The current control system for the robot is valid if its environment is precisely known, however, it is invalid for the unknown environment such as space investigation and disaster area. Although the subsumption architecture is famous that it is robust to the environmental change, it has some problems: the layer definition is unclear and the way to resolve the confliction among layers is unclear. We propose to use sensor information as layer definition. As a result, confliction among layers is basically not generated. The proposed method is applied to a mobile robot and numerical simulation results are shown.

In this paper, we control posture of end plate of motion reduction device with under-actuated parallel-link mechanism. This device forms 3-DOF planar parallel link and six-joint link mechanism equips only two linear actuators. Using of under-actuated parallel-link mechanism reduced number of actuators compared to general parallel-link mechanism. We propose whole system including ship and land with motion reduction device to improve stability under gravity and facilitate control. Whole system is possible to reduce sway of 3-DOF of the ship by two linear actuators. The effectiveness of motion reduction device is shown by simulation results and experimental results in small scale experimental equipment.

Compliant-parallel mechanisms is parallel mechanisms using flexible spring joints instead of general bearings and axes. This mechanism has high precision and can correspond to a clean environment. However, a stiffness at an output point changes involuntarily when an output point's position moves largely. Therefore, in this study, we present a redundant compliant-parallel mechanism with non-linear stiffness spring joints for controlling a stiffness at an output point passively. To analyze and identify this passive stiffness control, we derived a numerical deformation model of the redundant compliant-parallel mechanism and conducted experiments using a prototype. From the results, we identified that the presented mechanism has an ability controlling the passive stiffness control compared with a compliant- parallel mechanism with linear stiffness springs.

In this research, we propose a novel prismatic joint mechanism using folding. For a robot working with a human, a little interference with the environment is desired. Many prismatic joint interfere with the environment by outing the link on the side opposite to the working direction. The proposed mechanism reduce the interfere by folding the arm. The proposed mechanism also has some features. One feature is the high stretching ratio. By thinning plates of the folding arm, the stretching ratio will be high. In this paper, we describe the features, and confirm the effectiveness through an experiment to operate a heavy weight.

Posture optimization for the family of the kinematic redundant parallel robots with rotational mechanisms embedded in the moving part is proposed. Conventional modeling and analysis of this kind of parallel robot have focused only on the crank embedded in the moving part. In this paper, an integrated modeling and analysis not only for the crank embedded moving part but also pulleys, gears and rack and pinion embedded moving parts are proposed. The inverse displacement analysis and the Jacobian analysis of the family of the planar three dof kinematic redundant parallel robot are derived. Optimization algorithm without using the differential of the cost function is proposed. Numerical simulations confirmed the efficiency of the proposed modeling and analysis.

In this study, we propose a prototype test system for variable flexible spacecraft by using multi robots. The system is designed for gravity compensation of the prototype model of spacecraft which has deployable flexible structures. The system is composed of multi robots. Each robot has parallel mechanism to follow the fast motion of the structural vibration and deployment. The robots are controlled by the force control to support the structures as well as the decentralized autonomous control. Control performance by lower support of the structures is verified by numerical simulations.

An image processing method focusing saturation to recognize achromatic surgical tools such as forceps and energy devices in an endoscopic image has been developed. The proposed method could be used for semi-automatic control of a laparoscopic robot. It makes use of an extracting information for saturation from the HLS image, difference between channels of original RGB image, a masking process based on binarization, closing, removal of the boundary, labeling, and recognition of the point in the surgical tool. The point recognized in three laparoscopic surgical videos using this method were performed, and the recognition rate was 50 % for four conditions of surgical tools.

To prevent organ damage of gripping in minimally invasive surgery, force limiter for forceps gripper is demanded. However, when the limiter works, the gripping force increases because a usual force limiter employs a coil spring. This paper proposes leaf spring buckling for a forceps force limiter. The buckling force is almost constant against the displacement in longer direction of the leaf spring. The width of the leaf spring can decide the threshold of the force limiter. In simulation, I confirmed that the spring constant is 0.037 N/mm when the buckling force is 6.24 N. Though the buckling force in experiments was different from that in the simulation, the width of the leaf spring changed the buckling force.

