This special issue presents important research results in the field of robotics and mechatronics under the key concept of Hyper Performance – performance in which special techniques lead to performance that surpasses the conventional ones. Originality is indispensable to research. Generally, originality in robotics and mechatronics lies both in the research focus and in the quality of specifications and functions such as size, velocity, and power. In this line, this special issue views studies demonstrating excellent performance in terms of specifications and functions. This issue includes outlines of hyper performance robotics and mechatronics, and research on under-actuated system and medical applications. Each contribution has been highly evaluated on its own individual merits and provides insights on hyper performance. We feel certain that readers will find these articles both interesting and informative in defining hyper performance in specifications and functions. We thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University, the members of the editing committee, and the secretariat of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for their invaluable efforts in editing this issue. We also thank the reviewers who took time out of their busy schedules to provide insightful comments. Without the support of all these people, this special issue would not have been possible.

Progress in robotics and miniaturization of computer systems has resulted in such advances as wearable robot systems that portend a new relationship between users and robots. Such wearable robots are especially important in medical and welfare use such as power assist robots that enable users to move in ways they otherwise could not. Such developments, however, bring with them new problems that require new considerations. This special issue features current advances in wearable robot systems, including papers on power assist systems, exoskeletons, wearable medical systems, and robot partners. These articles will provide invaluable references for students and researchers in wearable robots. In closing, I would like to thank the authors, contributors, and reviewers who made this special issue possible. I also would like to thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University, for his expertise and advice in editing this issue.

Robot Technology (RT) now surpasses information technology (IT) in strategic importance. With robot applications leading to expansion beyond manufacturing into the bioindustrial, medical/welfare, and lifesciences fields, conversion from an industrial to a solutions business is critical. This requires that we define new robot concepts that push the envelope beyond conventional consideration into intellectualization that functions throughout the real world through robotic technologies. This further emphasizes the importance of motion control as a major robotic innovation. Advances in high-function hardware, flexible information processing, and real-time image processing are expected to launch new trends in addition to the above. This special issue presents papers and technical reports featuring a wide academic and industrial repertoire. Topics cover aspects of motion viewed through RT. We thank Prof. Kazuhiro Kosuge of Tohoku University, the contributors, and the reviewers who made this special issue possible. Thanks also go the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University, who provided the opportunity for editing this special issue.

This special issue commemorates the designation of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics as the International Journal of the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1999. The 2003 JSME Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ROBOMEC’03) was held in Hakodate May 23-25, 2003, sponsored by the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. The general chair was Prof. Mikami and the program chair was Prof. Furukawa. The purpose of the conference was to aid in the establishment of new industries using advanced robotics and mechatronics technologies. Technical sessions featured 70 organized sessions and 770 papers enjoyed by some 1,000 participants. This special issue presents a wide range of ROBOMEC’03 papers to disseminate informative and innovative results. The program committee selected 95 outstanding papers, or about 10%. Of the 36 submitted and reviewed by the Journal’s referees, 28 were selected for publication. Special Issue Part 2 on Selected Papers from ROBOMEC’03 (Vol.16, No.3) presents 14, with others having already been presented in Part 1 (Vol.16, No.2). We thank the authors featured in this special issue for their time and effort. We also thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University for his invaluable effort in organizing this special issue and the editors for selecting the papers.

This special issue commemorates the designation of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics as the International Journal of the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1999. The 2003 JSME Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ROBOMEC’03) was held in Hakodate May 23-25, 2003, sponsored by the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. The general chair was Prof. Mikami and the program chair was Prof. Furukawa. The purpose of the conference was to aid in the establishment of new industries using advanced Robotics and Mechatronics technologies. Technical sessions featured 70 organized sessions and 770 papers enjoyed by some 1,000 participants. This special issue presents a wide range of ROBOMEC’03 papers to disseminate the informative and innovative results. The program committee selected 95 outstanding papers, or about 10%. Of the 36 submitted and reviewed by the Journal’s referees, 28 were selected for publication. Special Issue Part 1 on Selected Papers from ROBOMEC’03 (Vol. 16, No. 2) presents 14, and others are presented in Part 2 (Vol. 16, No. 3). We thank the authors featured in this special issue for their time and effort. We also thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University for his indispensable effort in organizing this special issue and the editors for selecting the papers.

