The proceedings provide state-of-the-art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the area of mobile robotics and assistive technologies. The proceedings collected together peer reviewed articles presented at the CLAWAR 2013 conference. It contains a strong showing of articles on legged locomotion with numbers of legs from two onwards. There is also a good collection of articles on systems that walls climbing, poles balancing, and other more complex structures following the traditional of CLAWAR themes. In addition, the proceedings also cover the subject of robot-human interaction, which focus on a more "human" way of communicating with humanoid robots. As for human assistive devices, proceedings also cover exoskeletal and prosthetic devices, robots for personal and nursing cares to address the issues of ageing population in our society. Finally, the issue of the deployment of robots in society, it social and ethically consideration are also addressed in the proceedings.

This volume, Mechanical Design: Theory and Methodology, has been put together over the past four years. Most of the work is ongoing as can be ascertained easily from the text. One can argue that this is so for any text or monograph. Any such book is only a snapshot in time, giving information about the state of knowledge of the authors when the book was compiled. The chapters have been updated and are representative of the state of the art in the field of design theory and methodology. It is barely over a decade that design as an area of study was revived, mostly at the behest of industry, government, and academic leaders. Profes sor Nam Suh, then the head of the Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation, provided much of the impetus for the needed effort. The results of early work of researchers, many of whom have authored chapters in this book, were fundamental in conceiving the ideas behind Design for X or DFX and concurrent engineering issues. The artificial intelli gence community had a strong influence in developing the required com puter tools mainly because the field had a history of interdisciplinary work. Psychologists, computer scientists, and engineers worked together to under stand what support tools will improve the design process. While this influ ence continues today, there is an increased awareness that a much broader community needs to be involved."

The Fourth International Conference on Advanced Robotics was held in Columbus, Ohio, U. S. A. on June 13th to 15th, 1989. The first two conferences in this series were held in Tokyo. The third was held in Versailles, France in October 1987. The International Conference on Advanced Robotics is affiliated with the International Federation of Robotics. This conference was sponsored by The Ohio State University. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers was a cooperating co-sponsor. The objective of the International Conference on Advanced Robotics is to provide an international exchange of information on the topic of advanced robotics. This was adopted as one of the themes for international research cooperation at a meeting of representatives of seven industrialized countries held in Williamsburg, U. S. A. in May 1983. The present conference is truly international in character with contributions from authors of twelve countries. (Bulgaria, Canada, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, Peoples Republic of China, Poland, Republic of China, Spain, United States of America.) The subject matter of the papers is equally diverse, covering most technical areas of robotics. The authors are distinguished. They are leaders in the field in their respective countries. The International Conference on Advanced Robotics has always particularly encouraged papers oriented to the design of robotic systems, or to research directed at advanced applications in service robotics, construction, nuclear power, agriculture, mining, underwater systems, and space systems.