In this paper, we report that a new master/slave system was constructed using patient-side system of ZEUS, which is developed by Computer Motion. This system can quickly evaluate the combination of ZEUS slave and various master devices. To build this system, MRLink, which is a medical robot architecture for connecting freely selected master/slave robotic devices, was used. We installed a custom control board in the ZEUS system and made it possible to switch either the signal of the original master or the command value from the PC with one switch.

In this study, a handle mechanism for a manual type cart operated by brakes is proposed. A transportation cart is used many situations to carry objects. When the payload is high, the operation of the cart is high physical load. A transportation cart with brakes to decelerate cart’s speed is released in the market. In addition, we focus on support of turning motion by using the brake for one side caster. Therefore, we develop a handle mechanism for performing the decelerating motion and the turning motion using the same brake, and confirm the operation of proposed mechanism from the experiment.

As an operation device for operating the robot arm, we developed an operation device using two 3 axis force sensors. This device is characterized by being able to operate with fingertip, enabling 6 axis operation and hand opening / closing operation. We could get stable detection of each direction, so we could realize to change the moving speed of robot arm corresponding operation load and operate slanting direction. By the experiment, we compared with YX and YZ circle coordinate system and trajectory coordinate system of moving robot arm by operating developed operation device. We confirmed them to satisfy moving of slanting direction and more intuitive operation.

This paper discussed the rehabilitation system for the hemiplegic person using the power assist hand. The power assist hand is the rehabilitation equipment for hemiplegic disabilities using bellows actuators. We developed the rehabilitation system which is composed of a power assist hand, image processing board and a microprocessor. The system recognizes the flexion or extension motion of healthy fingers based on the hand area in the image, the power assist hand moves according to the motion of healthy hand. The effectiveness of our system is demonstrated by several experiments.

This paper clarifies the characteristic about a psychological feeling of pressure that a Human tracked in the Human tracks such as robots receives from a movement object. In this experiment, I measure the distance that the subject feels dangerous by an electric wheelchair in room environment and corridor environment. I use three speeds by the speed conversion function of the electric wheelchair. I record distance on this occasion by Laser Range Finder. As for the result, as for the speed of the wheelchair and the distance that the subject feels dangerous, came to direct proportion-related. In addition, the distance that the subject feels dangerous that an indoor environment was longer than corridor environment.

In this paper, we developed a posture measurement system using an RGB-D camera for a stair climbing assistive system. In order for these assistive systems to be implemented in socially, it is necessary for these systems to be used at safe and optimum parameters for users. In this research, we developed the posture measurement system using an RGB-D camera and evaluated the skeleton coordinates in three dimensions.

The patients who lost their vocal cords caused by the laryngectomy have to lose their voice. The voice is very important communication method, the device for reproduction of voice is desired. As the typical speech assist devices are the electrolarynxes, and they are widely used. But these electrolarynxes have disadvantage in their controllability. We have been developing a novel artificial larynx having the functions of on-off control and pitch frequency control for speech impairments. In this report, we propose the new function as a control function of artificial larynx. When using this relationship function, it was possible to control the pitch frequency of the generated sound in three or two levels with higher accuracy than conventional functions. This result confirmed the neck myoelectric signal was suitable for the artificial larynx control.

3D scanning of an entire structure is performed by integrating measurements obtained from multiple viewpoints. Some additional measurements are required if there are unobserved regions of the target structure. Currently, viewpoints are empirically selected and therefore inefficient selection could happen. In this research, we propose a viewpoint selection method by which measurements of unobserved regions are efficiently performed. The method uses the ray tracing to calculate the visibility of unobserved regions from each viewpoint candidate and then repeatedly selects the best viewpoints. We carried out an experiment to evaluate measurement positions selected by the proposed method.

