Background

The International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR) is not a society, but rather a series of conferences directed by an International Steering Committee.  Although its roots can be traced back to a workshop held in Cambridge in 1989, the first official ICORR conference dates back to 1990 when it was hosted by the University of Delaware.  In 1992, it was decided that a biannual forum would be adopted. Conferences alternate back and forth across the globe using a pattern of presiding in America, Asia, America, Europe, America, Asia, and so on. Recent conferences have spanned the globe from California to Korea.

The concepts of looking at advanced robotics and mechatronic devices to assist people with moderate to severe motor impairments have been at the core of the ICORR conferences and this remains as true today as it was when the conferences first started. Although ICORR has always had a relatively small research domain reflecting the difficulty of the technical problems and the niche nature of the 'customers,' it was the realization that there were several groups working in this field without a common forum that spurred the creation of this conference series. 

ICORR has become a truly international event and it is thanks to the many sponsors over the years that we can report both the widening of scope of the conference to include recent advances in therapeutic applications of robotics as well as commercial results in the area of assistive robotics. These technologies are still in a very nascent form and it is only the small to medium-sized enterprise organizations that are able to push forward the commercial success of our results. Given the large amount of research that is still needed and the importance of bringing together this community of people from both the academic and commercial sectors, it is important to seek financial support from outside our immediate community.

One goal of ICORR 2005 is to retain a small profit that can be used as seed funds for the next ICORR. This will be the beginning of a fiscal backbone that should serve to initiate a new society. The field is changing and expanding at an exciting pace that should warrant a rehabilitation robotics society as well as a shift to an annual meeting structure.

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