Effect of Robot Revolution Initiative in Europe – Cooperation possibilities for Japan and Europe

Next-generation robotics is based on transformation of the industrial robots to something that everyone can accept, teach and utilize. This utilization will be independent of the purpose (manufacturing, relaxation, nursing, disaster management, etc.) and user skills (children, experts, elderly, etc.). Researchers from all over the world are making progress toward simpler, more human-friendly programming of robots. Lately, a report in Japan has proposed the Robot Revolution Initiative (RRI), which shows the direction of research in Japan (and most likely in USA and Europe). This paper summarizes moments of the history of RRI from the authors’ perspective; describing the influence of the Japanese robotic research.