Micromechatronics has become a key issue in engineering. Robotics and mechatronics are a global concern. Micromechatronics contributes especially to the development of electrical and mechanical systems through miniaturization and advanced functions. Micromechatronics was defined by Prof. Fukuda, Prof. Fujita et. al in the 1980’s. In 1980’s, Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) was developed in the USA and then expanded to Japan and Germany. In the same time frame, devices based on precious machining technology were miniaturized in Japan and Switzerland as Michromachine. MEMS combines electronics and mechatronics and promotes new-conceptual devices such as intellectual sensors, e.g., pressure and acceleration sensors. Precious machining has improved manufacturing and achieved the find control. Thorough these development, Micromechatronics was born as an integrated technology. This special issue introduces basic technologies and applications of micromechatronics, which includes such vital technologies as mechanical, electric, and electrical engineering, machining, and MEMS. This issue, which features several topics on micromechatronics, will give readers a welcome chance to acquaint themselves with state-of-the-art information on micromechatronics. This issue contains nine technical papers on micro robots, intelligent microsensors, and their applications, together with related letters. It opens with a paper on microsensors by Fujiyoshi et al. and the application of miniaturized motors to a robotic hand by Nishibori et al. Included also are articles on micro robots by Aoyama, Torii, Wakimoto and Guo, work on unique micromanipulation systems by Nakamura et al., and the application of micro units to robotic systems by Yamada et al. Letters discuss objectives and achievements of micro robot contests held in Japan that serve to popularize and disseminate unique mechanisms and new concepts in this exciting field. I am certain this issue will provide readers with information that is both interesting and informative. In closing, I would like to thank the authors, members of the editorial board, and the publisher, without whose hard work and careful consideration this issue would not have been possible.

This special issue brings together the many achievements on rescue robots development beginning after the Hanshin-Awaji Great Earthquake in Kobe. The earthquake that laid waste to most of Kobe, Seattle’s sister city, early on the morning of January 17, 1995, was a wakeup warning to robotics researchers who realized that the potential of their studies had not been realized in its greatest and most challenging arena – a disastrous earthquake where robots and similar strategies could have rescued people in situations where no other help or support was possible. Japanese robotics researchers set up academic working groups to study and promote such R&D. The national project involving key next-generation urban disaster prevention technologies includes the subtheme of rescue robots, with robotics researchers introducing concrete achievements. A Japanese national project had never used the term of rescue robots before then. Rescue robots range from simple instruments powered by human operators to intelligent machines able to operate virtually on their own. Some advanced rescue robots have built-in prime motive power and others use the latest in artificial intelligence. This special issue brings to readers a dozen articles introducing the many and varied achievements by Japanese robotics researchers covering a wide range of rescue robots. With this field poised to enter the main stream, these robots are close to practical application, and knowledge of their capabilities is essential to those able to utilize this latest technology in their current and future re search. This issue is a must to all who are interested in exploring the new world of robot rescue.

Robot vision is an essential key technology in robotics and mechatronics. The number of studies on robot vision is wide-ranging, and this topic remains a hot vital target. This special issue reviews recent advances in this exciting field, following up two special issues, Vol. 11 No. 2, and Vol. 13 No. 6, which attracted more papers than expected. This indicates the high degree of research activity in this field. I am most pleased to report that this issue presents 12 excellent papers covering robot vision, including basic algorithms based on precise optical models, pattern and gesture recognition, and active vision. Several papers treat range imaging and others interesting applications to agriculture and quadruped robots and new devices. This issue also presents two news briefs, one on a practical range sensor suited to mobile robots and the other on vision devices that are the improved ones of famous IP-5000 series. I am convinced that this special issue helps research on robot vision more exciting. I would like to close by thanking all of the researchers who submitted their studies, and to give special thanks to the reviewers and editors, especially Prof. M. Kaneko, Dr. K. Yokoi, and Prof. Y. Nakauchi.

