Research and Education in Robotics -- EUROBOT 2008

This volume contains the accepted papers presented during the International Conference on Research and Education in Robotics - EUROBOT Conference 2008, held in Heidelberg, Germany, May 22¿24, 2008. The EUROBOT C- ference 2008 was accompanied by the international amateur robotics contest EUROBOTopen ?nal, edition 2008. The success of both events convinced the EUROBOT Association Executive Committee of the conference¿s value. A fundamental aspect of EUROBOT is the promotion of science and te- nology among young students and researchers. Every year, a new theme for the roboticcupispublished.Thus,participantsarerequiredtobuildcompletelynew robots each year. Thethemefor2008was¿MissiontoMars.¿Thisresultedininterestingrobots as well as interesting papers for the conference. Posters about all competing robots were presented by the teams. There were 54 teams from 26 di?erent countries participating with their robots. In addition to the paper and poster presentations, there were three invited talks: ¿ Atsuo Takanishi, Waseda University, Japan, whose talk was about ¿- manoid Robotics and Its Applications¿. ¿ Oussama Khatib, Stanford University, USA, gave a talk about ¿Human- Centered Robotics¿. ¿ Vice-presidentofEUROBOTAssociationJacquesBallyandSecretaryDavid Obdrzalek informed the attendees about ¿EUROBOT¿ in general. The main program consisted of 33 selected regular papers, some of which are published in this Springer CCIS series. The selected papers were carefully reviewed by at least three Program Committee members and the ?nal decision was made by the Session Chairs.