It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome all participants of the sixth International Symposium on Fluid Power on behalf of our host, the Japan Fluid Power System Society (JFPS). The International Symposium on Fluid Power is one of the most important activities of JFPS, and has been held every three years since 1989 in Tokyo.
You may be interested to know that the number of applications for papers to this symposium was over one hundred and forty, from sixteen countries. I would like to express to all of you my sincere thanks for your valuable contributions to this meeting, particularly to all of those who have come to Japan from distant parts of the world.
The Japan Hydraulics and Pneumatics Society (JHPS) was founded in l970 as unique academic society for the field of fluid power engineering. The thirty-five year history of JHPS shows the development of fluid power engineering in research and industry. In 2001 we changed the name of our society from JHPS to JFPS. As indicated by this name change, we are extending our engineering field not only to include oil hydraulics and pneumatics but also to include water hydraulics, functional fluids, control engineering and system design engineering. In this symposium we have prepared sessions on new fluid power field, e.g. Water hydraulics, Fuctional fluids, Human-machine system, Micro/Nano machines, Medical and welfare equipment, beside the traditional hydraulic and pneumatic fields.
I would like to give a brief explanation of the activities of our society. The Society now has 11 honorary members, 1000 regular members, 220 student members and a corporate membership of 128. The main activities of the society are informational, educational and research activities.
The Journal of JFPS, published seven times annually including one web-based journal, presents a wide range of information to society members. The topics appearing in recent volumes cover a wide range of interests, i.e., advanced technologies and new possibilities of fluid power, advanced design and control methods of fluid power systems, application of information technology in fluid power systems, management of information in fluid power engineering, joint activities between the fluid power industry and academies, environmental problems associated with fluid power, projects in fluid power systems development and so forth. On the website of the society, you can access a database of newly published papers in journals, transactions and proceedings of fluid power engineering worldwide. In the transactions of JFPS, 41 research papers have been published in two recent volumes. In the spring / autumn annual meetings about 100 research papers and technical reports were presented.
Lectures and short courses are organized several times a year by the Society for engineers and students.
The research committees of the society are pursuing research activities. Five research committees are currently active and their research subjects are "Reliability of pneumatic components and systems", "Tribology", "System simulation tools", "Control methods" and "Functional fluid systems". And two research committees on "Water hydraulic systems" and "Motion base Systems" have finished their activity this year.
Since international exchange will become more and more important in the field of fluid power engineering, we hope to extend our cooperative activities with organization in other countries.
I sincerely wish that this week in Tsukuba will fulfill all your expectations from an engineering point of view.