Tokyo University of Science
Tokyo
Japan
Eiichi Yoshida received M.E and Ph. D degrees on Precision Machinery Engineering from Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo in 1996. He then joined former Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, later in 2001 reorganized as National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan. He served as Co-Director of AIST-CNRS JRL (Joint Robotics Laboratory) at LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France, from 2004 to 2008, and at AIST, Tsukuba, Japan from 2009 to 2021. He was also Deputy Director of Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems Research Center, and TICO-AIST Cooperative Research Laboratory for Advanced Logistics in AIST from 2020 to 2021. Since 2022, he is Professor of Tokyo University of Science, at Department of Medical and Robotic Engineering Design, Faculty of Advanced Engineering. He is Fellow of IEEE and RSJ, and member of SICE and JSME. He has published more than 200 scientific papers in journals and peer-reviewed international conferences.
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First, I have been passionately contributing to the RAS activities since 2023 as an AdCom member, not only for critical decision making as total RAS, but also in different boards in Technical Activities Board (TAB), Conference Activities Board (CAB), and Education Activities Board (EAB) established in 2024, as described in detail later in the accomplishment section.
Continuous commitment in editorship is one of my major qualifications. Through services as a Senior Editor in paper review board of major conferences such as ICRA and IROS, and IEEE T-RO journal as well, on top of impartial and fair evaluation for quality papers to be published, I made efforts for wider participation in the review process, by actively involving younger generations by recruiting them Associate Editors in such conferences.
In addition, I have not only strongly involved in organization of flagship conferences such as ICRA and IROS, but also eagerly served in organizing committees in focused medium-scale conferences like IEEE-RAS Humanoids as Editor-in-Chief of Conference Paper Review Board (2023-) and IEEE/SICE SII as General Co-Chair in 2019 to promote and disseminate research on humanoid robotics and system integration, respectively. Other services include focused activities as Chair of IEEE RAS Japan Joint Chapter and Co-Chair of IEEE TC on Humanoid Robotics. Recently, I worked in several evaluation committees for Fellow, Technical Field Award and Student Chapter of the Year Award.
I believe I am qualified to continue to serve as an AdCom member following these wide-range experiences in RAS activities to deal with various issues and make decisions, especially in technical activities, conferences and education, and their related matters.
As an elected member, I almost never missed AdCom meetings where importation decisions were made such as budget allocation and motions for efficient execution. I have also been actively involved in dedicated board activities of RAS through constant participation in regular meetings and contributed to the creation of new initiatives through close collaboration with Board VPs. Especially in TAB, I joined discussions on long-range planning to conclude the reorganization of whole process of evaluation and management of TCs so that they can focus on their dedicated activities in a sustainable manner, supporting the strong leadership of TAB VP. In CAB, I took part in discussions on sustainable model across PAB (Publication Activities Board) to reduce the load of editorial board members and reviewers while coping with increasing number of submissions and provided suggestions based on my long-year experience. Now we are converging towards continuous paper resubmission process for flagship conferences as a solution.
I have contributed to the organization of conferences sponsored by RAS in many ways. Especially In Conference Paper Review Board in RAS flagship conferences ICRA and IROS, I handled more than 100 papers each year as Senior Editor and contributed to fair and impartial decision through close communication with Associate Editor. I have been serving for ICRA Steering Committee as a starting member and played a required role for fair evaluation of bids for venue candidature and preparation of ICRA operation manual. As different contributions to those conferences, for instance, I was Award Chair of IROS 2022 and Exhibition Chair of ICRA 2024. With the committee members I succeeded in attracting over 120 companies and organizations in exhibition of ICRA 2024 to stimulate the involvement of robotics industry toward collaboration with academy. In my main research area of humanoid robotics, I have been playing a critical role of Editor-in-Chief of Conference Raper Review Board since 2023. I have been successfully managing the challenging task of managing overall review process in the tight schedule of 3 months from submission to decision notification, while maintaining the quality of the papers and responding to increasing interest in humanoid robotics at the same time.
