MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) is a technology that is used to incorporate sensors, actuators, microstructures, and circuits on chips by using a combination of various technologies with semiconductor process. MEMS are also used in robotics and mechatronics since they can provide compact, low-cost functional components that play crucial roles in their respective systems. We would like to elaborate on the history of MEMS technology, whose initial development started around 1970.

In 1960s, Dr. Isemi Igarashi of Toyota Central R&D Labs., Inc. in Japan developed a semiconductor pressure sensor of piezo-resistance type. In 1980s, the pressure sensors were used to control automobile engines to clear exhaust gas regulations and thus contributed to solving environmental issues. In 1990s, semiconductor acceleration sensors were used for passive safety technologies to detect collision of automobiles and activate air bags, which resulted in decrease in traffic fatalities. In 2000s, an active safety system with gyro sensors was developed to detect and control spinning of a vehicle. In future, space recognition sensors with optical scanners to measure light propagation time and detect distance to an object will be used for autonomous driving.

For smartphones, a microphone, an acceleration sensor, and a gyro sensor are used in user interface, and a film bulk acoustic wave resonator (FBAR) is used in a wireless communication filter. For projectors, the built-in circuit of a mirror array system is used to move mirrors placed in an array. After the development of projectors, films have not been used in movie theaters.

MEMS are also widely used in medical and biological fields, such as blood pressure measurement. Esashi began research on a semiconductor ion sensor ISFET (ion sensitive field effect transistor) in 1971. ISFET detects ion concentration in electrolyte by exposing the insulating film of an insulated gate transistor to the liquid. He set up a prototyping facility when he was a graduate student and wrote only one paper on this research, although the prototyping facility was used afterwards. The ion sensor was certified under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law after a 12-year application process and was used as catheter-type pH sensor to diagnose reflux esophagitis. MEMS are widely used for minimally invasive medical treatment, which causes minimum damage to human body. Moreover, MEMS are used as disposable sensors to prevent infection or as implanted devices.

In addition, MEMS are used for production inspection and scientific instrument, including scanning probe microscopes (SPMs), which observe atoms using extremely small nano-probes, and probe cards that simultaneously test several integrated circuits on a wafer using aligned probes.

When he was an associate professor, Esashi improved the prototyping facility that he made when he was a student and made a large scale integrated circuit (LSI). After he became a professor, he accepted researchers from more than 130 companies and developed MEMS using the prototyping facility to develop a product through the academia-industry collaboration. He realized integrated MEMS by combining LSI and MEMS. This includes a system of many tactile sensors attached on the body surface of a safe robot for real-time detection of contact through packet communication.

After he retired from the university, he developed a “prototype coin laundry,” which enables companies to do develop without having their own prototyping facility. The prototype coin laundry is a system where engineers can use the prototyping facility to develop devices, and the system has been managed by successors. Unlike integrated circuits for which standardization is easy, standardization of MEMS is challenging because of difficulty in development. It is necessary to access various knowledge for the development of MEMS, and he has made efforts to provide the knowledge.

Finally, we would like to thank authors who submitted papers to this Special Issue on MEMS for Robotics and Mechatronics as well as those who were involved in editing and reviewing the papers. We sincerely hope for further development in this field of research.

We are pleased to announce that the 12th Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Best Paper Award (JRM Best Paper Award 2019) has been decided by the JRM editorial committee.

The following paper won the JRM Best Paper Award 2019, severely selected from among all 94 papers published in Vol.30 (2018). The Best Paper Award ceremony was held in Gakushi-Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan, on January 7, 2020, attended by the author and JRM editorial committee members who took part in the selection process. The award winner will also be announced on the JRM website and was given a certificate and a nearly US$1,000 honorarium.

JRM Best Paper Award 2019

Title: End-to-End Autonomous Mobile Robot Navigation with Model-Based System Support

Authors: Alexander Carballo, Shunya Seiya, Jacob Lambert, Hatem Darweesh, Patiphon Narksri, Luis Yoichi Morales, Naoki Akai, Eijiro Takeuchi, and Kazuya Takeda

J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.30 No.4, pp. 563-583, August 2018

As social robot research is advancing, the interaction distance between people and robots is decreasing. Indeed, although we were once required to maintain a certain physical distance from traditional industrial robots for safety, we can now interact with social robots in such a close distance that we can touch them. The physical existence of social robots will be essential to realize natural and acceptable interactions with people in daily environments. Because social robots function in our daily environments, we must design scenarios where robots interact closely with humans by considering various viewpoints. Interactions that involve touching robots influence the changes in the behavior of a person strongly. Therefore, robotics researchers and developers need to design such scenarios carefully. Based on these considerations, this special issue focuses on close human-robot interactions.

