This paper describes the application of Japan’s most advanced unmanned construction technologies to disaster recovery operations. These technologies were originally R&D focused, but have continued to become increasingly sophisticated with invaluable real-world applications. This paper focuses on robotic and autonomous operations and ultra long-distance remote control. We detail unmanned construction equipment and systems operating in radiation-contaminated environments and examine the effectiveness of monitoring-image technology in improving the operational safety of construction machinery. Finally, future directions and prospects are described.

Seal robot PARO is a neurological therapeutic robot for non-pharmacological therapy and, such as animal therapy, has no negative side effects. It has therapeutic effects on those from children to the elderly, particularly those with some cognitive impairment. PARO is used for two reasons. One is for activities to enable users to enjoy using PARO. The other is for medical therapy for specific patients with goals. In this paper, we detail the results of clinical experiments done on those mostly diagnosed with dementia. Experiments were conducted with PARO used for both cognitive and physical rehabilitation, in which PARO was used in activities and in therapy. Both types of cases showed positive effects in therapy and a reduction in the use of antipsychotic medications.

Since Denso started its Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) in the mid-1970s, we have continued to develop it in order to stay competitive in the face of market fluctuations. In this paper, we present a typical new production system that was developed at the end of the 20th century. One characteristic of this system is that it has a longer life and lower facility life cycle cost than do other production systems in existence. We think this system has high potential in terms of production innovations. Since one of the most important devices for FMS is the robot, we hope this paper will be a guide for new production systems and new device development.

As a disaster-prone country, Japan has endured many earthquake disasters. The latest cases include the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake disaster, the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu earthquake, and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. Since the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in particular, many robot researchers have started undertaking the research and development of rescue robots. Their practical applications have a long way to go, so to continue ongoing robot research and development, we should also be aware that comparatively few researchers and engineers are actually engaged in such research and development. Great earthquakes (or tsunami) are both rare and unpredictable, which makes it very difficult to establish research policies for rescue robots intended for specialized use in disaster response.

We should also realize that Japan is almost constantly hit by one or another every year – e.g., the typhoons that hit Japan directly every year and themselves triggering other disasters caused by landslides or avalanches due to heavy rainfall. The Japanese populace is so accustomed to such happenings but, nevertheless, few actions have been taken unlike those against large-scale earthquakes. It is often said that an effective disaster response system can only be developed after we have experienced many actual disasters. It then occurs to us that we must first construct disaster response systems – rescue robots, etc. – directly targeting daily natural disasters. Any large-scale disaster response system can be built on such constant efforts.On the other hand, any disaster response system against daily natural disasters could only be developed by locally domiciled researchers and engineers. This makes us feel that it is possible to increase the number of personnel who become involved in disaster response research and development.

Based on the above context, this special issue provides a wide range of articles on region-specific disasters and disaster response actions, focusing on their localities and specialties. We sincerely hope that this special issue will help in promoting research and development on rescue robots and putting them to practical use.

Typically, volcanic eruptions cause heavy damage in its vicinity area, and the eruption often continues for years. During this period, a restricted area is set up in the vicinity of the crater, in order to ensure the safety of people. Therefore, it is important for mitigation of volcanic disaster to realize observation of the eruption and mudslide-control construction based on teleoperation-type robotic technology. To promote development of such technologies, various types of volcano exploration robots have been researched and developed in Japan and overseas. With regard to volcanic observations, this paper presents conventional methods for volcanic teleoperated observation, and discusses technical issues and research topics for the future technologies, particularly, mobile robotics and flying robotics. With regard to mudslide-control construction, the paper describes the teleoperated construction system that has been developed at Fugen-dake of Mount Unzen, and discusses technical problems in current unmanned construction system to be solved in the near future.

This paper addresses records of natural disasters occurring in Japan’s Kyushu region. Kyushu, from north to south, is the site of frequent natural disasters – typhoons, heavy rains, volcanic eruptions, etc. The first half of this paper reviews volcanic disasters focusing on Mount Sakurajima in Kagoshima Prefecture. The second half reviews water disasters caused by typhoons and torrential rains, such as the August 1993 Heavy Rainstorm in Kagoshima Prefecture, the July 2009 Chugoku-Northern Kyushu District Heavy Rainstorm, and the July 2012 Northern Kyushu District Heavy Rainstorm. The possibility of using robot technology to reduce damages is considered, as is that for disaster measures.

In anti-disaster robotics, it is important to identify problems specific to a target disaster and examine what technological problems remain in the identified problems. In this paper, the results of a survey on a disaster caused by torrential rains that occurred on the Kii Peninsula, Japan and of a study on the existing technological problems of robots are presented.

This paper reports on the characteristics of disaster problems in the Tokai region of Japan, especially the Aichi Mikawa and the port of Nagoya industrial waterfront areas. The problems experienced in the mountains, the river basin, and the crowded manufacturing industry area on the seaside and inland are discussed. This paper proposes solutions utilizing robot technologies for each of the problems faced in disasters.

Robot technology is expected to be applicable to missions on rough terrain, such as rescue activities, environmental investigation, and planetary exploration. Tracked vehicles are effective in such environments because the contact pressure of the vehicle can be distributed more widely. To improve mobility, new mechanisms such as serpentine tracked vehicles have been proposed. We previously proposed the flexible mono-tread mobile track (FMT). The first prototype, WORMY, had a mechanical problem when it moves flexing, i.e., track belt interference and derailing. This paper proposes and confirms a new FMT design strategy using a layered structure to reduce space between vertebrae, solving derailing. A new prototype using the layered structure confirmed its mobility. We also used the prototype to evaluate the effectiveness of passive retro-flexion against obstacles.

