In this study, a robot hand control system for picking robot has been developed. To pick up various shaped objects rapidly, two different grasping mode (suction or pinching) for each object could be chosen in this hand. In this system, control functions have been distributed between robot arm and robot hand. For changing grasping mode, mutual actions between different grasping modes were defined and integrated with ROS system. With this control system, fast and smooth interworking method was proposed. In this method robot arm controller and robot hand controller are connected with digital I/O communication directly. When robot arm reaches target position, arm controller commands hand controller to start grasping. On the other hand, when robot hand finishes grasping, hand controller commands arm controller to start lifting arm up. The experimental results proved that the delay for interworking between arm and hand action was decreased with this method. In addition, dropping detection algorithm in pinching mode with different pinching force was proposed. With this algorithm, the picking robot could detect dropping and retry to grasp with another grasping mode when it dropped objects.

In the logistics business field, the demand for the introduction of automated process using robots has been increasing in order to solve a critical labor shortage due to the spread of e-commerce. To meet customers’ requirements for labor-saving and productivity improvement in logistics centers, we have now developed a depalletizing robot to handle randomly stacked parcels incorporating the following technologies; a prediction of collision with parcels and a control algorithm to parallelize the process of depalletizing. The purpose of this study is to show the outline and effect of the newly developed robot.

To assist the elderly safely, the perception-assist technique, which can automatically change a dangerous motion to a safe motion according to the user's motion intentions and environmental conditions, has been considerably studied. In the perception-assist, detecting the environment around the user is necessary. In this study, we proposed a new obstacle segmentation algorithm based on 3D data to accurately obtain important features of obstacles in three-dimensional in real time. Based on prior research, an artificial neural network, which uses obstacles parameters, ZMP, EMG signals and motion data from the user as inputs, is applied to predict dangerous motion of the user. The effectiveness of the accident prediction, which uses the proposed obstacle segmentation algorithm, was evaluated with a lower-limb exoskeleton robot. The accuracy of accident prediction by using the obstacle parameters was 99%.

This paper presents a new warning method for controlling drivers' sensitivity for recognizing hazardous factors in the driving environment. The method is based on a visual warning mark in peripheral vision that is called an ambient warning. In this study, the presentation of ambient visual cue was investigated as a soft warning without feeling disagreeableness that is nuisance and distraction of visual warning. The results of many experiments performed with a 27 inch monitor display show that the response time for detecting a flashing mark tended to decrease when a ambient mark was shown in advance. Author suggests that priming effects are observed in ambient visual marks without feeling nuisance to warning information-

The purpose of this study is to improve the pronunciation of English, something that Japanese people have difficulty with. Therefore, this study focuses on the Japanese pronunciation of English and investigates the movement of the muscles around the oral cavity in speaking English using EMG measurement. We investigated the pronunciation of vowels, which is important in English pronunciation, and measured English words that containing short and long vowels among single vowels. In order to investigate whether it is possible to identify single vowels from the acquired EMG signals, we used root-mean-square analysis, which quantifies the graph, and wavelet analysis, which can analyze the signal into frequency and time components. Currently, we haven't got enough clear distinction between single vowels, yet we will seek further evaluation methods for identifying vowels.

Most of the autonomous mobile robots that guide people indoor or outdoor do not care whether the persons to be guided are obediently following or not, and then the relative distance between the guidance robot and the follower becomes longer as a result. Looking away behavior is one of the behaviors that result such situation, and we focused on watching and texting on smartphone while walking as a typical looking away behavior. In this paper, we compared the normal situation and the looking away behavior situation, by measuring the fluctuations of relative distance between the guidance robot and a follower using a depth camera. Additionally, we added an algorithm into speed control strategy of the guidance robot that tries to maintain the relative distance between them. The result of the experiment shows the validity of the added algorithm.

In the case of heat transport colloids such as nanofluids in which nano-sized particles are dispersed in a liquid, the effect on heat transfer based on the motion of the dispersed particles is considered in addition to the fluid motion of the solvent. We focused on the behavior of dispersed particles. A solution of suspended fluorescent particles was flowed into a test channel under pressure and observed at a distance of about 1 μm from the wall. Based on the principle of fluorescence microscopy, we visualized the movement of particles using transmitted light and total reflection light. We tried to measure the velocities of the fluorecent particles by particle tracking velocimetry.The results showed that the behavior of individual particles was affected near the wall side.

Thickness control of thin liquid films is useful in various fields for the control of physical properties of solid surfaces such as wettability and multilayer fabrication using light-curing resin liquid films. In this report, we propose a precise thickness control method with nanometer-order resolution using intermolecular interaction between solid and liquid, and report its experimental verification.

In this study, we created a microplastic texture by a mixture of PVC (polyvinyl chloride)-acetone and carbon black (CB) solution at an alternative high voltage. The results showed that the contact angle when high voltage of 2 kV was applied was greater than that when no voltage was applied, and the surface contact angle showed a maximum of 142° when the CB concentration was 1.5 wt.% and the applied frequency was 0 Hz, while the surface head convex structure was found when the CB was 1.5 wt.% at 10 Hz when observed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). And it was found that the surface spherical structure was sharper when the frequency was applied at 10 Hz than 5 Hz.

The reduction of friction and wear in sliding parts is an eternal topic in tribology. Among the various additives tried, alicyclic carboxylic acid has attracted attention because it has shown the effect of oiliness and low friction coefficient due to the formation of graphite. In this study, we investigated the possibility of promoting the in-situ formation of graphite derived from alicyclic carboxylic acid by applying an electric current to the sliding surface in order to achieve a further low friction effect. The experiments were conducted on a reciprocating friction tester. The friction coefficient decreased with increasing the current value. When cyclopentanecarboxylic acid (CpT) and cyclopropanecarboxylic acid (CpCAc) were compared, cyclopropanecarboxylic acid (CpCAc) showed a larger decrease in the friction coefficient. This may be due to the difference in the amount of graphite produced. Since cyclopropanecarboxylic acid (CpCAc) has a three-membered ring and is energetically unstable, it is thought that the decomposition of cyclopropanecarboxylic acid (CpCAc) is accelerated by electric current and friction, resulting in the formation of more graphite.

Micro-meter sized small droplet can be generated with a capillary bridge breakup method. With this method, surface tension oscillation of the droplet is spontaneously excited from the initial rod like shape. Comparing with the oscillation, it can assess the validation of numerical simulation with surface tension model. Numerical simulation of the droplet's oscillation is conducted with SPH method with continuum surface tension force. Time evolution of droplet’ silhouette shows good agreement between the SPH simulation and the experiment. And the frequency of the oscillation also agrees well.

With the development of microfabrication and surface processing technologies, gap between two solid surfaces in Micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) and Micro total analysis system (μTAS) becomes microgap to nanogap. For designing the devices and verifying the principle of MEMS and μTAS, experimental method to measure flow distribution of fluid confined in nanogap is required. In this study, we aim to realize the measurement of the flow distribution of squeezed flow in the nanogap using fluorescence images of nanoparticles. We evaluated the validity of our experimental method by comparing our experimental results with the theoretical results and clarified the size of nanogap that can be measured using our method.