My views on recent trends in the strategy and practice of Japan's robotics research are briefly introduced. To meet ever-increasing public expectations, robotics researchers and engineers have to be more seriously concerned about robots' intrinsic weaknesses. Examples of these are power-related and reliability issues. Resolving these issues will increase the feasibility of creating successful new industry, and the likelihood of robotics becoming a key technology for providing a safe and stress-free society in the future.

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This article briefly overviews several robot middleware and other open network middleware, and introduces OpenRTM(Open Robot Technology Middleware), which we are developing to realize a open framework for modularization of robot technology, and makes a introduction of a trend of international standardization of robot middleware in OMG(Object Management Group).

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It is considered in engineering that one power source can operate one joint. However, support movement mechanism of living organism is multi joint movement mechanism. Considerably different from mechanical movement mechanism, two pairs of uni-articular muscles and a pair of bi-articular muscles are involved in it. In leg, movements observed in short run including leg idling, heel contact and toeing are operated by bi-articular muscles of the thigh showing strong legs to support body weight.
Pursuit of versatility in welfare robot brings its comparison with conventional machinery or industrial robot to the fore. Request for safety and technology allowing elderly people to operate the robot is getting stronger in the society. The robot must be safe when it is used together with other welfare equipment and simpler system avoiding difficult operation has to be constructed. Appearance of recent care and assistance robot is getting similar to human arm in comparison with industrial robot. Being easily able to imagine from industrial robot, mid-heavyweight articulated robot to support 60-70kgf combined with large output motor and reduction gears is next to impossible to be installed in the bath room. This research indicated that upper limb arm and lower limb thigh of human and animals are holding coalitional muscles and movement of uni-artcular muscle and bi-articular muscle conjure the image of new actuators.

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In order to build a kind of heterogeneous multi-robot system which can perform complex activities according to human requests, by means of a software platform, this paper proposes a frame-based knowledge model for heterogeneous multi-robot system. With this model, many heterogeneous robots are integrated into a single unit. The features of robots as well as other related users are described by the proposed set of frames/slots of the model. Particularly, with frame hierarchies organized by the ISA relations of frames, typical activities of this kind of heterogeneous multi-robot system, such as human-robot interaction, various behaviors of different robots according to human requests, etc., can be defined clearly. Based on this knowledge model, the defined heterogeneous multi-robot system can be implemented by a software platform. This knowledge model is adaptable for any kinds of robots and its independence to various kinds of techniques adopted by robots provides much convenience for a software platform to integrate and flexibly utilize these techniques for building a heterogeneous multi-robot system. In this paper, an actual heterogeneous multi-robot system is modeled by the proposed method. Its activities can demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed knowledge model.

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Recently, active researches have been performed to increase a robot's intelligence so as to realize the dexterous tasks in complex environment such as in the street or homes. However, since the skillful human-like task ability is so difficult to be formulated for the robot, not only the analytical and theoretical control researches but also the direct human motion mimetic approach is necessary. In this paper, we propose that to realize the environmental interactive task, it is insufficient to replay the human motion along. We show a novel motion generation approach to integrate the cognitive information into the mimic of human motions so as to realize the final complex task by the robot. As a detailed example of the task, we consider on how to carry up a human by cooperating two hands.

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This paper describes a system which uses a mobile manipulator located in a library as a teleoperated tool for browsing books from a remote location via the Internet. In the process of developing this system, we designed and built a robot system, specially equipped for the accomplishment of browsing determined books, which is mainly categorized by 3 basic goals: (1) picking up the book by using a manipulator, (2) opening the book and (3) turning pages by a developed browsing device. Likewise, this paper also describes the human interface by the integration of Internet technologies, and summarize some considerations about the system.

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More sensors do not necessarily result in more appropriate state descriptions, so that a mobile robot has to select an appropriate set of sensors besides learning a state-action function in a reinforcement learning environment. We present a multi-armed bandit formulation of the problem and apply it to mobile robot navigation task. We modified the reinforcement comparison method to suit our problem and build a system where the selection of optimal set of sensors and the learning of state-action functions are done simultaneously. Our approach is evaluated on a Khepera robot simulator and the results reveal that our approach works well as an integrated learning system to identify the best set of sensors and reduce learning time.

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The multiplier and divider used for specific hardware of public key cryptosystem arithmetic are constructed from many adders and subtractors to improve the accuracy of the key. However, with the increase of accuracy, the propagation delay problem becomes unavoidable. Although some paper have proposed that a divider using redundant binary representation is effective to cope with this problem, no considerations were given to the problems of rounding error and accuracy of the remainder. This paper proposes a method, based on inherent bit sliced architecture, that can cope with these problems and that is expandable to any level of accuracy. It is expected to make it applicable to hardware for public key cryptosystem that can be flexible in coping with the expansion of the key string and the variable length key.