In recent years, many autonomous vehicles and mobile robots have been developed. They need to have a self localization capability, but using a laser sensor for self localization is costly. The purpose of this study is to develop a localization method using monocular camera and 3D map with laser reflectance. Laser reflectance has information of appearances of objects. We can add the appearances to a 3D map using laser reflectance data and compare a camera image with rendered images of the 3D map. We use the particle filter to localize the camera based on the comparisons of the camera image with rendered images of the 3D map from various viewpoints. As image feature used in the comparison, we use GIST feature and HOG feature. We evaluated a preliminary experiment for estimation. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can localize the camera.

This paper deals with the QR code based self-localization, which has been proposed by the authors. In this paper, the they newly introduce their novel implementation of the method as a node of ROS (Robot Operating System), and also show some experiment results.

Positioning accuracy of global positioning system (GPS) is deteriorates when non-line-of-sight (NLOS) GPS multipath signals are received in urban environments. Therefore, it is important to determine GPS satellite visibility and reject NLOS satellites from positioning calculation to improve positioning accuracy. In this paper, we focus on a GPS correlation waveform which is affected by multipath signals. To detect NLOS multipath signals, we use machine learning of GPS correlation waveforms. We use neural networks for machine learning to generate the NLOS discriminator. From the evaluations of proposed method, the accuracy of GPS satellite visibility determination by using the neural networks is 96.8 %. The positioning accuracy without NLOS signals is also improved compared with the conventional positioning method.

This paper proposes a method to construct a 3D map from images of interior pipes. The corrosions and cracks of old pipes are one of the causes of road collapsing. To prevent these accidents, it is essential to examine inside of the old pipes, and consider whether to repair or to replace them. This method consists of creating a development view, estimating motions by using optical flow, excluding outliers, and connecting development views. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the experiments such as connecting the development views.

We developed a system that can detect the glass wall for mobile robot using 3D point cloud by 3D-LIDAR. When the robot moves around a human living space such as an office or a home with glass wall and glass window, we need the glass detecting system. Glass has the property of transmitting light, but when laser is vertically applied, it is reflected by specular reflection and glass can be detected. The intensity of point cloud from received light is high at the center area. The intensity of point cloud at surrounding area is very low. This system used pattern matching of the point cloud of glass wall for detecting the glass wall.

The authors have proposed traveling wave type wall climbing robot simulating the snail moving method. This robot is composed of a plurality of units, each of which is adsorbed. Since units are connected by a universal joint, they correspond to curved surfaces. Proceed by propagating expansion and contraction between units when proceeding. In this study, we develop a negative pressure adsorption type traveling wave type wall moving robot capable of traveling on a nonmagnetic surface such as an airplane surface. As a friction switching method necessary for progression, we propose a friction switching method by opening and closing the gap. The usefulness of the friction switching method by opening and closing the gap is shown.

In a guiding robot, it is said that it is desirable to realize a guiding action like a human being. However, considering actually using a robot, the guiding robot is a robot and the user should also recognize it . Therefore, unlike the case where the follower is guided to a person, it is conceivable to take a conscious movement guided by the robot.In this research, we conduct research for guidance considering behavior of human robot. We verify the effectiveness by implementing the speed control matching the walking speed of the follower by the proposed method. Impression evaluation on behaviors of human robots and research on behaviors [2] are also being conducted, and by incorporating these indices into control, we aim to perform control considering the behavior peculiar to robot guidance.

In this research, we have been developed a field robot with behavior-based autonomous moving for labor-saving of forest industry. We focused on a behavior-based architecture as typified by Subsamption Architecture. In this paper, we describe a behavior-based autonomous moving system with decision of a destination autonomously to make the robot travel in the work space. An individual tree will be treated as landmark in an environment, and these treated as a vertices will construct a polygon which represents an unreached region for the robot. The system will guide the robot to make the polygon is divided.

