History of Ritsumeikan University’s Robotic Research Center
Robotics FA Research Center (1994–2004)
 |
The Robotic FA Research Center seen at the startup in 1994 |
In 1994, Ritsumeikan University launched the Robotics FA Research Center with a view to enhance cooperation among industry, government, and academic institutions, having conducted a large number of projects entrusted by businesses and government, whereby contributing to society. As the FA found in the name of the center stands for “Flexible Automation,” it strived to contribute to the industrial world from its very beginning, through the researches on manufacturing and production automation and other fields. We received donations from the businesses, which were empathetic with the concept behind the center’s setup, and in fact funds for constructing the 2,482 square meter center building came all from their donations.
The center started its operation with the prime objective of solving issues addressed by society and industry. A group of researchers, specialized in a wide range of sectors including machinery, electrics, information, ergonomics, and other fields, shared the comprehensive issues raised by the society and industry and battled with them in search of a solution. Numerous laboratories were mobilized to form a task force including image processing laboratory, mechanical-engineering development laboratory, biometric laboratory and such, to bring to life a solution to comprehensive issues addressed in the robotics sector.
The university across the organization placed an emphasis on the contract-based research, and so established a liaison office in 1994. People in businesses, university faculties, and the administrative staff worked together to implement the contract-based research. It was a setup regarded at the time as progressive and had an enormous influence on other universities.
Advanced Robotics Research Center (2004–2014)
In 2004, the College of Information Science and Engineering was established. This event, together with the new members joining the team, prompted us to reorganize the Robotics FA Research Center to give birth to a new arrangement, the Advanced Robotics Research Center. Reviewing the past contract-based and collaborative research experiences, we learned that there were so many cases where a specialty that was limited in scope was unable to find solutions that could satisfy the needs of society and industry, but the activities of a team of researchers equipped with different areas of expertise worked significantly well. Moreover, we have found most of the issues addressed by society and industrial world extremely specific, among which there are so many that cannot be solved immediately by the conventional sciences and technologies. Drawing a formula in a generalized method from the matters that raise such specific issues with an aim to garner solutions should contribute not only to the development of new robotic technologies but also to upgrading the robotic system science. In this term, we equate the issues addressed by the society and industrial world with information essential to initiate the research on the robotic technologies and sciences.