Whither robotics: key issues, approaches, and applications

This paper consists of three parts. Part one introduces an ongoing inter-university research program on intelligent robotics. This program started in 1995 and will last for three years, supported by a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education as a priority area for scientific research. The program is entitled "Research on Emergent Mechanisms for Machine Intelligence-A Tightly-Coupled Perception-Motion Behavior Approach." It aims to study mechanisms for the emergence of robotic intelligence and autonomy. Adopting a tightly coupled sensor-action approach, this program will tackle the theoretical foundations of machine intelligence, and experimentally study autonomous systems which perceive and behave in the real world. Part two discusses future directions for robotics, including issues, approaches and applications. Part three presents the author's view on a paradigm change for robotics research, and sketches out his group's R&D project, which aims at a break-through to blaze a trail for the robotics of the future.