This volume presents a collection of paperspresented at the 16th International Symposium of
Robotic Research(ISRR). ISRR is the biennial meeting of the International Foundation of
RoboticResearch (IFRR) and its 16th edition took place in Singapore overthe period 16th to 19th
December 2013. The ISRR is the longest running seriesof robotics research meetings and dates
back to the very earliest days ofrobotics as a research discipline. This 16th ISRR meeting was
held in the 30thanniversary year of the very first meeting which took place in Bretton
Woods(New Hampshire USA) in August 1983. and represents thirty years at theforefront of ideas
in robotics research.As for the previous symposia ISRR 2013followed up on the successful
concept of a mixture of invited contributions andopen submissions. 16 of the contributions were
invited contributions fromoutstanding researchers selected by the IFRR officers and the
programcommittee and the other contributions were chosen among the open submissionsafter peer
review. This selection process resulted in a truly excellenttechnical program which featured
some of the very best of robotic research.These papers were presented in a single-track
interactive format which enablesreal conversations between speakers and the audience.The
symposium contributions contained in thisvolume report on a variety of new robotics research
results covering a broadspectrum organized into traditional ISRR categories: control design
intelligence and learning manipulation perception and planning.
