This paper introduces Japanese research program for experimental robotics. Part one describes an ongoing inter-university research program on intelligent robotics. The three year research program, supported by a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education, aims to study mechanisms for the emergence of robotic intelligence and autonomy. Adopting a tightly-coupled sensor-action approach, this program will tackle the theoretical foundations of machine intelligence, and experimentally study autonomous systems which perceive and behave in the real world. Part two discusses future directions for robotics, including issues, approaches and applications. Part three presents the author’s view on a paradigm change for robotics research, and sketches out his group’s R&D project, which aims at a break-through to blaze a trail for the robotics of the future.