Message from the General Chairs
It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC).
Reflecting the growing trend in haptics, this year’s conference received the largest number of technical paper submissions in the last ten years. Strict review was necessary, even for hands-on-demos and work-in-progress papers which had the largest number of submissions in WHC history. We are sure the high-quality papers and demos which have undergone the competitive peer-review process will inspire fruitful discussions, and provide hints of new development.
While continuing the tradition of WHC as the premier haptics conference, we implemented new programs at this year’s event. First, based on its great success at the Haptics Symposium 2018, we introduced the Cross-Cutting-Challenge (CCC) to WHC. The CCC committee discussed the most attractive themes of current and future haptics, inviting top-tier researchers as keynote speakers and panelists. Second, we decided on a new presentation style for technical papers, incorporating the advantages of both oral and poster presentations. Presenters use monitors with posters in individual booths, sharing their work interactively with audiences. Third, we organized the Haptic Design Showcase, reflecting the importance of haptic product design. In addition to these new ventures, the Transactions-on-Haptics (ToH) session will continue, providing the opportunity to present high-quality ToH papers. On the first day of the conference, you can participate in workshops on a variety of topics, as well as a technical tour of the University of Tokyo. A banquet will be held in a Japanese-style garden, Meiji-Kinenkan. Here you can enjoy Ikebana, the traditional Japanese art of flower arrangement. The flowers will be beautifully cut and arranged in front of you, which, in a way, is real-time haptics art.
This conference is supported by the hard work of the organizing committee chairs and members, the conference editorial board and all the associate editors and reviewers, WHC steering committee members, and the company sponsors who contributed financially to this conference. It is hard to find the words to express our gratitude to them.
We are fully convinced that WHC 2019 will provide the best place for haptics people, from academia to industry, to exchange knowledge. We cordially hope that all of the attendees will have productive and enjoyable experiences.
