RSJ   --- the Robotics Society of Japan --- The Robotics Society of Japan celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2002. What follows is the President's Message by myself, appeared in the November commemorative issue of Advanced Robotics. This Advanced Robotics is an official English Journal of the RSJ, nowadays 10 issues being published each year from VSP (an imprint of Brill Academic Publishers), the Netherland, under the editorship of the RSJ. President's message Celebrating our 20th Anniversary The Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) is a unique society that exclusively focuses on robotics, and it is now celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. First of all, I wish to express my deepest appreciation to you all, the readers of this International Journal - Advanced Robotics, for your continuing support of this journal and of our society. Thanks to the support from our friends in the worldwide robotics community, the RSJ has consolidated its position as one of the world’s leading scientific and technological societies over the past 20 years. A few years after the establishment of the RSJ, we started to publish this journal, and its 16th volume is now being issued. Owing to the contributors to date as well as the efforts of the past and present editors, the journal is now recognized as one of the most distinguished publications in the robotics field, gaining higher popularity and greater impact with an increasing number of citations. The main mission of the journal is, of course, the timely publication of high-quality original papers submitted from all over the world. For this, we are targeting the date of final decision to be within 20 weeks after the paper is received. We also understand that one additional role of the journal is to keep other parts of the world up to date on the cutting-edge of on-going robotics research in Japan. Another role is to select important papers from those presented at RSJ-sponsoring conferences and to widely circulate them in more detail. In the future, we are intending to expand our scope to various new application fields of robotics, ranging from factory automation to office automation and social automation. Advanced Robotics will thus be more beneficial to you by satisfying your ever-changing interests, needs, and expectations. Publication of the RSJ Journal in Japanese is another activity of our society. This journal gives our members the opportunity to renew their knowledge on the most recent robotics technologies as well as the opportunity to publish their works at the relevant time. By commemorating our 20th anniversary, the editorial board of the RSJ Journal made a considerable effort to collect historically outstanding papers published by RSJ members, and has published them as a DVD-ROM. More than 100 papers were selected from our own journals and from other sources. Together with these PDF-based original papers, related photographs and videos were also collected for inclusion. As a result, the DVD-ROM became a sort of historical museum of robotics research and development, and it was distributed to RSJ members as a memento of the 20th anniversary. Unfortunately, it is not on sale because of its limited publication; however, its introductory article can be found elsewhere in this issue. Holding various technical conferences and meetings to exchange new ideas between our members is also an important activity of our society. One typical conference is the annual RSJ Conference held every autumn, where more than 600 papers are usually presented and more than 1000 members gather. Awards of the year are given at its plenary session to authors for their excellent papers, to young researchers for their excellent presentations, and to enterprises for their outstanding developments of robotics-related products and systems. This year, we started a new fellowship program, under which some selected members, who made extraordinary contributions to our society and to our technological field, were rewarded at this conference. Besides this annual event, we co-sponsor more than 100 conferences and meetings each year by collaborating with other organizations. One typical example is the international conference, IROS, in which the RSJ actively takes part together with IEEE and SICE. The RSJ is also trying to encourage future young scientists and engineers, for example, by giving RSJ President Awards to championship winners at several national and international robot competitions. The RSJ is thus providing a wide range of services and opportunities, and is always trying to make them more lively and interesting for better serving our members and our friends in the worldwide robotics community. Thank you very much again for your contributions to date, and we appreciate your continuing support and cooperation for further improvements of Advanced Robotics and of our society over the next 20 years. Masakazu Ejiri President of the Robotics Society of Japan Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo