Experimental Robotics VIII

STAREditor Preface The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) is a series of - annual meetings, which are organized in a rotating fashion around North Am- ica,EuropeandAsia/Oceania.PreviousvenueswereMontréal(Canada),Toulouse (France), Kyoto (Japan), Stanford (USA), Barcelona (Spain), Sydney (Australia), Honolulu (USA). The goal of these symposia is to provide a forum for research in robotics that focuses on theories and principles that are validated by experiments. Themeetingsareconceivedtobringtogether,inasmallgroupsetting,researchers fromaroundtheworldwhoareintheforefrontofexperimentalroboticsresearch. Thepost-symposiumExperimentalRoboticsproceedingshavetraditionallybeen published by Springer-Verlag. In addition to the proceedings, these symposia have produced compilation of video segments illustrating the reported research, which areavailableasvideoproceedings. The Eight International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER 02) was held in the charming sea village of Sant'Angelo on the island of Ischia in the gulf ofNaples,Italyon8–11July2002.ThesymposiumwaschairedbyBrunoSiciliano andPaoloDario.