Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics
Special Issue on Assistive Device Technologies Vol. 14, No. 6 
By: Osamu Fukuda

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. 

Read the paper abstracts at:
http://www.fujipress.jp/finder/xslt.php?mode=VolumeNo_index&jo_code=ROBOT&volnum=00140006&jo_volume=14&jo_issue_number=6