This special issue on “Human-Robot Interaction in Close Distance” includes a review paper and 11 other interesting papers covering various topics such as social touch interactions, non-verbal behavior design for touch interactions, child-robot interactions including physical contact, conversations with physical interactions, motion copying systems, and mobile human-robot interactions. We thank all the authors and reviewers of the papers and hope this special issue will help readers better understand human-robot interaction in close distance.

Many wearable devices have been developed and are being currently used, owing to the miniaturization of computers and electronic devices and advancements in calculation processing algorithms. They have various uses and forms, for example, a power assist robot for reducing the burden of work, a wearable sensor for measuring the level of activity and health condition of people and animals, and so on. In Japan, wearable devices have attracted attention as an important technology in a human-centered society (Society 5.0) and can help realize economic development and address social problems. A society that can benefit from a wide range of wearable devices is being realized. This special issue covers robotics and mechatronics technologies for next generation wearable devices to realize such a society, including wearable systems and their elemental technology, AI, IoT, and other relative technologies.

We sincerely thank the authors for their fine contributions and the reviewers for their generous 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.

It is a well-known fact that Japan saw an annual average economic growth rate of over 10% from around 1955 to around 1973, its so-called “high-economic-growth period.” Japan’s rate was two to four times higher than that of Europe or the United States. During this period, Japan’s infrastructure (roads, bridges, tunnels, etc.) was rapidly developed nationwide, bringing Japan’s national average road pavement ratio in 2017 to over 80%, one of the highest rates in the world. Such rapid infrastructure development has made all of Japan a comfortable place to live. However, as Japan’s infrastructure is now becoming increasingly deteriorated, the structures nationwide must be inspected for soundness and should be repaired or rebuilt if any defects are found. As these structures are highly developed, the number of structures to be inspected becomes so numerous that the human-based inspection cannot keep up.

This situation has led to growing calls for artifact inspection systems that carry out inspection work more efficiently, and the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) was established, one of which is “Infrastructure Maintenance, Renovation and Management,” with Yozo Fujino as Program Director (SIP Infrastructure), having been implemented for five years since fiscal year 2014.

This Special Issue on Infrastructure Maintenance and Inspection Robotics has collected papers that propose a broad range of infrastructure maintenance/renovation/management technologies, especially those developed by SIP Infrastructure, in order to contribute to the further development of the field of infrastructure maintenance and inspection technologies.

In recent years, machine-learning applications have been rapidly expanding in the fields of robotics and swarm systems, including multi-agent systems. Swarm systems were developed in the field of robotics as a kind of distributed autonomous robotic systems, imbibing the concepts of the emergent methodology for extremely redundant systems. They typically consist of homogeneous autonomous robots, which resemble living animals that build swarms. Machine-learning techniques such as deep learning have played a remarkable role in controlling robotic behaviors in the real world or multi-agents in the simulation environment.

In this special issue, we highlight five interesting papers that cover topics ranging from the analysis of the relationship between the congestion among autonomous robots and the task performances, to the decision making process among multiple autonomous agents.

We thank the authors and reviewers of the papers and hope that this special issue encourages readers to explore recent topics and future studies in machine-learning applications for robotics and swarm systems.

Control engineering and sensing engineering improve productivity and save resources and energy in industry, and they are also deeply related to the solving greater societal, economic, and environmental problems. Control engineering and sensing engineering have become dynamic forces that enrich various phases of life through interdisciplinary or cross-sectional study. Furthermore, in recent years, due to the development of information technology, as symbolized by terms such as “big data” or “AI,” “sensing and control at a higher level” has become possible, premised by big data processing that is faster by orders of magnitude than conventional data processing. All this has increased the importance of control engineering and sensing engineering.

In response to the development of the fields of control engineering and sensing engineering associated with the advance of the “information society,” education in these fields has also needed to be enhanced. On the national scale, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will introduce Japanese elementary school computational thinking education into elementary school in fiscal year 2020, and the new Courses of Study for High School Information Education in fiscal year 2022. At the same time, individual companies, educational institutions, etc. have also been experimenting with various forms of education in control engineering and sensing engineering. During these changing times, the most advanced studies related to the development of instruction and evaluation methods for educational materials on control engineering, sensing engineering, and control technology have been collected, and the present special issue was planned.

This special issue is a collection of practical papers related to measurement and control education, including one paper on Model-Based Development education in a company and eight papers on education in an educational institution. These eight papers include two on education using a robot contest in a university, one on introducing measurement and control engineering education in a national institute of technology college, three on introducing it in a junior high school, and two on introducing it in an elementary school.

We hope that this special issue serves to support the readers’ future efforts in control engineering and sensing engineering education, and we thank the authors and reviewers of the papers.