This special issue has been proposed in honor of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics authorized to be the International Journal of the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1999. The 2002 JSME Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ROBOMEC’02) was held in Matsue on June 7-9, 2002, sponsored by the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers and attended by 861 participants. The purpose of the conference was to aid future establishment of new industries by using advanced technologies of Robotics and Mechatronics. Technical sessions included 70 organized sessions in which 684 papers were presented. This special issue was organized by editing papers presented at ROBOMEC’02 to ensure that conference results reached the widest possible audience. The Conference Program Committee selected 40 papers -less than 6% of the total. We have included the 17 papers accepting an invitation for inclusion that were reviewed by journal referees and selected for publication in the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Special Issue on Selected Papers from ROBOMEC’02 (Vol. 15, No. 2). We thank the authors who have contributed their updated papers, Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University whose work has been indispensable in organizing this special issue, and the editors for selecting the papers.

Technologies for supporting a healthy lifestyle for the elderly and disabled are needed to keep them mentally and physically independent and to help them take part in society. The issue of a rapidly aging society has, in fact, become a major national problem. This special issue focuses on assistive device technologies for the elderly and disabled. Contributed and invited papers have been carefully reviewed by journal referees and 13 papers selected for publication in the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Special Issue on Human Assistive Technologies (Vol. 14, No. 6). The first 4 papers, by Hashino, Yamada et al., Miyawaki et al., and Noritsugu et al., outline the development of new mobile equipment based on novel mobile mechanisms. The next 4 articles, authored by Wenwei et al., Ohga et al., Kato et al., and Hagihara et al., deal with prostheses and orthoses. In 2 more papers, by Homma et al. and Shinomiya et al., the focus is on rehabilitation and training equipment, while in the 11th article, Kanamori et al. report on the operating “feel” of a man-machine system to improve the maneuverability of the human interface. The last 2 papers, authored by Kobayashi et al. and Fukuda et al., detail an automatic diagnosis system based on biomedical information measured from the human body. We thank the authors who have so kindly contributed their papers to this special issue, and the reviewers who have made this publication possible. Our special thanks go to Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University, who provided the opportunity for editing this issue. We expect this issue to help readers to better understand new trends in assistive device technologies and to further their interest in this most robust and innovative research field.

Recent advances in robotics are disseminating robots into the social living environment as humanoids, pets, and caregivers. Novel human-robot interaction techniques and interfaces must be developed, however, to ensure that such robots interact as expected in daily life and work. Unlike conventional personal computers, such robots may assume a variety of configurations, such as industrial, wheel-based, ambulatory, remotely operated, autonomous, and wearable. They may also implement different communications modalities, including voice, video, haptics, and gestures. All of these aspects require that research on human-robot interaction become interdisciplinary, combining research from such fields as robotics, ergonomics, computer science and, psychology. In the field of computer science, new directions in human-computer interaction are emerging as post graphical user interfaces (GUIs). These include wearable, ubiquitous, and real-world computing. Such advances are thereby bridging the gap between robotics and computer science. The open-ended problems that potentially face include the following: What is the most desirable type of interaction between human beings and robots? What sort of technology will enable these interactions? How will human beings accept robots in their daily life and work? We are certain that readers of this special issue will be able to find many of the answers and become open to future directions concerning these problems. Any information that readers find herein will be a great pleasure to its editors.

Since the dawning of the Robotics age, mobile robots have been important objectives of research and development. Working from such aspects as locomotion mechanisms, path and motion planning algorithms, navigation, map building and localization, and system architecture, researchers are working long and hard. Despite the fact that mobile robotics has a shorter history than conventional mechanical engineering, it has already accumulated a major, innovative, and rich body of R&D work. Rapid progress in modern scientific technology had advanced to where down-sized low-cost electronic devices, especially highperformance computers, can now be built into such mobile robots. Recent trends in ever higher performance and increased downsizing have enabled those working in the field of mobile robotics to make their models increasingly intelligent, versatile, and dexterous. The down-sized computer systems implemented in mobile robots must provide high-speed calculation for complicated motion planning, real-time image processing in image recognition, and sufficient memory for storing the huge amounts of data required for environment mapping. Given the swift progress in electronic devices, new trends are now emerging in mobile robotics. This special issue on “Modern Trends in Mobile Robotics” provides a diverse collection of distinguished papers on modern mobile robotics research. In the area of locomotion mechanisms, Huang et al. provide an informative paper on control of a 6-legged walking robot and Fujiwara et al. contribute progressive work on the development of a practical omnidirectional cart. Given the importance of vision systems enabling robots to survey their environments, Doi et al., Tang et al., and Shimizu present papers on cutting-edge vision-based navigation. On the crucial subject of how to equip robots with intelligence, Hashimoto et al. present the latest on sensor fault detection in dead-reckoning, Miura et al. detail the probabilistic modeling of obstacle motion during mobile robot navigation, Hada et al. treat long-term mobile robot activity, and Lee et al. explore mobile robot control in intelligent space. As guest editors, we are sure readers will find these articles both informative and interesting concerning current issues and new perspectives in modern trends in mobile robotics.

