Natural cellular activities are increasingly exploited for micro analytical systems, biochemical reactors. We describe novel use of pulsating heart cells as mechanical micro actuators. In this study, we propose a bio hybrid micro power generator using cardiomyocytes. Cultured cardiomyocytes convert chemical energy into kinetic energy efficiently and beat themselves autonomously. The principle of the bio hybrid micro power generator is that heart muscle cells was immobilized on a nylon thread let it expand and contract, and this nylon thread lengthens piezoelectrical materials and draws it, and then the voltage is generated by piezoelectrical effect. In this paper, the micro power generator was fabricated and preliminary experimental results were shown.

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This paper presents a micro crawling robot having switchable suckers with the aim of medical application. The robot moves based on the inchworm motion principle and employs pneumatic actuators by taking account of safety in medical operation. A prototyped robot is composed of an air-cylinder for stretching and switchable suckers for cramping. Silicon rubber (PDMS) is used to provide soft structures of the robot. Above all, simple molding process is used to fabricate suckers. Suckers are integrated with arms driven by pneumatic balloon actuators in order to press suckers against surfaces. Design, fabrication, and demonstration of the prototyped robot will report in this paper.

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In this study, we present a new wireless driving and energy supplying method for micro robot system using external magnetic field. This study divides three parts. The first part is development of energy supply and signal transmission system which uses electromagnetic induction. Also applying magnetic field system to occur electro motive force was developed. The second part is development of propulsion system using IPMC flagellum. In the third part, a macro model robot system was assembled using stereo lithography technique, and it was tested. As a result, IPMC flagellum wireless drive by external magnetic field was succeeded.

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We report the cutting technique of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) assisted with oxygen gas, the cutting procedure occurred in less than 1 minute by a low-energy electron beam inside a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The oxygen gas was regulated by a digital mass flow controller and was injected at 1 seem from a glass nozzle. It is found that although the total pressure of specimen chamber reached 10^<-2> Pa, but high speed cutting occurs only in the area close to the nozzle. We assume that CNTs are cut only under the low acceleration voltage, because the carbon molecules were easily exited and ionized by the low-energy electron beam. A logo consisting of two letters was assembled with 6 CNTs assisted with cutting process. We think that the cutting CNTs inside SEM will be widely used for rapid prototyping of CNT nanodevices and characterization of nanomaterials.

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Four types of bimorph electrostatic microactuators having different structure and size were fabricated and tested. They consist of bimorph structure beams made of poly-Si and Au/Cr, and their performance is achieved by using several beams connected in series and bending them sequentially with electrostatic force. Forces generated by the microactuators were measured with a Si cantilever and a laser displacement meter. The relationship between applied voltage and generated force showed that the actuator which had longer beams located closer to a substrate generated larger force by applying lower voltage.

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This paper presents a vertically structured electrostatic microactuator with large horizontal deflection. Its horizontal performance will be achieved by using several cantilevers connected in series and by bending them sequentially with electrostatic force. The vertical structure was realized by using two curved beams measuring 1650 μm made of Au/poly-Si bimorph structure with 1.0 μm thick poly-Si and 0.5 μm thick Au films. The fabricated microactuator was tested by applying DC voltage, and its actuation was observed using a CCD camera. Contrary to our expectation, however, no horizontal deflection was observed, while two curved beams for the vertical structure were unintentionally bent due to heat generation because they were not insulated enough from each other by SiN.

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We propose a novel scaffold for tissue engineering, utilizing three-dimensional membrane microfluidic device we have previously developed. This scaffold consists of hydrogel and "artificial microcapillary device", which is a three-dimensional microfluidic device made of thin mesoporous biodegradable polymer membrane. The artificial microcapillary device exchanges gas and nutrients necessary for the cells inside the large scaffold. Here, we have successfully fabricated a prototype of artificial microcapillary device using MeME process. We have confirmed the size selective transfer between inside and outside of the microchannel using micro-beads of various sizes. We also investigated the biocompatibility of the device by culturing Human Umbilical Vascular Endothelial Cells (HUVEC) on the device. This result leads to the regeneration of large tissues and organs in vitro, which is impossible using conventional scaffolds.

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We developed new type of Biochemical IC chips for overall protein analysis. By using the chips, we succeeded in separating 5 kind of proteins with real-time fluorescence detection for about 3 minutes. And we succeeded in collecting protein-targeting in marker proteins and a part of proteins in PC 12 cells.

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In our laboratory, we have developed mediatorless direct photosynthetic/metabolic bio fuel cell (DPMFC). This battery's principle is that microparticles of Polyaniline were adopted as electrodes to draw electrons directly from bacteria, and the output is fundamentally decided by the electron emission efficiency of bacteria. The present paper aims to improve this by applying Gene Manipulation Technology. We adopted purple photosynthetic bacteria (PPBs) because they have special characteristics such as being activated by organic compounds as well as emitting hydrogen in photosynthetic and metabolic processes. We improved the electron generation efficiency of the bacteria by applying gene manipulation technology to inhibit hydrogen emission. Our hypothesis is that more electrons will be stored inside the bacteria if hydrogen emission is inhibited. As a result, the power density of Gene manipulated bacteria became 10μW/cm^2, that is higher than the normal one.

