In plastic injection molding (PIM), warpage should be minimized for high product quality whereas cycle time should also be minimized for high productivity. Process parameters such as melt temperature, packing pressure, and cooling time strongly affect both the product quality and the productivity, and it is important to determine the optimal process parameters. This paper proposes a method to determine the optimal process parameters for the warpage and the cycle time minimization. Variable packing pressure profile that the packing pressure varies during the packing phase is adopted. Three dimensional cooling channel is also used for the warpage and cycle time minimization. Numerical simulation in the PIM is so intensive that a sequential approximate optimization is used to identify the pareto-frontier. Based on the numerical result, the experiment using the PIM machine is carried out. Through the numerical and experimental result, it is confirmed that the proposed approach is valid to the warpage and the cycle time minimization.

In most semiconductor manufacturing processes, wafers are processed in vacuum. To ensure fabrication with high precision, optimal wafer temperature control is demanded during such processes. This paper proposes design guidelines of contact surfaces for robust heat transfer with respect to the disturbance caused by fluctuation in the contact pressure in vacuum. The characteristics of thermal contact conductance simulating typical wafer chucking conditions, such as electrostatic-chucks, were evaluated in the vacuum chamber. The results clarified that robust heat transfer performance was achieved with respect to the disturbance caused by fluctuation of contact pressure by designing the contact surface in such a way that the gas flow met the free molecular flow condition, and the gas was maintained at a high pressure within the condition. In addition, the method deriving the direct contact and gas component values from the experimental thermal contact conductance was examined, and its validity was confirmed by comparing with theoretical values.

In this paper, improved 2K-HV planetary gear train (PGT) as a mechanical infinite variable transmission is introduced and evaluated by driving tests. 2K-HV PGT with universal joint introduced in the previous paper has lots of problems due to its structure. The alternative system is designed in this paper, major problems were solved and it has clear advantage over conventional 2K-H PGT. The improved 2K-HV PGT has bevel gear boxed carrier like a differential gear box for a vehicle, to make its rotation axis and revolution axis concentric. Clear design guide and several caution are shown in this paper. The proposed system has clear advantage regarding to frequency problem, that planet gear rotation speed which causes meshing frequency and meshing noise is reduced to one-third in 2K-HV compared to 2K-H. The sound pressure level of meshing noise is also reduced by 5dB. On the other hand, bevel gear box could be the bottle neck of proposed 2K-HV PGT. Careful design is required on the bevel gear in the bevel gear boxed carrier.

Rice-duck farming is a well-known environmentally friendly rice cultivation. Ducks swim around the paddy field, eat weeds and insects, and release waste into the paddy field thus improving soil fertility resulting higher yields. The objective of this study is to realize "artifact-animal collaboration" in rice-duck farming. An autonomous mobile robot automatically guides a duck flock to weed area and ducks eat weeds effectively. Effectiveness of imprinting after critical period and effectiveness of feeding and auditory stimulus are evaluated through imprinting and guidance experiments in comparison with findings in the field of ethology. Finally, effective guide functions, design requirements and operational conditions of the autonomous mobile robot are clarified.