The following special sessions will be organized:

• Human and Humanoid in Aging Society, 9/25
• Organizers: Yoshihiko Nakamura (Tokyo University)
• Audition I, II, 9/24
• Organizers: Tobias Rodemann (HRI-EU), Kazuhiro Nakadai (HRI-JP/Tokyo Tech.) and Hiroshi G. Okuno (Kyoto Univ.)
• Assistive robotics for functional therapy applications, 9/24
• Organizers: Christine Azevedo-Coste (DEMAR LIRMM/INRIA, Montpellier, France) and Bernard Espiau, (INRIA, Montbonnot, France)
• Sharable Robotic Ressources, 9/24
• Organizers: Tomomasa Sato (Council for Science and Technology Policy, The University of Tokyo, Japan) Paolo Dario(Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy Young Jo Cho (ETRI, Korea), Nobuto Matsuhira (Toshiba Corp., Japan), Eimei Oyama (AIST, Japan)
• Robotics and Cyber-Physical Systems, 9/24, (web link)
• Organizers: Jeff Trinkle, Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Bruce H. Krogh, Carnegie Mellon University