Édition spéciale sur les mécanismes, les machines et la mécatronique éditorial invité = Guest Editorial: Special issue on mechanisms, machines and mechatronics guest editorial

The Canadian Committee for the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms (CCToMM) was formally recognized as a national committee member of the International Federation for the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms (IFToMM) at the Third World Congress on Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, held in Dubrovnik in 1971. CCToMM, as a national committee member of IFToMM, shares the objectives of the latter, namely, the promotion of research and development in the field of Machines and Mechanisms by theoretical and experimental methods, along with their practical applications. Every two years since its inception in 1972, CSME sponsors a national forum, in even numbered years, to promote the communication and transfer of technology between mechanical engineering experts, now known as the CSME Congress. At these congresses, which are hosted by different universities across Canada, CCToMM has negotiated a symposium to be held as a parallel session. CCToMM began organizing its own biennial M (Mechanisms, Machines, and Mechatronics) symposia in alternating years (the odd-numbered years). In 1999, the first CCToMM M Symposium was held as a stand-alone one-day event, but has grown into an event requiring two days. In an effort to highlight the high quality of a number of the works presented in the symposium, CCToMM has established the practice of publishing selected papers from the symposia in special editions of the Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering. Continuing with this practice, this Special Issue presents eight papers selected from the proceedings of the 2011 CCToMM M Symposium hosted at McGill University in Montreal, QC, June 2–3, 2011. The symposium was co-chaired by Professors József Kövecses, Roger Boudreau, and Juan A. Carretero. Eighteen full papers and five extended abstracts were accepted for presentation and organized into seven sessions: Control; Dynamics I; Kinematics; Wire Actuated Parallel Manipulators; Dynamics II; Design and Implementation; and Wire Actuated Parallel Manipulators and Failure Analysis. All of the papers submitted to the 2011 CCToMM M Symposium were first subject to examination by at least two independent reviewers prior to the symposium. The eight selected papers subsequently underwent complete Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering peer-review. Acceptance into this Special Issue was based on completion of the reviewers recommended and mandatory changes and final examination by the Guest Editors.