The goalof the 8th Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) is to exchange and stimulate research ideas to realize advanced d- tributed robotic systems. Technologies, algorithms, and system architectures will be presented and discussed during the symposium. DARS 2006 builds upon past successes and provides an exciting envir- ment for researchers to present and discuss their novel theoretical results, - plementations, and applications. DARS successfully took place in 1992, 1994, and 1996 in Japan (Riken, Wako), in 1998 in Germany (Karlsruhe), in 2000 in Knoxville (Tennessee, USA), in 2002 at Fukuoka (Japan), and in 2004 at LAAS in Toulouse (France). DARS 2006 will be held in the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science building. A total of 42 technical papers were submitted by authors from multiple countries. All the submissions were rigorouslyreviewed by the ProgramC- mittee. Of those submissions 24 were accepted. The overall outcome of the revision process is an excellent selection of papers that showcase the research in distributed autonomous robotics today. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved with the organization of DARS 2006. First, we would like to thank the members of the Program Committee, who did a thorough and conscientious job in reviewing a largenumber of papers.The members of the AdvisoryCommtitee providedinvaluablehelpandsupportthroughouttheprocessoforganizingthe conference. We warmly welcome all representatives from industry, government, and academia joining us in Minneapolis in July 2006.