Intelligent mobile robots need self-localization, map generation, and the ability to explore unknown environments autonomously. Probabilistic processing can be applied to overcome the problems of movement uncertainties and measurement errors. Probabilistic robotics and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technologies are therefore strongly related, and they have been the focus of many studies. As more and more practical applications are found for intelligent mobile robots, such as for autonomous driving and cleaning, the applicability of these techniques has been increasing.

In this special issue, we provide a wide variety of very interesting papers ranging from studies and developments in applied SLAM technologies to fundamental theories for SLAM. There are five academic papers, one each on the following topics: first visit navigation, controls for following rescue clues, indoor localization using magnetic field maps, a new solution for self-localization using downhill simplex method, and object detection for long-term map management through image-based learning. In addition, in the next number, there will be a review paper by Tsukuba University’s Prof. Tsubouchi, who is famous for the Tsukuba Challenge and research related to mobile robotics.

We editors hope this special issue will help readers to develop mobile robots and use SLAM technologies and probabilistic approaches to produce successful applications.

A robot is a system integrated with many elements such as actuators, sensors, computers, and mechanical components. Currently, progress in the field of artificial intelligence induced by tremendous improvements in computer processing capabilities has enabled robots to behave in a more sophisticated manner, which is drawing considerable attention. On the other hand, the mechanism that directly produces robot movements and mechanical work sometimes brings out some competencies that cannot be provided solely by computer control that relies on sensor feedback.

This special issue on “Integrated Knowledge on Innovative Robot Mechanisms” aims to introduce a knowledge system for robot mechanisms that bring forth useful and innovative functions and values.

The editors hope that the studies discussed in this special issue will help in the realization and further improvement of the mechanical functions of robots in the real world.

Human work and life support are areas that provide practical applications for robotics and mechatronics technology. There is great expectation from the industry in these fields, and research and development efforts have been actively undertaken with great social impact. To support human work and life accurately, we must understand the complicated sensory, nervous, and motor control systems that enable design and development of appropriate assistive devices.

Therefore, in this mini special issue, we focus on robotics and mechatronics for human sensing, modeling, and augmentation.

The editor hopes that this special issue will attract researchers’ interest and contribute to further developments in this field.

Tsukuba Challenge, which started in 2007, has contributed to the development of novel control technologies for autonomous navigation. The second stage of this challenge was completed in 2017, and now, the time is ripe for exploring new ideas and avenues. This is the fifth Special Issue on Real World Robot Challenge in Tsukuba, and it seems that the technological elements required for autonomous navigation are almost complete. However, it is obvious that such navigation capabilities are still at a significantly lower level of development compared to human capabilities. The need for automatic and self-driving vehicles has increased rapidly in recent years; many companies and researchers have been making great strides in research and development in the field of automatic driving. The Tsukuba Challenge pursues and encourages both student education and advanced research and development, focusing on automatic driving as an application technology. The essential capabilities required for a robot to reach the designated goal in the Tsukuba Challenge are self-localization and obstacles avoidance, and many studies have been conducted on these features. To complete the designated task, unification of these technologies and other qualities such as searching for persons, traveling on crosswalks, and recognizing traffic signals is required.

This special issue concentrates on control technologies of autonomous mobile robots and expects to contribute toward future studies and development in this field.

Currently, drones have reached the stage of practical application, business, and social contribution from the stage of research and development. In fact, drones are now opening up a new market not only in the field of aerial photography and agricultural chemical spraying, which had traditionally been on the market, but also in the field of surveying. Furthermore, new markets are expected to be formed within several years in the field of infrastructure inspection and logistics.

Under these circumstances, research on drone application is becoming significant, along with research on drone design and control, which have been done conventionally. However, there are still only a few studies and journals focusing not only on drone development and design but also drone application. Therefore, in this special issue, we invited papers with comprehensive contents, including research focusing on drone application, and created a space to present cutting-edge research results.

By reading this special issue, we hope that readers will understand the latest information about the applications of drones and their cutting-edge technology. Furthermore, we also hope that readers will be able to proactively promote the use of drones in their own research and work, based on the information obtained from this special issue.

The importance of primary industries, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, is obvious and needless to mention, however, the reduction of the working population and the aging problem make the situation of primary industry more sever. To compensate for the issues, the advanced technology in robotics has attracted attentions and expected the contributions in terms of productivity, cost effectiveness, pesticide-less, monitoring of the growth and harvesting, etc. Recently, robotic technologies are gradually being used in primary industry and their application area will expand more in the near future. This special issue’s objectives include collecting recent advances, automation, mechanization, research trends and their applications in agriculture, forestry and fisheries to promote a deeper understanding of major conceptual and technical challenges and facilitate spreading of recent breakthroughs in primary industries, and contribute to the enhancement of the quality of agricultural, forestry and fisheries robots by introducing the state-of-the-art in sensing, mobility, manipulation and related technologies.

