This proceedings volume contains papers that have been selected after review for oral presentation at ROMANSY 2014, the 20th CISM-IFToMM Symposium on Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators. These papers cover advances on several aspects of the wide field of Robotics as concerning Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators. ROMANSY 2014 is the twentieth event in a series that started in 1973 as one of the first conference activities in the world on Robotics. The first event was held at CISM (International Centre for Mechanical Science) in Udine, Italy on 5-8 September 1973. It was also the first topic conference of IFToMM (International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science) and it was directed not only to the IFToMM community. Proceedings volumes of ROMANSY have been always published to be available, also after the symposium, to a large public of scholars and designers with the aim to give an overview of new advances and trends in the theory, design and practice of robots. This proceedings volume, like previous ones of the series, contains contributions with achievements covering many fields of Robotics as Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators that can be an inspiration for future developments.

The CISM-IFToMM Symposia have played a dynamic role in the development of the theory and practice of robotics. The proceedings of the Tenth Symposia present a world view to date of the state-of-the-art, including a unique record of the results achieved in central and eastern Europe.

In 1981 Robotics Bibliography was published containing over 1,800 references on industrial robot research and development, culled from the scientific literature over the previous 12 years. It was felt that sensors for use with industrial robots merited a section and accordingly just over 200 papers were included. It is a sign of the increased research into sensors in production engineering that this bibliography on both the contact and non-contact forms has appeared less than three years after that first comprehensive collection of references appeared. In a reviell''; in 1975 Professor Warnecke of IPA, Stuttgart drew attention to the lack of sensors for touch and vision. Since then research workers in various companies, universities and national laboratories in the USA, the UK, Italy, Germany and Japan have concentrated on improving sensor capabilities, particularly utilising vision, artificial intelligence and pattern recognition principles. As a result many research projects are on the brink of commercial exploitation and development. This biblio graphy brings together the documentation on that research and development, highlighting the advances made in vision systems, but not neglecting the development of tactile sensors of various types. No bibliography can ever be comprehensive, but significant contributions from research workers and production engineers from the major industrialised countries over the last 12 years have been included.

The Fourth International Conference on Advanced Robotics was held in Columbus, Ohio, U. S. A. on June 13th to 15th, 1989. The first two conferences in this series were held in Tokyo. The third was held in Versailles, France in October 1987. The International Conference on Advanced Robotics is affiliated with the International Federation of Robotics. This conference was sponsored by The Ohio State University. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers was a cooperating co-sponsor. The objective of the International Conference on Advanced Robotics is to provide an international exchange of information on the topic of advanced robotics. This was adopted as one of the themes for international research cooperation at a meeting of representatives of seven industrialized countries held in Williamsburg, U. S. A. in May 1983. The present conference is truly international in character with contributions from authors of twelve countries. (Bulgaria, Canada, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, Peoples Republic of China, Poland, Republic of China, Spain, United States of America.) The subject matter of the papers is equally diverse, covering most technical areas of robotics. The authors are distinguished. They are leaders in the field in their respective countries. The International Conference on Advanced Robotics has always particularly encouraged papers oriented to the design of robotic systems, or to research directed at advanced applications in service robotics, construction, nuclear power, agriculture, mining, underwater systems, and space systems.