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Welcome Letters

IDETC/CIE
40TH MECHANISMS AND ROBOTICS CONFERENCE (MR)
The Mechanisms and Robotics Technical Committee of the ASME Design There will be a kinematics summer school to be offered on Saturday and Sunday
Engineering Division welcomes you to the 40th Mechanisms and Robotics (August 20–21). This theme of this school was on “Compliant Mechanisms.”
Conference, the premier international forum for the exchange of technical and Lectures and hands-on sessions were given by several instructors. Special
scientific information on the theory and application of mechanical systems, thanks are given to organizers of the summer school, Steve Canfield, Charles
mechanisms, and robotics. Since 1952, the ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Kim, Jonathan Hopkins, and Girish Krishnan.
Conference has provided an international forum for the exchange of technical and
scientific information on the theory and practice of mechanical and robotic systems. We would also like to draw your attention to the various special events within the
MR conference. MR is sponsoring two keynote talks this year. The first one is by
Vijay Kumar on “Flying Robots: Beyond UAVs,” scheduled for Monday at 2:00
We have an exciting conference program and slate of activities for the
pm in Room 203A. The other keynote is by Mark R. Cutkosky on “Bioinspired
attendees, with 184 peer-reviewed technical papers organized into 11 technical
Robots and Mechanisms: Embracing the Environment,” scheduled for Tuesday at
symposia, two keynote speakers, and the Student Mechanisms and Robotics
2:00pm in Room 203A.
Design Competition. Paper topics range throughout areas central to design of
mechanical, mechatronic, and robotic systems including kinematics, dynamics, We would like to thank Raffaele Di Gregorio, the chair of the Awards Committee,
design, analysis and validation, reconfigurable mechanisms, novel mechanisms and its members for coordinating the selection of various aforementioned awards.
and robots, software systems, educational practices, and various applications.
This year, we launched two new symposia on Reconfigurable Mechanisms and The MR conference-level awards will be announced and presented right after
Robots and Soft, Flexible, and Human-Safe Robots. The former highlights recent the Tuesday keynote session in Room 203A, at approximately 3:00pm on
advances in theories of reconfigurable mechanisms and robots and their Tuesday.
applications in domestic, hazardous, outer space, and manufacturing environ-
ments. And the latter had papers on designs and novel approaches to the The finals of the ASME MR Student Mechanisms and Robotics Design Competi-
analysis and synthesis of soft, flexible and human-safe robots, which represent tion will be held in Room 203A on Monday morning. Enjoy the interactive
the most recently development in the robotics field. presentations and be sure to thank the organizers and judges for their efforts
behind the scenes. The student competition awards will be also presented right
after the Tuesday keynote session in Room 203A.
Submitted papers were eligible for a number of awards, including the
Mechanisms and Robotics Best Paper award, Freudenstein/General The open session meeting of the Mechanisms and Robotics Committee will be
Motors Young Investigator award, A.T. Yang Memorial award, and held at 7:00pm on Tuesday in Room 203A. All are welcome to attend.
Compliant Mechanisms Theory and Application awards. Since 2014, the
authors of the best papers of the Mechanisms and Robotics Conference A special thanks is owed to all authors, session chairs, and other volunteers who
are invited to submit enhanced archival versions of the papers to an IDETC have contributed their efforts to the overall success of the conference. We hope
Special Issue of the Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics. that you enjoy the conference and look forward to your continued support in
future Mechanisms and Robotics Conferences.
The conference and program chairs would like to extend special thanks to
all the volunteers who participated in the peer-review process to produce
this high-quality program, especially the symposium organizers who

coordinated the process:

• MR-1 Planar Mechanism Analysis and Synthesis (Gim Song Soh, Jingjun Yu)
• MR-2 Spatial/Spherical Mechanism Analysis and Synthesis (Maria Alba
Hai-jun Su Craig Lusk
Perez Gracia, Ketao Zhang)
Conference Chair Program Chair
• MR-3 Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Robots (Jian S. Dai, Xilun Ding)
Ohio State University University of South Florida
• MR-4 Soft, Flexible and Human-Safe Robots (Clement Gosselin, Charles Kim)
• MR-5 Theoretical and Computational Kinematics (A.T. Yang Symposium) Columbus, OH, United States Tampa, FL, United States
(Andreas Muller, Wei-Zhong Guo) su.298@osu.edu clusk2@eng.usf.edu
• MR-6 Compliant Mechanisms and Micro/Nano Mechanisms (A. Midha
Symposium) (Guangbo Hao, Girish Krishnan, Anupam Saxena, Guimin Chen)
• MR-7 Medical and Rehabilitation Robotics (Jun Ueda, Chin-Hsing Kuo)
• MR-8 Novel Mechanisms, Robots, and Applications (Shikui Chen,
Dongming Gan)
• MR-9 Mobile Robots, Motion Planning, Dynamics, and Control (Joo H. Kim,
Damien Chablat, Nilanjan Chakraborty) Jonathon Hopkins
• MR-10 Origami-Based Engineering Design (Larry Howell, Mary Frecker, Program Co-Chair
Zhong You, James Joo)
University of California, Los Angeles
• MR-11 Software and Education in Mechanisms and Robots (Nina Robson,
Los Angeles, CA, United States 23
Guowu Wei)
hopkins@seas.ucla.edu
• MR-12 Student Mechanisms and Robotics Design Competition (Brian
Trease, Joshua Bishop-Moser)