In this special issue, twelve papers are included. The first paper by Noguchi is the survey paper of the state-of-the-art in the agricultural vehicle type robots and discusses the future scope of agriculture with robotics. The next three papers are on tomato-monitoring system, and Fukui et al. propose a tomato fruit volume estimation method using saliency-based image processing and point cloud and clustering technology, Yoshida et al. do the cutting point identification for tomato-harvesting using a RGBD sensor and evaluate in the real farm experiments, and Fujinaga et al. present an image mosaicking method of tomato yard based on the infrared images and color images of tomato-clusters in the large green house. The fifth paper by Sori et al. reports a paddy weeding robot in wet-rice field to realize the pesticide-free produce of rice, and the sixth paper by Shigeta et al. is about an image processing system to measure cow’s BCS (Body Condition Score) automatically before milking cows and analyzes the two months data by CNN (Convolutional Neural Network). The seventh paper by Inoue et al. reports on an upper-limb power assist robot with a single actuator to reduce the weight and cost. The assist machine supports the shoulder and elbow movements for viticulture operations and upper-limb holding for load transport tasks. In the next paper, Tominaga et al. show an autonomous robotic system to move between the trees without damaging them and to cut the weeds in the forest for the forest industry. The last four papers are for the fishery industry, and Komeyama et al. propose a methods for monitoring the size of fish, red sea bream (RSB) aquaculture by developing a stereo vision system to avoid the risks of physical injury and mental stress to the fish. Nishida et al. report on a hovering type underwater robot to measure seafloor for monitoring marine resources whose sensor can be replaced depending on missions as the open hardware system. Yasukawa et al. propose a vision system for an autonomous underwater robot with a benthos sampling function, especially, sampling-autonomous underwater vehicles (SAUVs) to achieve a new sampling mission. The last paper by Han et al. is for gait planning and simulation analysis of an amphibious quadruped robot in the field of fisheries and aquaculture.

We hope that this special issue can contributes to find solutions in primary industries, agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

This is the 2nd special issue on education of robotics & mechatronics on Journal Robotics & Mechatronics. Six years have passed since the previous issue (Vol.23, No.5) was published. This special issue includes nine research papers and two review papers, among which four research papers focus on the utilization of robots in STEM education, which has been spotlighted recently, and programming education for the young. Five research papers propose educational methods with novel, unprecedented ideas, and the two review papers overview technology education in Japan. The review papers focus on STEM education that utilizes a variety of manufacturing methods that have become familiar, and they present a variety of efforts being made in STEM education, programming education in today’s Japan.

At present, Germany’s Industry 4.0, Japan’s Robot Strategy, and many other initiatives are being undertaken in the world to promote development technology as it relates to production automation and efficiency. The development of human resources that are capable of working with these new technologies has also gathered public attention, with each educational institution now required to enrich its STEM education. As part of this movement, in 2020, programming education will be added to Japan’s elementary school curriculum, with robots being the focus of the education. This situation indicates that the importance of educational robotics is likely to continue to increase in the future. We expect that this special issue will contribute to the development of educational robotics communities and of human resources that are well prepared in the field of robotics.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all contributors and the reviewers for making this special issue possible.

Many missions have been launched to explore the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and comets, and many researchers are studying and developing lunar and planetary rovers for unmanned planet exploration, and further cooperative missions targeting human lunar exploration are under discussion. A key technology in these missions and orbital services is space robotics, including Al and automation. Space robotics is expected to support external vehicular activities (EVA) and internal vehicular activities (IVA), which will include constructing, repairing, and maintaining orbiting satellites and space structures.

This special issue presents the updated mission results and advanced research activities of space organizations, institutes, and universities, although it does not include all. We hope that this special issue will be useful to readers as an introduction to advanced space robotics in Japan, and that more robotics and Al researchers and engineers will become interested in space robotics and participate in space missions.

We thank the authors for their fine contributions and the reviewers for their generous contributions of time and effort. In closing, we also thank the Editorial Board of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for helping to make this issue possible.

In this fourth of the “Special Issues on Real World Robot Challenge in Tsukuba,” we feature the control technology of autonomous robots. There is no guarantee that it will operate perfectly in a real-world environment even with the method already revealed. Participating robots in Tsukuba Challenge are required to carry out the assigned tasks under the prevailing weather conditions on the day of the events. Robots avoid oncoming pedestrians and obstacles in their path. In order to share the novel technology of the autonomous control method, this special issue presents a summary of the results of robots that participated in past Tsukuba Challenges.

It is only thanks to the ongoing efforts of the organizers of Tsukuba Challenge and the enthusiasm on the part of the participants that we are able to present an issue such as this, and we are truly thankful to them. We also wish to thank the authors who submitted papers and articles for this issue, as well as our reviewers.