, and research papers on the robots developed. A total of eight papers are included: two review papers, two research papers, and four development reports on decommissioning robots designed by students.

At the same time, we hope that young people in Japan and abroad will also become interested in the robots introduced in this special issue, and that the decommissioning work of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant will proceed safely and securely by combining the wisdom of the whole world.

The science of soft robots, or soft robotics, is currently one of the most active fields in robotics. While traditional robots consist of rigid bodies, powerful servomotors, and carefully coded programs to realize power, precision, and reliability, soft robots consist of soft and flexible bodies, actuators, and intelligence for adaptability. They are not rigid, but instead flexible toward their surroundings. These differences have the potential to make soft robotics a great new field in robotics.

A JSPS KAKENHI project “Science of Soft Robots” has been in progress in Japan since 2018. Part of this special issue is made in collaboration with this project. This special issue consists of 46 works in total: 2 review papers, 29 letters, and 15 papers. One review paper, 29 letters, and 3 research papers report research activities from the JSPS KAKENHI project, and the other review paper and 12 research papers have been contributed from outside the project. As this issue will make clear, the science of soft robots is a very interdisciplinary academic field, a collaboration of many researchers from various fields, such as mechanical/electrical engineering, computer science, material sciences, biology, zoology, medicine, and nursing, among others. We believe interdisciplinary work to be a key point for the exploration of soft robotics.

The editors thank all of the authors and reviewers of the contributions, and are confident that this special issue will greatly contribute to further progress in robotics.

We are pleased to announce that the 14th Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Best Paper Award (JRM Best Paper Award 2021) has been decided by the JRM editorial committee.

The following paper won the JRM Best Paper Award 2021, severely selected from among all 114 papers published in Vol.32 (2020). The Best Paper Award ceremony was held on December 22, 2021 in hybrid style (both on-site and online; venue: Gakushi-Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan), attended by the authors and JRM editorial committee members who took part in the selection process. The award winners were given certificates and a nearly US$1,000 honorarium. Editorial committee members who participated online also congratulated them through Zoom.

We congratulate the winners and sincerely wish them success in the future.

JRM Best Paper Award 2021

Title: A MEMS Tactile Sensor with Fingerprint-Like Array of Contactors for High Resolution Visualization of Surface Distribution of Tactile Information

Authors: Kazuki Watatani, Kyohei Terao, Fusao Shimokawa, and Hidekuni Takao

J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.32, No.2, pp. 305-314, April 2020

Field robotics has been undergoing rapid progress in recent years. It addresses a wide range of activities performed in outdoor environments, and its applications are being developed in areas where it was previously considered difficult to apply. This rapid progress is largely supported by AI-based improvements in computer vision systems with monocular cameras, stereo cameras, RGB-D cameras, LiDAR systems, and/or other sensors. Field robotics is impelled by an application-driven approach by its nature, and it contributes to the resolution of social problems and the creation of new innovations, including autonomous driving to reduce casualties, autonomous working machines/robots to resolve the problems of labor shortages or dangers, disaster-response robots to aid rescue parties, various kinds of aerial robots to do searches or make deliveries, underwater robots to perform search missions, etc.

In this special issue on “Field Robotics with Vision Systems,” we highlight sixteen interesting papers, including one review paper, fourteen research papers, and one development report. They cover various application areas, ranging from underwater to space environments, and they propose interesting integration methods or element technologies to use in outdoor environments where vision systems and robot systems have great difficulty performing robustly.

We thank all authors and reviewers, and we hope that this special issue contributes to future research and development in area of field robotics, which promises new innovations.

Information technologies, such as IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality (VR), have seen so much development that there is now a wide variety of digital equipment incorporated into the infrastructure of daily life. From the agrarian society (Society 1.0) through the information society (Society 4.0), humankind has created farmlands and cities by structuring natural environments physically and has built information environments by structuring them informationally. However, despite the rapid development of information environments, it may be fair to say that the perspectives of the human body have not changed at all since the industrial revolution.

In the context of these recent technological developments, greater attention is being paid to human augmentation studies. These studies aim for a new embodiment of “human-computer integration,” one which can physically and informationally compensate or augment our innate sensory functions, motor functions, and intellectual processing functions by using digital equipment and information systems at will, as if they were our hands and feet. It has also been proposed that the technical systems that enable us to freely do what we want by utilizing human augmentations be called “JIZAI” (freedomization) as opposed to “automation.”