Micro/nanotechnologies are keys crucial to improving system performance. This is why it is so important to research theory and applications based on analysis and synthesis from the micro- to the nanotechnology engineering level. Micro/nanorobotics are extremely important to the future of robotics and automation. Micro/nanotechnologies will certainly be applied in fields such as material science, industry, medicine, bioengineering, and services. Research on micro/nanoscale manipulation has thus attracted special attention in the robotics and mechatronics communities in the last decade. This special issue features selected papers focusing on cutting-edge topics and innovative applications based on new approaches in the fields of micro/nanorobotics. These papers were chosen from the 2001 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2001) and important domestic conferences such as the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers(JSME) Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ROBOMEC). I would like, in closing this short introduction, to express my particular gratitude to the authors, who have updated their papers for this special issue, and to thank all of the contributors and reviewers who have made this vital publication possible. I also would like to thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University, who provided the opportunity for editing this issue. I hope the papers contained herein will prove both interesting and useful to readers wanting to learn about the latest advances in micro/nanorobotics.

This special issue has been proposed in honor of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics authorized as the International Journal of the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1999. The 2001 JSME Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ROBOMEC’01) was held in Takamatsu, June 8-10, 2001, sponsored by the Robotics and Mechatronics Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. Its purpose was to aid establishments of new industries by using advanced technologies of Robotics and Mechatronics. In technical sessions, 82 organized sessions were held and 624 papers presented. More than 800 participants attended the conference. This special issue has been organized by editing papers presented at ROBOMEC’01 to disseminate the significant results of the conference. Papers from the conference were invited and reviewed by journal referees. Sixteen were selected for publication in the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Special Issue on Selected Papers from ROBOMEC’01 (Vol. 14, No. 2). We thank the authors in this special issue who have contributed their updated papers. We also thank Editor-in-Chief Makoto Kaneko of Hiroshima University, whose work has been indispensable in organizing this special issue. We also thank the Editors for selecting papers.