Air conditioning equipment using duct piping plays a role of keeping the indoor air of various buildings clean. When dust in the duct is sent indoors together with ventilation air, it causes health damage such as allergy and asthma. Therefore, duct cleaning is necessary. However, the existing cleaning methods are inadequate for the Ducts having small diameter and many curved points, that are used in houses. Thus, to clean such ducts, we have developed a air duct cleaning robot for housing based on peristaltic crawling locomotion. The robot cleans by the cleaning unit, but the speed is slow. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a cleaning tool as a substitute for the cleaning unit and aim for speed up. After that, driving experiments and cleaning experiments are performed to evaluate the performance.

In this research, we are developing a robot platform that runs in a drainage aisle to automate the cleaning of drainage ditches in hygiene control of buildings handling food. In this paper, we report on experiments with automatic angle control algorithm using infrared distance sensor for autonomous cleaning.

Fire fighters are in danger at large fires and fire in large warehouses. Therefore, development of a compact water discharge robot capable of extinguishing activity is desired. However, existing small water discharge robots cannot lay hoses themselves. In the absence of the ability to lay hoses, it is necessary to pull and extend hoses. In that case the hose is caught the corner when the robot works in a narrow place. For this reason, it is necessary to load hoses on the robot and feed hoses synchronously with the moving speed of the robot. However, since the hose is connected by a fitting, ordinary rollers can’t overcome the fitting. Using a roller and a belt, we fabricated a mechanism to cross the metal fittings. We conducted an experiment to lay fire hose. As a result, we succeeded in laying six fire hoses.

Stickiness feel is important in Skin-care products. Although several studies have been made on quantification of stickiness feel of skin-care products by using peel force, the relation of both is still controversial. It has been recognized that stickiness distribution reflects stickiness feel. Therefore, as a first step we measured stickiness distribution of two products. The result shows a hypothesis that the ratio of stickiness in peripheral area to ones in center and middle area is related with stickiness (“betatsukanasa”) feel. It is necessary for further study to measure more products and be analyzed by statistical methods.

This study analyzes the recognition process of examining the texture of fine particles through tactile sensing using human fingers and aims at establishing the structure of texture recognition. Characteristic values of the tactile sensing are studied in order to investigate a relationship between tactile sensing and its verbal response. In this study, the SD method (Semantic Differential method) is used to execute the language estimation (the evaluation value) of fine particles. This paper is intended as an investigation of a feature of Kansei evaluation in mid-teens and mid-twenties using multivariate analysis.

In recent years, robotic devices equipped with robot hands are being put into practical use in various fields.

A sensor which is one of the elements constituting such a robot hand is very important in order to realize a stable operation. Even in the teleoperation system, the robot hand that can acquire more information makes it easier to perform an intuitive operation as if we are moving our hand. In this paper, we propose a triaxial magnetic tactile sensor using a Hall element and magnet which can detect the magnitude and direction of force applied to the contact surface mounted on the robot finger manufactured as a part of the development of robot hand for teleoperation.

In recent years, robot hands are used in the medical field. Therefore, if it is possible to actually convey the tactile sensation of the robot hand to the human hand, it is considered that more precise work can be performed. Ultimately, we are aiming for a system that can recognize the shape and the material of the touched object and the grasped object and faithfully reproduce it with the wearable device.

As the first step in developing the system, we have developed a wearable controller for use in teleoperation and propose a simple structure using an RC servomotor in order to inform the human hands that an object has touched.

In this paper, we propose a novel method to form a robot skin sensor by a piezoelectric material spraying technique. By spraying piezoelectric material and a pattern of electrodes, the robot skin is fabricated on a robot with 3D free form. We describe our method briefly, then report our piezoelectric film production method and a circuit was created to remove electrical noise, the frequency characteristics and the voltage sensitivity of the sensor fabricated on the plane were investigated. According to the results, we found that the sensor we proposed has performance that works well as tactile sensor.

The study presented in this paper used acceleration sensors to capture ground interaction data during city walk. We have analyzed the measured vibration signal and extracted some features of the ground on which study participants waled by wearing the sensors. This paper evaluates the prediction performance when study participants walked around in the city of Kyoto.