The small mobile search robot we proposed in a previous study is driven by a pair of flexible shafts and is used effectively for searching rubble to find victims, e.g., of an earthquake. The robot weighs relatively little because it does not have any power unit on it. It may be kept from moving forward, however, if the flexible shafts catch on obstacles. We propose a new small search robot consisting of plural driving wheels connected by flexible shafts. This robot drags the flexible shafts along the ground easily using driving wheels. We designed the robot to connect its driving wheels using a pair of flexible shafts. We consider a differential gear suitable for the drive transmission and confirm the robot’s propulsion and turning in experiments.

This paper presents Anchor Ball, a thrown device with a tether for use safely and quickly in search and rescue operations in dangerous situations. To enable the Anchor Ball to stick to various types of walls, the principle of suction inspired by octopus suckers is introduced, which is composed of a multiple-holed surface for indirect suction and an adhesive elastic film for the seal. A shape-adaptive structure with adjustable stiffness is also introduced to help the Anchor Ball stick even on rugged surfaces. After the characterization of the Anchor Ball is described, the effectiveness of the proposed methods is verified by demonstrating inspection inside a building by combining with Fluid Powered Ropeway which enables to carry the exploration apparatus along with the flexible tube, which is shown in videos at the website [a].

A virtual reality (VR) simulator is developed to aid in advancing teleoperated construction machines for disaster response work. VR simulators, which can measure arbitrary data, allow the operator to reproduce desired situations repeatedly, and change the machine and environmental configurations more easily than is possible in real environments, can create teleoperation technologies and quantitatively evaluate them, and can improve operational skills in complex disaster response works. As basic components of a VR simulator, a VR environment, operation-input, and video-output components are developed. The VR environment is built using a basic graphics library and dynamics engine for simplification. The operation-input component consists of control levers for a demolition machine that has a grapple and environmental cameras with yaw, pitch, and zoom functions. The video-output component consists of a two-dimensional monitor that can display an in-vehicle camera view, multiple environmental camera views, and the machine status. Experiments conducted show that operators can adequately transport debris in the VR environment while watching views on the monitor from the in-vehicle and environmental cameras. The experiments also reveal the characteristics that reduce the machine’s time efficiency.

During ambulance or stretcher transport, subjects experience vibration causing discomfort or pain. Measures must thus be taken against such vibration. The purpose of this study was to develop stretchers that minimize vibration during transport. This study first details vibration size, direction, and frequency through vibration measurement experiment, resulting in a nonlinear stretcher using a vibration isolator. Stretcher performance was then evaluated and confirmed RMS and acceleration PSD.

Plant production factories and agricultural robots are being studied and developed these days. In these cultivation systems, however, it has been difficult to manage the state of each individual plant. We propose a cultivation system that uses a swarm of plant pot robots to automatically move each plant to an optimal environment, based on the plant’s sensory information and surroundings. In this paper, we propose a control method for the swarm of plant pot robots that uses artificial potential fields for effective temporal and spatial utilization of sunlight, and we show its effectiveness through simulation and experimentation.

Babyloid is a robot whose purpose is to relieve the psychological distress in elderly patients and patients needing long-term care by having them take care of it. Unlike general robots, which seek to be able to do all tasks in the manner of human beings, Babyloid was designed so that it cannot do anything. However, it tries to satisfy its self-sufficiency by expressing psychological and physiological states through crying, showing bad mood, etc.

A small, single-operator electric-vehicle using a 20 W hydrogen fuel cell, named pico-FCV, was developed for educational purposes. The design of the pico-FCV will promote student interest in environmental concerns. The project provides students with practical experience in mechatronics subjects such as mechanical design, electric circuit design, and programming. This paper will present the design and experimental results of the pico-FCV. The designed pico-FCV was able to run 2.7 km only using 5 ℓ (0.5 g) hydrogen.

Continuous passive motion (CPM) involves orthopedic or post-surgery physiotherapy. Following surgery to correct ulna collateral ligament (UCL) injury in the elbow, for example, excessively extending the UCL aggravates the injury and reaction force of the arm increases excessively near the end of the range of motion (ROM). Controlling pro/supination, i.e., rotary motion of the wrist, effectively suppresses reaction force, but may extend the UCL excessively. We propose a 2 d.o.f. (degrees of freedom) impedance controller as a CPM device for the elbow to suppress reaction force based on the musculoskeletal system.

An autonomous underwater vehicle Tuna-Sand operating at a depth of 1,500 m to investigate benthic organisms was developed to observe detailed images of the seafloor. Once submerged, vehicle Tuna-Sand navigates several meters altitude above the seafloor with complex terrain using only onboard sensors and taking 2,000 high-resolution images of the seafloor before returning to the surface. Since its launch in March 2007, vehicle Tuna-Sand has performed underwater research 81 times in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, e.g., Kagoshima Bay, the Myojinsho caldera, and the Kuroshima knoll as of March 2014. Survey on the Joetsu knoll in the waters off of Niigata in July 2010 clarified the presence of live red snow crabs – a confirmation highly appreciated by fisheries researchers. An image-based photomosaic showed that 3,341 red snow crabs lived on the Joetsu knoll within an area of 800 m². The authors are planning to survey the biomass of Kichiji rockfish in the Kitami-Yamato sea bank.