The Italy-Japan Workshop: A History of Bilateral Cooperation, Pushing the Boundaries of Robotics

This article presents the experience of a longlasting collaboration in robotics between the countries of Japan and Italy. The diversity of the approaches to robotics research and technology in the two countries and, at the same time, the similarity of some social drives for robotics progress have created a stimulus for generating new thinking about robotics. Not only has this occurred at the main participant institutions of Waseda University in Tokyo and Scuola Superiore Sant?Anna in Pisa, Italy, but it has also happened worldwide. The authors present a summary of the Italy-Japan workshops, exploring topics on 1) humanoid robotics, 2) the application of robotics for exploration and rescue, 3) biorobotics, 4) the use of robots in education, 5) the ethics of robotics, 6) robotics for sports, and 7) robotics for the arts. The experience of the workshops represents an example of an open-minded approach to robotics that is grounded on social challenges, explored through multidisciplinary discussion. Such interdisciplinary research efforts deserve to be shared with the international robotics community. Indeed, this approach could be used as a base model to foster further international collaborations among countries as well.