This paper presents a novel localization approach that simultaneously estimates a robot's pose and reliability of its estimation. To estimate the reliability, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is used as a decision maker for distinguishing whether localization has failed. The CNN, however, sometimes makes wrong decisions. To reduce influence of the wrong decisions, Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF) is employed. The reliability can be robustly estimated using the RBPF and it exactly describes successful and failure localization results. Exact performance of the reliability is shown through the experiments.

In this paper, an indoor acoustic localization method which uses cross-correlation function for evaluating likelihood is proposed. The proposed method utilize acoustic beacons deployed at known locations and an microphone array equipped on a localizing object. At first, cross-correlation functions of the microphone array elements were calculated for each beacon and normalized as probability density function. Secondly, likelihoods of the estimated location candidates were evaluated using the above-mentioned probability density function. Thirdly, the estimated location was calculated as weighted summation of the particles and likelihoods. The experiment was conducted with a mobile robot in indoor environment. The result showed that the proposed method is possible to estimate location at similar accuracy of previous method.

This paper presents a path smoother to smooth the sharp turns of 2D and 3D paths of UGVs and UAVs. The proposed algorithm can smooth the paths in real-time, and can be used with any of the path planners. The algorithm adjusts the curvature of smooth paths according to the obstacles in vicinity. The algorithm works for finding nodes on the robot paths and diffuses those nodes to fit curves for smooth traversal. The amount of diffusion of points is controlled by the position of the obstacles and the dimensions of the robot body. The method can generate smooth paths in real time.

In recent years, personal mobility vehicles represented by electric wheelchairs have spread to society as new means of transportation. On the other hand, the number of electric wheelchair accidents tends to increase. Within such a background, there is a lot of research on self driving as part of a driving support system aimed at reducing accidents. A personal mobility vehicle RT-Mover PType 3 is our vehicle for this kind of research. We improve the wheel part to speed up PType 3. And we prepare a mount base for a sensor on PType 3 for environmental recognition for self driving system. In addition, we introduce the current situation on building up the environment for self driving system.

The localization for automobile robot is one of the essential elements. The method for it uses registration using the surrounding geometric shapes by getting the point cloud from LIDAR. So, the estimation of the exact position using traditional methods is difficult in flat areas. This paper presents the method for robot localization using intensity of the ground. By getting features from differences in colors of road marker and materials such as grass and asphalt, our proposed method realizes exact registrations at environments with poor geometric features. The values of the intensity in the same place changes depending on the time and weather. The problem of changing values is solved by applying SLAM algorithm. SLAM algorithm locates itself by getting the point cloud at same conditions. Our proposed system estimates the exact position using the proposed method at environments with poor geometric features and use the traditional method at other places.

To realize robust localization of mobile robot, it is important to improve method of integrating position information from various sensors whose dependence on environment is different. The authors have proposed selective sensor fusion system based on similarity of distributions using particle filter. This paper mention the result of experiment for evaluating the proposed method.

Works in the large area such as farm work and inspection by conventional autonomous mobile robot takes a long time to complete, as the power supply is limited and affected by environment. We have been developing a far-reach tethered working tool between mobile platforms to solve such problems. The main components of the system are the following: a tethered tool, two mobile platforms, two wire winding mechanism (winches). In this paper, we propose grass cutting system in the large area as an application by the far-reach tethered working tool. Such system presents great advantages over existing devices as they are capable of efficient work in uneven terrain and ensuring the safety of the work. We show design of the tethered tool with the grass cutting device, which moves along the undulating of the ground surface. After addressing important design concept, we present a prototype model of the tethered tool for grass cutting. The tethered tool moves based on the motion planning using virtual impedance method and the distance information measured by the ToF ranging sensor. Laboratory-based tests were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the system. Experiment results showed that the tethered tool moved along the undulating of the floor and avoided obstacles.

In this paper, for high-place work robot, an omni-directional inverted pendulum mobile platform is shown. To show the ability of omni-directional motion platform with high center of gravity structure, the test drivings with a human riding are experimented. The vehicle with the saddle height 1.5[m] was able to move around omnidirectonally carrying a human whose weight is about 70[kg].

