from the editor’s desk

4 • IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE • MARCH 2013

Click to VoteBy Peter Corke

elcome to the first issue of 2013, which is something of a milestone for IEEE

Robotics & Automation Magazine. It is our 20th year of publication! In this issue’s “Society News” column, Roz Snyder gives us a peek into the formation of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the start of the magazine and its predecessor, IEEE Robotics and Automation Newsletter. Here, I would like to acknowledge the work of my predecessors: Wes Snyder (1987–1990), Mike Leahy (1990–1997), Kimon Valavanis (1998–2005), and Stefano Stramgioli (2006–2009).

One of the more difficult aspects of running a magazine is figuring out what people like to read. I enjoy receiv-ing feedback, but am given relatively little, so I encourage you to share your thoughts with me in person (I’ll be at ICRA in Karlsruhe in May) or by e-mail.

In this issue, we are experimenting with a new method for gathering

reader feedback. At the end of every article in the magazine, there is a small RAS icon; it is at the end of this editorial as well. We have repurposed this icon to serve as a hot link for those of you reading an electronic version of the magazine. Clicking this icon will record a vote for the associated article, in effect, noting that you liked the article. You can vote for any article: a technical feature, tutorial, column, or even edito-rial, and you can vote for multiple arti-cles in the issue. At this stage, we cannot record a negative vote and, unfortu-nately, have no option to support voting for those reading a paper copy.

The beginning of a year always brings changes to our Editorial Board, a group of hardworking people who orga-nize reviews of technical articles, assist me in the editorial process, and provide guidance on the future of the magazine. Board members typically serve for three years. Two of these members, Bram Vanderborght and Srikanth Saripalli, are retiring, and I thank them for their great service to the magazine. Antonio Fran-chi and Yi Guo join the Board, and I look forward to working with them. You

can find brief bios on Fran-chi and Guo on page 112. Finally, I have invited two members, Raffaella Car-

loni and Y.F. Li, to extend their terms to provide continu-

ity and topic coverage.This issue covers the special topic of

assistive robotics, which is an important and growing area of the industry. Arti-cles in this issue were selected by the guest editor team, comprised of Lore-dana Zollo, Kazuyoshi Wada, and H.F. Machiel Van der Loos.

The tutorial is the first of two parts and discusses the important robotics problem of representing the relationship between rigid links and introduces some proposed standardization for terminol-ogy and notation.

Enjoy the issue.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2012.2236215

Date of publication: 8 March 2013

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If you like an article, click this icon to record your opinion. This capability is available for online Web brows-

ers and offline PDF reading on a con-nected device.