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A photochemical polymerized optical pH-sensor system was fabricated. The portable sensor system consists of a blue LED for exciting the optical source and metal packaged photomultiplier tubes for detecting fluorescence. As an acidic indicator, Fluorescein sodium salt was used. Intensity of the fluorescent emission was proportional to the pH value of the acid solutions used. 5-Carboxyfluorescein was used for an alkaline indicator. However, intensity of the fluorescent emission was decreased as the pH value of the alkali solutions increased. We accomplished to measure pH from pH 3 to pH 10 by subtracting output voltages from two kinds of sensors. Using the pH multi-measuring system, we succeeded in pH-measurement during alkaline solutions are spreading.

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This paper presents the visibility ordering of several web-safe colors. The research of web site visibility is important because of the rapid dissemination of the World Wide Web. The combination of a foreground color and a background color is an important factor in providing sufficient visibility. Therefore, the rating of color combination visibility is necessary when developing accessible web sites. In this study, the visibility of several web-safe color combinations was examined using psychological methodology, i.e., a paired comparison. Eighteen chromatic web-safe colors were employed for visual stimuli. Nine students ranging from ages 21 to 29 (average 23.7) were recruited, and all were with normal color sensation. These nine subjects looked at two different colored characters simultaneously on the white background and were instructed to identify which one enabled them to see more clearly. In examining the relationship between the psychological rankings of the color combinations and the visual sensations, each color combination was first scored as to the visibility by Thurstone's paired comparisons technique. Secondly, the visual sensation was deduced by applying Weber-Fechner's law to the luminance of the foreground colors. As results, the luminance of a foreground color influenced the visibility; however the visibility rating is difficult only using the luminance of web-safe colors. These indicate that the chromaticity and chroma saturation are necessary in rating of chromatic web-safe color visibility.

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We examined the event-related coherence of magnetoencephalography (auditory 40-Hz response) while the subjects were presented click acoustic stimuli at repetition rate 40Hz in the ‘Attend' and ‘Reading' conditions. MEG signals were recorded of 5 healthy males using the whole-head SQUID system. The event-related coherence was used to provide a measurement of short synchronization which occurs in response to a stimulus. The results showed that the peak value of coherence in auditory 40-Hz response between right and left temporal regions was significantly larger when subjects paid attention to stimuli (‘Attend' condition) rather than it was when the subject ignored them (‘Reading' condition). Moreover, the latency of coherence in auditory 40-Hz response was significantly shorter when the subjects paid attention to stimuli (‘Attend' condition). These results suggest that the phase synchronization between right and left temporal region in auditory 40-Hz response correlate closely with selective attention.

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Seismic electromagnetic (EM) phenomena have been observed at many laboratories with specially designed systems. Recently we can utilize radio receivers, personal computers and communication systems with higher performances and reasonable cost. It is possible to observe seismic EM phenomena not only by specially designed systems but also by a simple observation system integrated by these devices and systems. So, we have realized an observation system for seismic EM phenomena with them in very high frequency (VHF) band, from 76MHz to 90MHz, assigned for FM broadcasting exclusive use in Japan. We are surrounded with many EM waves such as broadcasting, communication usage and manmade-noises. So, we have newly developed the dual frequency observation method. In this paper, we describe that the observation method can identify whether a received signal is a broadband EM wave or an artificial FM radio wave. Next, the observation results are shown as broadband EM waves of galactic noise and solar flare. Then, the observation results are shown as FM radio waves reflected from sporadic E layer and the Leonid meteors. Finally, the observation results of the detected broadband EM waves associated with the Geiyo earthquake are described.

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This paper proposes a method to measure the two-dimensional pose of an object by using vote processing based on geometrical features between edge pixels pairs. The proposed method can measure the set of location, inclination and scale of an object even if the object has a free pose in an image. In the template registration process, the geometrical features and the gray-levels information about all edge pixels pair are registered into the template table. In the matching process, not only the geometrical features but also the arrays of gray-levels between the edge pixels pair are used for the matching. The reliable pose measurement may be expected even if the environment of illumination is changed because the method uses the normalized gray-levels information of the internal region of the object for matching. The experimental results show that the poses of objects with free locations, inclinations and scales were measured successfully by the proposed method.

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Extraction of human regions is an important research theme in the scene image analysis. The general conventional method to find human regions in a scene image is to evaluate the difference of gray-levels by pixels between the current frame and the registered background image without humans. However, chairs and books may be often extracted as the moved objects when a scene image in such a library is monitored. On the other hand, human regions cannot be extracted when they have few movements by the conventional method that evaluates the difference between the current frame and the previous frame. This paper proposes a method to extract human regions in a scene image by evaluating the differences of the density slope vectors at all pixels. The background image is not required for the proposed method. The experimental results show that the human regions were extracted successfully even if the persons sat down on the chairs without movements.

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This paper aims to propose a new scheme for robust tagging for landmark definition in unknown circumstance using some qualitative evaluations based on Orientation code representation and matching which has been proposed for robust image registration even in the presence of change in illumination and occlusion. Necessary characteristics for effective tags: richness, similarity, and uniqueness, are considered in order to design an algorithm for tag detection. These qualitative considerations can be utilized to design simple and robust algorithm for tag definition in combination with the robust image registration algorithm.