Today, the transportation of load in the home is done mostly by the human hands and there may hurt the body due to hard labor. Therefore, we propose a load carrying robot using belt conveyor mechanism for living space. The proposed robot consists of a loading unit, a storage unit, and a body unit. A belt conveyor mechanism is used for the loading unit. We model the belt conveyor mechanism and calculate the load force and load torque. To control the speed of the belt of the belt conveyor mechanism, the rotational speed of the motor is controlled by PID control. From the simulation results, characteristics of load torque and belt velocity are observed at several conditions. The belt velocity is controlled even changing the loading weight.

This paper describes a method of operating a pedestrian push button existing on a pedestrian crossing for an autonomous mobile robot. In this research, we constructed the system, designed and experimented the button pressing action, and evaluated the operation success rate against the road condition and the sunshine condition.

In recent years, with the increase in physical distribution volume, unmanned transportation robots are expected as an alternative means of transporting baggage in factories and warehouses. Development of a control system for cooperative transportation by multiple robots is important when the objects to be conveyed are long and exceed the size and the weight limit. We developed the control system for cooperative transportation using two robots independently driven by two wheels. In this paper, we implemented the cooperative transportation system with two mobile robots using ROS and conducted some experiments to draw a square with 1 m side by the center of the conveyed object.

Demands to use washing robots in pig houses are growing up. The robot washes pig beds using a long arm over fences from passages. The passage is narrow so that the robot must detect the fences and run along the fences with high accuracy. A laser range scanner is useful to detect fences because there are many kinds of fences. However, the noises occur to the measured values if there are obstacles behind fences. In this study, the distance between scanned points and a path of robot is calculated and it is utilized with a zoned minimum filter to extract points from fences. Then, the candidate lines are detected from the extracted points through Hough transform. To run along the fences, the robot calculates the self-posture and distance to the detected fences. This paper describes the above proposed method and reports experimental results of running along the fences.

As a method of tactile display on the touchscreen, electrostatic tactile displays have been developed. We held evaluation experiments of the magnitude of tactile sensation using an electrostatic tactile display. From the result, we proposed a model to predict the magnitude of tactile sensation from the results of simple input waveform.

We are developing thermal-radiation-based haptic display. The display controls temperature of the user's palm and displays some haptic-like sensation in the midair. In previous research we employ a halogen lamp for the lightsource. Thus the displayable range is limited to several tens of cm. In this paper we propose to employ laser for the lightsource instead of halogen lamp, implement the galvo scanning laser projector, and held a test of proposed radiation control method.

Recently, functional electrical stimulation (FES) have been applied to move human bodies. Control using FES is classified in open loop control or closed loop control. Open loop control cannot compensate for disturbances. Therefore, closed loop control is suitable for control of FES. Closed loop control of the various parts of the body using FES has been studied. However, closed loop control of finger joints using FES independently has not been reported. In this paper, we move index fingers by FES using closed loop control.

In recent years, applications using FES for healthy subjects have been reported. However, there exist individual differences in mobility when FES is used. In addition, the mobility identification experiment burdens the subject. In this paper, we examined the relationship between mobility and individual difference when FES is used. In the experiment, each six values were measured and their correlation was derived. Experimental results showed that the torque constant was unrelated to individual differences. It suggests that the extent of muscle development depends on the motility at the time of using FES.

We present buttock skin stretch device to induce force perception. First of all, we investigated whether shear force can be presented by skin displacement of the buttocks. As a result, it was confirmed that the magnitude of the perceived force transitions according to the deformation amount in a substantially linear relationship. In addition to visual stimuli inducing visual induced self-motion perception, we investigated whether acceleration self-motion perception can be modulated by skin deformation of buttocks. As a result, there was a significant difference in the sense of acceleration of self motion among some skin deformation amount conditions, and the sensation of acceleration of self motion was caused by the force perceived at the buttocks.