Chairman's introduction

Russia has a strong and long established track record in the aerospace, defence and specialist machinery sectors dating back to Soviet times where some 50% of their R&D effort was devoted to military applications. The key aims of this mission were to: (1) gain a better insight into the current state of the art in mechatronics applications; (2) study the core mechatronics technologies, skills and capabilities Identify specific mechatronics technologies, which could be transferred to the UK Identify any regulations/policy aspects governing the development of mechatronics applications; and (3) explore the future development of mechatronics applications from the Russian perspective. In addition to launching a written report, the findings of this mission are discussed through a series of presentations and panel discussions.