Special Issue on MEXT 21st Century COE Programs (II)

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (MEXT) started the “21st Century COE Program” in 2002 to give targeted support to the creation of global-standard research and education bases. The five-year grant came to fund a total of 250 excellent programs from 95 universities. Topics related to robotics and mechatronics are treated in the following programs: (1) “Information Science and Technology Strategic Core,” University of Tokyo; (2) “Intelligent Human Sensing,” Toyohashi University of Technology; (3) “Innovation of Creative Engineering through the Development of Advanced Robotics,” Tokyo Institute of Technology; (4) “Micro- and Nano-Mechatronics for Information-Based Society,” Nagoya University; (5) “COE for Research and Education on Complex Functional Mechanical Systems,” Kyoto University; (6) “Paradigm Shift from Intelligence to Life,” Keio University; (7) “Human Adaptive Mechatronics (HAM),” Tokyo Denki University; and (8) “The Innovative Research on Symbiosis Technologies for Human and Robots in an Aging Society,” Waseda University. All of these programs were completed by March 2008. Our editorial board has decided that the time is right to organize a special issue on MEXT 21st Century Programs to disseminate these invaluable research findings as widely as possible. Our three guest editors – Prof. Yasuyoshi Yokokohji of Kyoto University, Prof. Masamitsu Kurisu of Tokyo Denki University, and Prof. Hiroyasu Iwata of Waseda University – have all worked in the specialized areas featured here. Of the 30 papers submitted for this special issue, 23 papers have been accepted for publication after a careful review. We thank the authors for their valuable contributions and the reviewers for their generous time and efforts in making this issue a success. <Div Align=""right""> Prof. Tatsuo Arai Editor-in Chief</div>