The objective of this SGER grant is to provide partial travel support for selected U.S. university participants of the 2006 International Symposium on Flexible Automation (formerly known as the Japan-USA Symposium on Flexible Automation), which will be held in Osaka, Japan from July 10-12, 2006. The Symposium will consist of three days of technical presentations, panel discussions, and keynote speeches, followed by tours to major university research laboratories and industry production facilities in Japan. The approach for selecting the recipients of the travel support will be based on the following criteria: 1) Graduate student or faculty at a university in the United States, 2) Acceptance of the student and/or faculty member's paper for presentation at the 2006 International Symposium on Flexible Automation, and 3) Attendance and presentation of paper at the conference.
This NSF travel grant will play a critical role in enabling many researchers (faculty and graduate students) from U.S. universities working in the flexible automation field to attend the conference and learn about research, development, and implementation of flexible automation technologies in Japan and other parts of the world. With the growing importance of automation technologies to greater manufacturing flexibility and lower production costs, this conference will serve as an important educational forum for U.S. based researchers to exchange and benchmark new ideas in the automation field. It will also enhance the ability of the symposium organizers to attract top U.S. university-based researchers to contribute to the Symposium.
