This volume presents a collection of paperspresented at the 16th International Symposium of Robotic Research(ISRR). ISRR is the biennial meeting of the International Foundation of RoboticResearch (IFRR) and its 16th edition took place in Singapore overthe period 16th to 19th December 2013. The ISRR is the longest running seriesof robotics research meetings and dates back to the very earliest days ofrobotics as a research discipline. This 16th ISRR meeting was held in the 30thanniversary year of the very first meeting which took place in Bretton Woods(New Hampshire, USA) in August 1983., and represents thirty years at theforefront of ideas in robotics research. As for the previous symposia, ISRR 2013followed up on the successful concept of a mixture of invited contributions andopen submissions. 16 of the contributions were invited contributions fromoutstanding researchers selected by the IFRR officers and the programcommittee, and the other contributions were chosen among the open submissionsafter peer review. This selection process resulted in a truly excellenttechnical program which featured some of the very best of robotic research. These papers were presented in a single-track interactive format which enablesreal conversations between speakers and the audience. The symposium contributions contained in thisvolume report on a variety of new robotics research results covering a broadspectrum organized into traditional ISRR categories: control; design;intelligence and learning; manipulation; perception; and planning.