IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2014 - 6

President's Message

Moving Forward
By Raja Chatila

here are two things I would like
to share with you as I begin my
term as president of our Society.
First, the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society (RAS) is a Society
of the IEEE. Three times per year, the
IEEE Technical Activity Board (TAB)
holds meetings, bringing together the
presidents of the 38 Societies, seven
councils, six communities, ten Divisions, and ten
geographical reThe latest statistics
gions. The IEEE
is basically a
from December 2013
volunteer-based
show a total of
org an i z at i on
(people like you
12,602 members.
and me), but it
relies on a staff
that enables the operation of an organization of over 400,000 people spanning
over 160 countries.
The TAB meeting is a unique place
where robotics and automation meets
computer and intelligent transportation
systems, of course, but also oceanic
engineering, microwave theory and
techniques, or social implications of
technology. You can imagine that topics
of discussions abound.
The meeting itself, prepared by the
IEEE Board of Directors, focuses on
strategy and future directions: what
are the main scientific and technological challenges for the future? Is the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2014.2321069
Date of publication: 10 June 2014

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

june 2014

future in smart cities or rethinking
the computer "from soup to nuts"-
an initiative coined "rebooting computing"-or life sciences? However,
many discussions are also on organizational issues (e.g., new Societies),
publication policy (e.g., open access),
and conference sponsoring (should it
be financial or technical only?). Decisions made at the TAB meeting will
shape the general orientations of each
individual Society.
The other (very satisfying) issue I
would like to share with you is the
growing penetration of our Society.
As you know, our membership is
steadily growing, and the latest statistics
from December 2013 show a total of
12,602 members. This is already an
indication of the liveliness of our field
and the efficiency of our efforts to serve
our members.
But beyond individual membership,
our Society is also locally organizing
new Chapters in various countries and
regions to promote robotics and automation. Since last December, 12 new
Chapters have been approved and
formed: one in China, four in India, one
in Sri Lanka, one in Australia, one in
Colombia, two in Mexico, one in Egypt,
and one in Jordan. We should be particularly proud of reaching out to countries where robotics and automation
were not all that developed.
Our field is growing, but its frontiers
are getting fuzzier. This is due to its pervasive nature and its penetration in var-

ious application areas, from new
manufacturing paradigms and processes to self-driving cars but, at the
same time, to the fundamental questions we are addressing, e.g., how to
build an autonomous machine. Such
issues are interdisciplinary by nature.
Hence, it is very logical that we have to
reach out to other research areas to
exchange information about common
topics of interest. Artificial intelligence
and computer vision have always been
very close to robotics, and we envision
engaging in the near future, in joint
events with organizations in these areas
in the near future.
The IEEE International Conference
on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
2014 in Hong Kong is being held 30
years after the first ICRA was held in
Atlanta in 1984. As we move forward,
we are also reexamining the operations
of RAS. Two of the main services to our
membership are conferences and publications. The new teams working with
the Conference Activities Board and
Publication Activities Board, with Vice
Presidents Oussama Khatib and Antonio Bicchi, are already discussing new
prospects for our journals and sponsored conferences. It is indeed important to keep our publications and
conferences not only at the highest possible standards but also able to meet the
challenge of the growth and diversity of
our membership and field.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2014