Swarm robotics have been studied actively in recent years for planetary explorations，inspections of construction sites，and so on．However，there are few effective algorithms for swarm robots．We propose a distributed exploration system with multiple heterogeneous small robots with low loss cost per robot，and a probabilistic distribution algorithm for wide-area exploration of swarm robots．In the simulation of the probabilistic control algorithm，the robots can repeatedly and uniformly explore an area near an arbitrary distribution center due to their probabilistic behavior，and the area size and density of exploration can be controlled by simple parameters．Simulations showed that the robot swarm follows the proposed control according to the set proposed distribution．In addition，a comparison of the observation efficiency with conventional rovers showed that the robot swarm with the proposed swarm control algorithm has superior observation efficiency．

In Japan, the shortage of caregivers due to the aging of the population is a serious issue and the demand for care robots is increasing. Changing and wiping, which is one of the main care tasks, is still not sufficiently skilled and is often carried out by carers alone. Against this background, we are developing a dressing assistance robot system. However, the task of picking hangers from the hanger rack was a bottleneck in our dressing assistance robot system. Therefore, we developed a hanger recognition method based on active object recognition for implementation in a dressing assistance robot system and improved the recognition accuracy. In this paper, the usefulness of a recognition method using active object recognition in the hanger recognition task is evaluated through experiments and future prospects for integration into a dressing assistance system are described.

Service robots are desired to be equipped with robot hands that are versatile to grasp various objects and are lightweight in consideration of robot mobility, power consumption and safety. In this paper, we propose a tendon-driven robotic finger with telescopic mechanism that can adjust its length for grasping objects of different sizes. Each phalanx is a nested structure and the telescopic mechanism is realized together with the bending mechanism using embedded wires and springs. Fingers can telescope up to 26.5% from its original length. Underactuated bending is designed to adapt to the shape of objects. A two-way pull-out test with a three-finger gripper to grasp seven sizes of cylindrical objects was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the telescopic finger. The results suggested that the change in finger length according to the objects can improve the gripping stability.

Currently, as measures against environmental destruction, an agricultural method called synecoculture^TM has been received attention. However, since multiple types of plants grow densely in this method, conventional machines and robots can't intervene. Conventional agricultural robots are basically capable of handling only one type of crop. Therefore, we developed a cutting tool for agricultural work for the robot, since it is necessary to handle various types of crops. A tool changer was also developed to enable the robot itself to switch tools as appropriate to work with various crops. The cutting tool successfully pruned five crops, including bell peppers and green onions, and the success rate of the tool changer was confirmed through experiments by allowing for arm position errors. This enabled the robot to switch tools freely.

Analyzing time-series changes of the contact surface by touching is important to elucidate the touching skills of Humanitude as one of the pervasive multimodal comprehensive care methodologies. However, the transparent flat plates to capture contact surfaces used in the previous studies are far from the actual surfaces of care receivers because the surfaces of humans consist of curved shapes. In this paper, we propose a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) sensing system using a transparent curved plate for the purpose to capture contacting state by using a surface more similar to the human body. We evaluate the equivalent performance between data from the proposed FTIR sensing system and an FTIR sensing system using a transparent flat plate by calculating time-series contact areas and the quantitative indices representing theHumanitude's touching motion. Through these experiments, we conclude that the proposed system can obtain the same data quality for the contact areas and the indices as the FTIR system using the flat plate.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between cane tip position and dynamic stability (MoS: Margin of Stability) during walking with a T-cane. As a result, we found that there was a little difference in MoS for different cane tip positions in the conventional hemiplegic walking condition with a marble in the plantar region, but that MoS changed for different cane tip positions in the walking condition with the hemiplegia experience kit, and that MoS tended to be highest at a specific cane tip position. These results suggest that there is a high possibility that there is a cane tip position that enhances the dynamic stability of the patient during walking with a T-cane in hemiplegic patients.