Robot hardware configurations are diverse, ranging from different drive systems to different types of hardware devices. In addition, the required speed of the devices also differs. However, it is difficult for existing systems to handle a variety of hardware devices and achieve high responsivity. Therefore, this study proposes a general device control platform that performs a new hardware abstraction in order to handle these devices in a unified manner. This platform extends and implements a hardware device control system in a bottom-up approach. The platform is also built on a plug-in system, offering high levels of reusability and scalability. Furthermore, examples of the platform's operation across various types of robots are provided to illustrate and demonstrate its practical utility.
A significantly increased number of Japanese mothers are experiencing isolated parenting and mental and physical stress. This trend is especially evident during the period when a child's ego starts to emerge, between the ages of 2 and 3. During this time, often called the ``terrible twos,'' both parents and children are prone to heightened stress and require comprehensive support. There is growing interest in addressing these challenges utilizing information technology and AI-equipped robots that assist with parenting duties. However, there are substantial variations in mothers' psychological traits and the parenting-stress levels they experience. This study explored mothers' expectations about using parenting-support robots and how those expectations relate to mothers' psychological traits, psychological states, and stress levels. Findings categorized mothers into two distinct types: Negative trait-High stress, characterized by strong negative psychological traits and high parenting stress, and Positive trait-Low stress, characterized by positive psychological traits and low parenting stress. Negative trait-High stress type mothers were found to have specific expectations regarding the effectiveness of parenting-support robots in soothing their children's crying episodes. A key future challenge is to conduct fundamental research that facilitates the development of ``personalized'' parenting-support methods that account for individual differences, such as mothers' psychological traits.
To explore the interaction design of an autonomous social robot stationed in a hotel room, we conducted a Wizard of Oz study. We developed a teleoperated robotic system that appears to move autonomously through voice-to-synthesis processing. Comparing the evaluation of the latest autonomous case with one of these teleoperated cases, the results show that it is possible to construct a robotic system that is more highly rated in terms of warmth, competence, intention to use, enjoyment of use, and recommendation. It was suggested that the required dialogue skills include the cognitive ability to recognize guest behavior, language comprehension, and the ability to respond to a wide range of information and topics. In addition, insights into the content of the interactive service were gained in terms of the importance of the social robot going beyond its role as a service provider to create a more equal relationship with the guest and demonstrate a deeper understanding of the guest. Through this research, it is hoped that with future technological advances, social robots will create a new form of customer service for the lodging experience.
This paper proposes swarm intercept of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles in order to intercept hostile target swarms with complex and irregular trajectories. A swarm with high mobility and a large number of drones is being studied. Although it is necessary to eliminate this threat, there is a problem in efficient intercept. Conventional guidance law guides to individual target, however, in this study, swarm intercept combinates proportional navigation and Boids algorithm to control interceptor as swarm and guide to intercept swarm target. This research compared intercept simulation results of conventional guidance and swarm intercept, using sequential allocation and swarm intercept termination timing as parameters. As a result of comparing simulation results in terms of hit probability, it was found that swarm intercept until the appropriate timing is expected to improve hit probability.
The intuitive tele-operation of industrial robot arms is necessary for the teaching of autonomous movement. We developed a novel interface, namely the iFeel Desktop Haptic Device, for operating robots intuitively. However, when a user uses two interfaces with two hands, there are differences in coordination between the dominant and non-dominant hands. In this paper, we investigated the differences in coordination between dominant and non-dominant hands using two devices for the development of cooperative control. In an experiment, when the participants manipulated the two interfaces to operate a virtual tracking system, we measured the tracking error in each degree of freedom (i.e., X, Y, Z, pitch, yaw, and roll directions). The results show that there were significant differences between the dominant and non-dominant hands for movement in the X, Y, Z, and pitch directions. Significant differences may result in damage to property, reduced task performance, and so on. We conclude that the operations that involve more body parts have a greater difference between dominant and non-dominant hands.
We have developed a compact and lightweight high-stretch ratio arm that does not interfere with crops that can be used in SynecocultureTM. This arm has pitch axis rotation by parallel drive of convex. Convex geometry was considered for an arm structure that meets the required specifications furthermore, the accuracy of arm movement position and angle control was verified. Consequently, the developed arm has a 60% higher expansion/contraction ratio than the existing arm and has achieved a significant reduction in size and weight while maintaining the withstand load.
Smart forestry with ICT technologies is promoted to solve problems in forestry industry such as labor shortages. One of significant task is autonomous operation of forestry vehicles. Self-localization is a fundamental technology in autonomous operation. In severe environment such as forestry-work-road, recovery is necessary in localization failure. Correct detection of the failure condition is quite important; however, it is difficult because available sensors are limited in forestry environment. In this paper, we propose a metric for detecting failure condition in localization with consideration to the reliability of scan-matching on forestry-work-roads.