Equivalent efforts have been dedicated to the flagship journal of IEEE Transactions on Robotics, handling more than 150 papers each year as Senior Editor, to preserve its high reputation and timeliness through quality reviews based on frequent exchanges with Editor-in-Chief. Throughout my 5-year term, I believe I could educate Associate Editors in younger generations who are expected to lead the journal editorial work in the future by closely communicating with them, by transferring the way of handling the review process based on the fundamental policy of impartial and timely evaluation to promote publication of original work in robotics community.
From 2004, I have been heavily involved in international collaborative research on humanoid robotics with France and Europe. Especially, joint research by equipping a humanoid robot platform (HRP-2) on both laboratories in Japan and France, to accelerate the progress by sharing and validating the results on the common hardware, leading to more than 100 co-authored papers. I have led several international joint projects and highly rated national projects mainly from Japanese public funding agency like JSPS, JST and NEDO. Those efforts resulted in such honors of Chevalier l’Ordre National du Mérite from French Government and Best Paper Award in Advanced Robotics Journal. My research on human motion reproduction by humanoid robots has been applied to standardization for performance of lumber-support wearable assistive robots. I served as Chairman of the Standard Development Committee Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) B 8456-1 “Personal Care Robots – Part 1: Physical Assistant Robots for Lumbar Support” that became effective in 2017. After it was adopted as ISO 18646-4 (2021) Part 4: Lower-back support robots based on continuous efforts from the former collaborators. Owing to those efforts in my research and applications, I had a chance to get invited as a keynote speaker in ICRA 2022 to talk about “Humanoid and Digital Actor as Cyber-Physical Twins for Understanding and Synthesizing Human Behaviors.”.
RAS offers a wide variety of activities, and during my past three-year term on AdCom, I have witnessed its continuous evolution in delivering greater value to its members and fostering community engagement. I have been particularly impressed by the dedication of volunteers and the remarkable expansion of initiatives supporting both academia and industry. If re-elected, I will continue to enhance these achievements, working closely with fellow committee members and IEEE officers to further elevate the global impact of our society.
Conference paper submissions have continued to grow, even with the significant expansion of journal publication opportunities. This has brought persistent challenges in maintaining the high quality of conferences while easing the burden on reviewers and editorial board members. I am in a unique position to contribute to solutions, as incoming Editor-in-Chief of IROS from 2026. I plan to advocate for a sustainable model that incorporates a continuous resubmission system and explores a unified or coordinated editorial board across major conferences. Additionally, fostering a culture of mutual support is essential: I propose a structured young reviewer and author program, where review participation becomes a recognized and valued contribution. Officially recorded reviews would serve as tangible acknowledgments, positively impacting early-career researchers’ professional development. By promoting these mechanisms, I will work to establish a healthy, virtuous cycle that encourages active participation in both publishing and reviewing, contributing to the long-term success of RAS events.
Encouraging international and industry collaborations remains a core interest for me. Robotics is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, and complementary partnerships are vital for advancing impactful research and innovation. An internationally diversified organism like RAS is perfectly positioned for such collaborations. I have been actively involved in the TAB, promoting initiatives to strengthen the role of Technical Committees (TCs). I have been heavily committed to TAB to set up a system for smooth management of TCs to promote such activities, for example eliminating endorsement letters for workshop proposals which became just formal. I will continue to work to promote TCs and their clusters as the basic platform to organize workshops on emergent technologies with possible evolutions to new conferences and to give rise to industrial collaborations by proactively inviting startups and related companies.
RAS must also look ahead with long-term strategies in areas such as conference formats, education, and standardization. Conference structures are rapidly evolving, factoring in environmental impacts, hybrid participation, and satellite events, especially in emerging regions. I will collaborate with the newly formed ICRA Steering Committee to shape sustainable and inclusive conference models. Education is another crucial mission, and I will support efforts in the EAB to update robotics curricula in line with technological advances. Lastly, with the rapid rise of humanoid robots, RAS should play a proactive role in standardization as a part of IEEE’s important missions. I will contribute to establishing safety and performance standards in collaboration with the Industry Activities Board (IAB), drawing on my experiences in Humanoids conference organization.
Primary Area: Humanoid Robotics and Human Modeling
Secondary Area: Motion Planning and control
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