IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2013 - 10

volunteers of the Society. I have had a
deep sense of loss at his passing because
he was more than a colleague; he was
also a dear friend. But beyond this, I also
have a hope that his good work will continue to be a strong, positive influence
on the direction of the Society through
those of us whose lives he has touched.
Highlights of Accomplishments
This is my last column as president, and
it has caused me to reflect on the accomplishments that we have achieved during
my term over the past two years. One of
our strategic themes has been to "continuously improve the products and services that we provide to our members
through our conference, publication,
technical, member, and industrial activities and enable them through sound
financial practices." This was indeed a
worthy goal, given the number of activities in which the Society is involved.
IEEE RAS sponsors some 40 conferences, eight of these with full financial
sponsorship, another 15 financially
cosponsored with other IEEE Societies
and outside organizations, and the
remaining with technical cosponsorship.
We fully sponsor three journals and are
financial cosponsors of four others. We
offer 25 awards [nine Society, four publication, and 12 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
(ICRA) and IEEE CASE awards]. This is
in addition to IEEE Fellow and financial
sponsorship of the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Technical Field Award, as
well as numerous other awards with our
cosponsored conferences. We have 31
technical committees (TCs), 139 regular
and student chapters, three summer
schools, more than 11,000 members,
and operate with a US$4 million annual
budget. Though space does not permit
me to report on the depth and breadth
of our activities in each of these areas, let
me highlight just a few of our accomplishments over the past two years.
Conferences
Our two largest conferences, ICRA and
the IEEE/RSJ International Conference
on Intelligent Robots and Systems
(IROS) remained strong. The venue for
each conference continues to rotate
10

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

among the three major regions of the
world, and attendance for each is nearing
2,000. ICRA 2012 in St. Paul, Minnesota,
USA introduced several novel features to
the conference (video recording of paper
presentations, proceedings on thumb
drives, etc.). The location of ICRA gave
us a special opportunity to invite all of
our past presidents to St. Paul for a Past
Presidents' Celebration. ICRA met for
the first time in Germany in 2013, and
we joined with the cosponsors of IROS
to celebrate its Silver Jubilee in October
2012 in Portugal. IROS 2013 was back in
Japan (Tokyo) to begin a "new horizon"
for IROS. In order to better synchronize
the ICRA and IROS conferences, we
scheduled consecutive offerings of ICRA
in IEEE Region 10 (Asia and Pacific) in
2017 and 2018, so that meetings in the
same region after 2018 are optimally separated by about 18 months.
Publications
The impact factors of our three major
publications-IEEE Transactions on
Robotics (T-RO), IEEE Transactions on
Automation Science and Engineering
(T-ASE), and IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM)-all increased
in 2012. T-RO and RAM were ranked
second and third in impact factor,
respectively, in the "Robotics" category
of the Thomson-Reuters 2012 Journal
Citation Reports.
Beginning in 2013, we were pleased
to offer the open-access publishing
option to our authors. We joined with
other IEEE Societies and councils to
offer a hybrid open-access plan. Upon
acceptance with the open-access option,
the authors pay a fee to enable unrestricted public access to the article on
IEEE Xplore. However, the traditional
option is still provided, where articles
are available on a subscription basis to
members and libraries.
In 2012, we welcomed Rachel O.
Warnick as the new editorial assistant
for RAM and RAS program specialist.
Rosalyn Snyder retired after 25 years of
service to the Society. Also in 2012, we
worked with the two other cosponsoring IEEE Societies for IEEE Journal of
Microelectromechanical Systems to
establish a new memorandum of

DECEMBER 2013

Understanding and select a new editorin-chief (EiC). This was important to
revitalize the journal after the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers withdrew its cosponsorship.
Technical Activities
Over the past two years, seven new
Technical Committees (TCs) have been
established. Most of these have been in
the automation area, and they have
helped us to "nurture the automation
side of the Society." This was one of our
four strategic themes during my term as
president. For the TCs, we have implemented the TC surplus-sharing program for TC-sponsored conferences.
This program was initiated by Kazuhiro
Kosuge during his administration as
president. The TC on Haptics, the TC
on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics,
and the TC on Humanoid Robotics have
been included in this program to date.
Automation
As mentioned, the focus of one of our
strategic themes has been in the automation area, and establishing new TCs has
been a major accomplishment in this
direction. Also, IEEE CASE is growing
and has firmly established itself as our
flagship conference in automation. We
have also extended our highly successful
Women in Engineering luncheon, Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) Luncheon, and Student Lunch with Leaders,
to IEEE CASE. Furthermore, the number of submissions to T-ASE has grown
significantly over the past two years.
Member Activities
In 2012, the Society passed the 10,000
mark in membership for the first time
and is expected to be above 12,000 by the
end of 2013. We are now the largest Society in IEEE Division X, which includes
the IEEE Control Systems Society, IEEE
Engineering in Medicine and Biology
Society, and others, and we are the fifth
largest of 38 Societies within the IEEE.
We have continuously had double-digit,
year-over-year growth by percentage
over the past two years. The growth has
been significant in all regions but especially in IEEE Regions 9 (Latin America)
and 10 (Asia and Pacific) where our

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2013