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In this article, we describe a Web browsing method with an automatic color correction (palette changing) for personal user's visibility. Especially we describe a paired comparison test and SOM (Self-Organizing Map) analysis for achromatic character colors and chromatic background colors. We are implementing and evaluating a web application system for this method as CGI (Common Gateway Interface) software on a HTTP server of the Internet. Since a user profiling is required beforehand for every user, we considered about this problem with SOM.

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Neural networks (NNs) can solve only a simple problem if the network size is too small, on the other hand, if the network size increases, it costs a lot in terms of memory space and calculation time. So, we have studied how to construct the network structure with high performances and low costs in space and time. A solution is a multi-branch structure. Conventional NNs use the single-branch for the connections, while the multi-branch structure has multi-branches between nodes. In this paper, a new method which enables the multi-branch NNs to have localized property is proposed. It is well known that RBF networks have localized property that makes it possible to approximate functions faster than sigmoidal NNs. By using the multi-branch structure having localized property of RBF networks, NNs could obtain high performances keeping the lower costs in space and time. Simulation results of function approximations and a classification problem illustrated the effectiveness of multi-branch NNs.

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Adaptive Manifold Self-Organizing Map (AMSOM) is an evolution of Self-Organizing Maps, where each computational unit defines a linear affine subspace (manifold). The affine subspace in a unit is represented by a mean vector and a set of basis vectors. After training, these units result in a set of affine subspace detectors. In complex situations, however, these are not enough to describe a class of patterns because of its linearity. In this paper, the AMSOM in the high-dimensional space with reproducing kernels, referred to as Nonlinear Adaptive Manifold Self-Organizing Map (NAMSOM) is proposed in order to achieve efficient classification and visualization of relations between classes. By using the reproducing kernels, linear affine subspaces in the AMSOM can be extended to nonlinear affine subspaces easily. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, it was applied to face recognition under varying pose as a practical example.

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In this paper, in order to investigate the effect of cogeneration spread senario in electricity market we constructed a multiagent model of an electricity trade market with distributor and power generator agents. In this model, we analyzed the effect of reducing generators' surplus facilities to market price formation and stability through some computer experiments. As a result of the experimental simulations, the market price was decreased by the increase of sell bids according to the demand reduction by congeneration spread, and by the increase of commercial use of cogeneration facilities, the market price was more economical and stable because such agents supplied more electricity generated by surplus cogenerations. However, if power generators diminished power generating facilities in the situation that distributors' cogeneration facilities were not major; the fluctuation of market price took large. We confirmed that cogeneration spread played the important role for stabilizing market price formation.

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Recently considerable cars are equipped with driver support system as Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV). In the circumstances, close cooperation between the system and human becomes important for safety driving. One of its effective solutions is a monitoring of driver's action by the vehicle or the system to know his/her state. But driver's state is partially observable from the outside. We think that an estimation of internal state of driver's cognitive process is essential for the effective and safety driving support in future.
In present study, we construct a cognitive model of the driver and try to reproduce driving behavior of humans to evaluate feasibility of methodology for the estimation of internal information processing for driving and other internal or external factors that affect on the driving. We focus on a steering operation and an eye movement of the driver and try to simulate these behaviors from observable information. We show that an occurrence of interferential factor for driving can be detected by evaluating outputs of the model and show a possibility for estimating information processing elements of driver's internal state.

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An incentive attached peer to peer (P2P) electronic coupon system is proposed in which users forward e-coupons to potential users by providing incentives to those mediators. A service provider needs to acquire distribution history for incentive payment by recording UserIDs (UIDs) in the e-coupons, since this system is intended for pure P2P environment. This causes problems of dishonestly altering distribution history.
In order to solve such problems, distribution history is realized in a couple of queues structure. They are the UID queue, and the public key queue. Each element of the UID queue at the initial state consists of index, a secret key, and a digital signature. In recording one's UID, the encrypted UID is enqueued to the UID queue with a new digital signature created by a secret key of the dequeued element, so that each UID cannot be altered. The public key queue provides the functionality of validating digital signatures on mobile devices. This method makes it possible both each UID and sequence of them to be certificated.
The availability of the method is evaluated by quantifying risk reduction using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). And it's recognized that the method is better than common encryption methods.

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In spite of the spread of personal computer, amount of office papers to be used does not have tendency to decrease. In general, the used papers are withdraw and recycled in order to preserve the environment. If used papers could be reused repeatedly without withdrawing those, it is very convenient. So, we try to remove toner from used papers using some kinds of laser, and concluded that second harmonic YAG laser was one of useful laser.

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This paper proposes an object-based VRML interface that can reduce the burden of both users and developers. In order to automatically generate the object menu, a new VRML node type that defines the names of objects in a scene graph is introduced together with the methods for real-time control of an active viewpoint node.

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This paper describes an adaptive strategy for tuning the parameters of the PSO method based on an analysis of the dynamics of PSO. This adaptive tuning strategy is based on the results of an analysis of the dynamics of average velocity of the particles with successful search processes. The feasibility and advantages of the proposed adaptive PSO method are demonstrated through numerical simulations using a typical global optimization test problem.

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