The term “JIZAI body” used in these studies represents the new body image of humans who will utilize engineering and informatics technologies to act at will in the upcoming “super smart society” or “Society 5.0.” In these studies, human augmentation technologies are an important component of JIZAI, but JIZAI is not the same as human augmentation. JIZAI is different in scope from human augmentation, as it aims to enable humans to move freely among the five new human body images: “strengthened sense” (augmented perception), “strengthened physical body” (body augmentation), “separately-designed mind and body” (out of body transform), “shadow cloning,” and “assembling.” In the society of the future where JIZAI bodies widely prevail, we will use technologies that enable us to do what we have failed at or given up due to limitations of our physical bodies. We believe that a future society, one in which aging does not reduce our capabilities but instead increased options give us hope, can be realized. This special issue, consisting of two review papers and twelve research papers, deals with diverse and wide-ranging areas, including human augmentation, robotics, virtual reality, and others. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the authors and reviewers of the papers contributed to this special issue and to the editorial committee of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for their gracious cooperation.

Japan’s population is aging at a speed unprecedented in the world, and its shortage of caregivers has become a major issue. At the same time, the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to create unprecedented new value by connecting all people and things, allowing them to share various kinds of knowledge and information. In addition, as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data are undergoing a transformation that is changing the value of human labor, robots incorporating these innovative technologies are expected to solve the problems of the aging society. On the other hand, in the field of nursing care, the relationship between the caregiver and the care-receiver is basically a person-to-person connection. There is a question of how people and technology can coexist and produce new creations in such fields.

This special issue on Nursing Robots and Support Systems for Welfare Sites includes one review paper and 23 other interesting papers that cover the following topics:
     · Research on independence support and systems to watch over the elderly.
     · Research on support systems for diet, recreation, medication, etc. for people with dementia.
     · Research on control and sensor systems for vital signs and excretion.
     · Research on rehabilitation equipment for the physically handicapped.
     · Research on assistive technologies for mobility support.
     · Research on upper and lower limb power assistance devices and robots.

We thank all authors and reviewers of the papers as well as the Editorial Board of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for their help with this special issue.

In the studies done to date on the swarm behaviors of animals, many different observational techniques have been developed, indicating the importance of such detailed observations. The techniques of researchers aiming to capture the swarm behavior of animals, which is normally visually unobservable, have included attaching microsensors to honey bees or ants and data loggers (micro recorders) to birds or mammals. Such techniques, collectively known as “bio-logging,” can go far in clarifying why we feel animals that exhibit swarm behaviors seem to have a sort of collective intelligence, or “swarm intelligence.” Furthermore, studies on the swarm behaviors of animals may provide important clues to researchers in the field of swarm robotics. It is in this context that this special issue presents papers on bio-logging technologies, the collective behaviors of animals, and various advanced measurement technologies related to them.

This special issue consists of one review article and 14 research papers. The subjects cover a wide range of areas, including control engineering, data science, and ecology. Thus, bio-logging is an interdisciplinary area that can expect to see much growth in the near future.

The editors are confident that this issue will greatly contribute to further progress in the field of bio-logging.

In the past three years, there has been rapid progress in the use of drones in society. Drones, which were previously used only experimentally in various industrial fields, are now being used in earnest in everyday operations. Drones are becoming indispensable tools in several industrial fields, such as surveying, inspection, and agriculture. At the same time, there has also been dramatic progress in autonomous drone technology. With the advancement of image processing, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and artificial intelligence technologies, many intelligent drones that apply these technologies are being researched. At the same time, our knowledge of multi-rotor helicopters, the main type of drones, has continued to deepen. As the strengths and weaknesses of multi-rotor helicopters have gradually become clearer, drones with alternate structures, such as flapping-wing drones, have come to attract renewed attention. In addition, the range of applications for drones, including passenger drones, has expanded greatly, and research on unprecedented drone operations, as well as research on systems and controls to ensure operational safety, is actively being conducted.

This special issue contains the latest review, research papers, and development reports on autonomous drones classified as follows from the abovementioned perspectives.
     · Research on drone airframes and structures
     · Research on drone navigation and recognition with a focus on image processing
     · Research on advanced drone controls
     · Research and development of drone applications

We hope that the readers will actively promote the use of drones in their own research and work, based on the information obtained from this special issue.