Advances in society have enriched lifestyles, making them more comfortable and increasing spare time. People spend more time and money on entertainment ‘and amusement, purchasing more than basic necessities and spending time at recreational facilities. Devices used in entertainment and amusement frequently interact with people, making it important to design them emphasizing subjective evaluations by people who interact with them rather than objective evaluations such as speed and accuracy. This makes technologies on entertainment and amusement interdisciplinary, going beyond the scope of conventional engineering with consideration of human sensitivities. Sugeno describes this interdisciplinary technology and discusses its possibilities in “Engineering and Amusement.” This special edition presents information on Japanese mechatronics technologies for entertainment and amusement to overseas people. Included are papers on scholarly- and technologically-de novo research and developments and technologies already put into practical use as commercially available products. Devices for entertainment and amusement must interact with people in different ways, and as such, they take a wide variety of shapes and have a broad array of controllers to suitably accommodate different human needs. It is therefore of critical importance to give special consideration to human sensitivity, which makes this area of engineering difficult to standardize and generalize. It is, however, becoming increasingly important in different fields of engineering to take interaction between machinery and people into consideration. This special edition provides perspectives and technologies that hold clues for the field of entertainment and amusement and also for many other areas of research and development. Kuroki et al. discuss the structure and the control architecture of SDR-X, a humanoid robot developed for entertainment, and detail the dancing performance of this robot in “A Small Biped Entertainment Robot.” Shibata et al. statistically analyze the findings of subjective evaluation of the Mental Commit Robot Paro, a robot shaped like a baby seal developed to provide positive psychological effects such as pleasure and comfort to people through interaction, and considers the results in “Subjective Evaluation of Seal Robot Paro.” Mitsui et al. tell about the results of physiological experiments and subjective evaluations of psychophysiological effects of interactions with a seal-shaped Mental Commit Robot on people in “Psycho-physiological Effects by Interaction with Mental Commit Robot.” Nakata et al., in “Analysis of Impression of Robot Bodily Expression,” suggest a method for setting up physical characteristics of movements based on the theory of Laban in Choreologia as a way of quantitatively evaluating impressions of movement of a robot a person gets during interaction, and discuss the method’s effectiveness. Tanaka et al., in “Principle of Stable Running of A Unicycle Robot,” describe the research and development of a unicycle robot modeled after the movement of a person riding a unicycle. They analyzed the mechanism of complex and skillful movements to have the robot make comical human-like movements. These findings could be applied to controlling robots in general. Kobayashi et al., in “A New Concept of the Robotic Technology Applicable to Human Physical Support,” describe a muscle suit to support human muscles with the help of air tube actuators. Because this suit enables people to move about naturally, its technology is applicable as component technology for new types of entertainment. Yamamoto et al., in “Conversation with a Communication Robot Named Wonder – for the Mental Support of the Elderly Living Alone,” discuss results of a validation experiment for a robot developed with several objectives, including the ‘reduction of the psychological burden on elderly people who live alone and applications as a pet and/or a speech partner and as an interface for outside communication through CATV to make their daily life safer. Fuj ita, in “Personal Robot PaPeRo,” tells about the objective of the development, design, function, and structure of the autonomous robot PaPeRo developed for communication with people in private households and reports the results of an experiment in which 12 families lived together with the robot for about 2 months. Miyake et al., in “Interactive Simulation Ride System,” present a simulation system with a high degree of virtual sense capability being achieved by a 3-6 mensional audiovisual perception data display using virtual reality technology and a ride system with 4 degrees of freedom. This system is already being used in amusement facilities and museums. Haga, in “WonderBorg and BN-l,” describes the concept of development, system structure, and control of an insect-shaped robot “WonderBorg” and a cat-like robot BN-I developed with the objective of offering interactive entertainment to people through assembling and programming robot. Nagasu, in “Dream Force O1,” tells about the concept of development and the structure of Dream Force 01, a bipedal locomotion robot that can be operated by the user for pleasure with the help of a robot controller. Omshi, in “POO-CHI,” discusses the design and the function of a dog-shaped robot toy POO-CHI that has become a hot seller all over the world. We thanks Japan Toy Culture Foundation on supports for preparation of developments reports.

The amount of information human beings obtain from the external world through their visual senses exceeds 80% of the total amount of information they take in. Robots and similar automatons must thus be provided with visual functions equivalent to those of human beings, enabling them to grasp external conditions accurately and to move appropriately based on such conditions. Computer and machine vision systems technologically and practically realize such visual functions, and studies of these vision systems have drawn attention and research since the 1970s. Studies on the human and other biological visual systems have progressed steadily under the stimulus of rapid advances in the brai sciences field. Such studies have brought to light new types of useful information related to biological vision systems and such information has been used to promote studies of artificial visual senses. In separate developments based on the progress of integrated circuit systems, visual sensors imitating the sensing of the human retina and the eyes of insects and animals have been developed and efforts made to apply such sensors to a variety of control systems. Human beings fuse information obtained through the visual and other senses with information collected by interacting positively with the external world to form in the brain necessary images (models) related to the external world. Based on such images and models, human beings make decisions and plan for appropriate action to take under specific circumstances. In such cases, the human senses, including the visual sense, interact mutually rather than independently. When a visual stimulus differing from ordinary stimuli is perceived, the effect of such a stimulus is recognized both by the sensory organs and sometimes by the motor organs. Human beings fuse information obtained through the visual and other senses with information collected by interacting positively with the external world to form in the brain necessary images (models) related to the external world. Based on such images and models, human beings make decisions and plan for appropriate action to take under specific circumstances. In such cases, the human senses, including the visual sense, interact mutually rather than independently. When a visual stimulus differing from ordinary stimuli is perceived, the effect of such a stimulus is recognized both by the sensory organs and sometimes by the motor organs. In the present natural environment, where numerous conditions artificially produced by numerous automation and visual systems are present simultaneously, it becomes important to study the interference and interaction among the sensory, motor, and physiological organs. The human visual function gradually develops with maturation and declines with age, following a downward curve with the years. Simple deviations in the focusing range due to myopia or hyperopia can be corrected almost completely using ordinary glasses for near-sightedness or far-sightedness. Stenosis in the focusing range, however, caused by aging and a decline in the elasticity of the eye lens cannot be corrected by the use of ordinary glasses. Such correction requires either the use of 2 types of glasses, i.e., those for near-sightedness and those for far-sightedness, alternately depending on the distance between the glasses user and the object viewed. Bifocals may also be used. The use of double lenses, however, may cause problems for the user, who must change from one pair of glasses to the other and vice versa. Biofocal lenses present problems related to the need to shift the gaze unnaturally, the presence of an unnaturally deformed whole-vision field, and the undesirable occurrence of sensations such as nausea required in attempts to adjust to changed visual fields. Take the case of fine soldering work at very close range and parts handling done at a medium range simultaneously, for example. This presents both far-sighted and near-sighted personnel with difficulties in the use of glasses. Symptoms of hyperopia generally begin to appear in those aged 40 to 45 years old. With society rapidly aging and the number of children – successors to the aging – the working population is also aging, making it vital from a social viewpoint to mechatronically solve the many problems related to hyperopia and other vision-related developments. It is with great pleasure that we present a number of articles in this special edition that should prove both informative and interesting to researchers in the fields of robotic engineering and mechatronics. These articles offer new insights into studies on welfare and human engineering and are sure to make important contributions to the progress of related R&D.

