LAUSR

Control technology is one of the fundamental disciplines of robotics. The technology has been developed for over 100 years and has expanded in many research areas. In particular, control technology for networked and distributed robotics has been recently emerging thanks to the development of embedded systems andwireless communications. An example of networked and distributed robotics is a drone light show, which was presented in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020, where multiple drones are operated from the central computer located on the ground that controls multiple drones through wireless networks. This special issue presents the recent theory and practice of control technology applied to networked and distributed robotics. The issue collects a representative body of innovative theoretical contributions that have potential applications to networked and distributed robotics, as well as robotics applications that show the successful implementation of the recent theory of networked and distributed control. You will find valuable and promising relationships between control theory and robotics. Wewould like to thank all the authors submitting their papers to this special issue. We are also grateful to the reviewers for their valuable help in improving the quality of the papers. Finally, we appreciate Ms. Noriko Watanabe of Advanced Robotics for her excellent assistance.