IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2014 - 6

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

A New RAS
By Raja Chatila

t is my great privilege to serve as the
19th president of our IEEE Robotics
and Automation Society (RAS) for
the term 2014-2015. This is a special honor and an important responsibility. My first words are to thank our
community, members, and volunteers
for their confidence.
Robotics and automation are shaping the present and the future of the
world's societies and economies. The
scientific and technological challenges
addressed by our community are disseminated in the 40 conferences and
published in the 11 journals sponsored
or cosponsored by RAS. These numbers
might be surprising, but they actually
indicate the breadth of our discipline,
spreading from autonomous mental
development to nanotechnologies.
RAS membership has considerably
grown in the past few years to become,
with over 12,000 members worldwide,
one of the highest growing Societies in
size in the whole IEEE. New chapters
are being organized to bring our discipline and our Society closer to local
professionals, academics, students,
and the general public. Educational
programs and summer schools are
promoted by RAS for the dissemination of robotics and automation science and technology.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2014.2301109
Date of publication: 10 March 2014

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

2014 will mark 30 years since the
first ICRA in Atlanta in 1984, the first
IEEE conference of the debut of our
then newborn Council. Thirty years is
both an age of maturity and of open
perspectives. Indeed, the achievements
in our field have made possible numerous applications that we were only
dreaming of at the time. Robots are
roving Mars, exploring the oceans, saving lives, entertaining people, manufacturing cars, cropping fields, and
cleaning carpets. In addition, new prospects emerge every day. New automation concepts are transforming
manufacturing, and versatile interactive
robots are opening new service areas.
Building robot autonomy provides
models for understanding how the
human brain operates.
This is a great field to work in and a
great time to be alive.
We owe these positive developments
both to the dynamics of our domain
and to the hard work of all our volunteers and their active involvement in the
different bodies of our Society. Thanks
to them, every endeavor of RAS
becomes a new success.
I would like to express my sincere
thanks to our outgoing president, David
Orin, for his wise leadership, continual
efforts, and deep dedication to our Society. He will be a model and a reference
for me.
With me, a new team will govern the
Society for the next two years (Figure 1)

MARCH 2014

Figure 1. RAS ExCom. Front from left:
Satoshi Tadokoro, Raja Chatila, Jing Xiao
Back from left: Antonio Bicchi, Anthony
Maciejewski, Ronald Lumia, Raj Madhavan.

and will be dedicated to working hard for
the benefit of the membership and of the
domain. A blend of continuity and novelty, the new team is composed of Antonio Bicchi, vice president for publication
activities; Oussama Khatib, vice president of conference activities; Anthony
Maciejewski, vice president of financial
activities; Raj Madhavan, vice president
of industrial activities; Jing Xiao, vice
president of member activities; Satoshi
Tadokoro, vice president of technical
activities and RAS new president-elect;
Paul Oh, secretary; and Ron Lumia, treasurer. Several of them were already serving in the leadership of RAS. Dedication,
experience, and competence are their
best descriptions.
We will strive to strengthen our
domain and our Society for the benefit
of all. Our motto will be "always stronger, always higher."

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