This special issue contains outstanding papers on robot control presented at international meetings in Japan in 2000. Featured topics include face robots, polishing robots, control for multifingered robotic hands, re configurable brachiating space robots, DD parallel robots, and robot control technologies such as a distributed robust motion controller, image-based visual servoing, fault adaptive kinematic control, and optimum control for a robot manipulator. We also will have a variety of topics such as shaft insert tasks in the robot task field, fingerprint image sensing in sensing technologies, compliance display, emergence of affective behavior, human/robot communication in interfaces, and workspace analysis of parallel manipulators in robot analysis. In preparing this special issue, we have asked authors to revise work presented at international meetings to include further analyses and experimental data to help make papers even more interesting and informative concerning the purposes of the study, analyses, experiments, and simulation. We thank Professor Kohei Ohnishi, Department of System Design Engineering, School of Science and Engineering, Keio University, for his complete, courteous assistance, and all of the authors who such unstinting time to update their papers for this special issue.

Intelligent transport systems (ITS), a combination of IT(Information Technology) and TS (Transport Systems), solves problems such as accidents and congestion, lessening environmental impact and conserving energy. As conventional solutions to traffic issues became less and less effective, high-tech solutions have been sought. Preceding the term ITS, coined in 1994, were road transport informatics (RTI), advanced transport telematics (AT), and intelligent vehicle-highway systems (IVHS). In the mid-1980s, large ITS projects started in Europe, the US, and Japan, but the use of high-tech solutions emerged in the 1950s. As indicated above, ITS includes systems covering passenger-car safety and freight management, supported by a wide range of technologies including sensing, control, communications, and human factors. This special issue on ITS focuses on ITS technologies that share similarities with robotics and mechatronics. The papers in this issue are classed into sensing, control, simulation, and electric vehicles. Papers in sensing deal with the application of vehicle localization in automated driving, 3-dimensional localization with corner cubes and laser radar, vision-based passage detection, and night-time obstacle detection with machine vision. The technology presented in these papers is expected to play an important role in robotics and mechatronics. The 4 control papers include an overview on control algorithms for automated driving and 3 papers on control algorithms for lateral control, lane changing, and parking assistance. The major difference between mobile robots and automobiles is that, due to speed, the behavior of mobile robots can be described with kinematics, but that of automobiles must be described with dynamics. Nevertheless, control algorithms for automated automobiles are insightful in robotics. Simulation technologies are essential in ITS to present virtually situations difficult or not possible to realize in the real world. One paper deals with a driving simulator and the other with automobile traffic. The last area in this ITS issue is electric vehicles. Their handicaps can be overcome by ITS, leading to new road transport. The paper on electric vehicles introduces an experimental electric vehicle both educational and informative to readers planning electric vehicles to conduct experiments involving ITS. We thank those on the JSME Research Committee 179 for cooperation between human and systems in ITS for reviewing submitted papers.