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In this paper, we report our activities of standardization in OMG, especially the OMG Tampa Technical Meeting held in February, 2006. The goal of this paper is to start a technical discussion in the robotics and mechatronics community to promote RT-middleware technology (robot systems designed by reusable building blocks) that results in efficient development of complicated robot systems. As a vehicle for the rapid development and diffusion of this RT-middleware technology, we've just started up an international standardization activity on robot technologies. In order to increase interoperability, compatibility and reusability between the various robotic common components, Object Managing Group (OMG) established Robotics Domain Task Force (Robotics-DTF) in December 2005. The Robotics-DTF is looking to begin a dialog with vendors, end users, researchers, robotics organizations and other interested parties to lay the groundwork for a common platform-independent model of robotics software development.

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We have developed a framework of RT-Component which promotes application of Robot Technology (RT) in various field. In this paper, standardization of RT-Component specification and PIM (Platform independent model) of RT-Component are discussed for platform permanence. Adopting standardized SDO model and inheriting the verified model, RT component will become more practical. Therefore we chose SDO (Super Distributed Object) specification published from OMG (Object Management Group) as a base component model. Finally RT-Component PIM based on SDO will be proposed.

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Ubiquitous robotics consists of distributing the functionalities usually found in a robot into the environing space itself, including sensing, actuation and computing, via a networking technology. When developing a ubiquitous system, one has to consider three aspects, the hardware, the information processing and the human interface. By leveraging the UFAM, RT Middleware and Internet infrastructures, we were able to develop a flexible yet user friendly ubiquitous robotic home environment to support daily life in which new functions can easily be incorporated by the end user.

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In this paper, we propose the architecture to improve the development efficiency of the Robotic System. The architecture has the Gateway to convert ORiN (Open Resource /Robot Interface for the Network) and RT (Robot Technology) Middleware. If we applied this architecture to Robotic System, We would be able to develop the Applications for the RT-Middleware on the ORiN platform.

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Nowadays, the distributed control system is being applied to robots for various applications, we developed a distributed control system for mobile Robots. This System uses CAN (Controller Area Network) for means of the communication between distributed subsystems. In this paper, configuration and communication protocol for distributed control system using CAN is investigated and reported. As the result, we realize the effectiveness of this system architecture for distributed control system with CAN for mobile robots.

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We propose an action framework for robots based on distributed knowledge base that can receive commands and generally break them down to primitive motion of robots. The framework is based on a general command resolver and object oriented software environment that supports distributed software development of robots. In contrast to industrial robots, service robots need to know vast variety of objects around them. Thus, service robots program should incorporate all those objects. However, it is usually very difficult because the environment, in which service robots will work, changes every moment. Therefore the distributed software development is very important, and thus we propose a solution.

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We are developing FDNet to create an imitation robot and implementing it on the quadruped rescue robot, RoQ. In FDNet, an information unit and a process unit are modularized respectively, and we design robot by connecting them in relation network. This paper reports availability of FDNet-HI through basic design of rescue robots by using FDNet-HI.

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In this paper, Motion Responsive MultiThreaded Processor (M-RMTP) for distributed real-time control is designed. The M-RMTP integrates many functions into an ASIC chip, such as Responsive Multithreaded Processing Unit (RMT PU), Responsive Link for real-time communication, and many peripheral functions including DDR SDRAM I/Fs, DMAC, PCI-X, IEEE1394, Ethernet, RS-232C, PWM generators, PWM inputs, pulse counters, and SPI, to control various electronic control systems. System designers can use various on-chip functions easily by connecting required I/Os to the M-RMTP. The designers can realize a distributed real-time control system by connecting several M-RMTPs with their own functions via Responsive Links.

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This paper subscribes about the RTC-CAN system which installed embedded system. The RTC-CAN system offers the function which converts Ethernet communication and CAN communication. Because of this it becomes possible to handle the CAN node as RTComponent.

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We have developed a motion-support system that helps a person when standing up from bed. In this paper, we report upper layer controller of the stand-up-from-bed motion support system, which is characterized by its synchronous control of the modularized actuators and software architecture based on distributed object technology.

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Nowadays, developments of so-called "Home-use robot" ,or "office-use robot" have been very active. The challanges to realize such robots are: (l)navigation in realistic environment, (2)performing multiple tasks,and (3)tradeoff between their performances and costs. A solution for these challenges is proposed in this paper. The authors proposed external sensor abstruction software system and a work effecter changeable mobile robot system with an auto effector changer for home-use or office-use robots. This robot system can accomplish the desired environment by selecting suitable external sensors and the desired task by selecting and docking a suitable effector. In this paper, the authors describe concept of modulalization for home or office-use working mobile robot.

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This paper describes the design of a module connection unit for dynamically reconfigurable modular humanoid robot. Our reconfigurable modular humanoid robot is composed of several functional robots such as an arm robot, a mobile robot, and a head robot. The humanoid robot with our proposed module connection unit that enables each functional robot to connect other robots dynamically can operate as some kinds of humanoid robots or several autonomous functional robots by changing its shape and functions for mamy purpose of users. We evaluate the efficiency of the proposed module connection unit through the experiences using the prototype modular humanoid robot. The results of the experiences show the connection unit is useful for a dynamic reconfiguration.

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In our ubiquitous robot systems, which have various sensors, actuators and robots, various embedded devices are distributed and networked. These sensors and actuators are equipped with various types of embedded CPUs such as Microchip's PIC and Renesas's H8 and so on. In such system, more light-weight middleware is needed. In this paper, we propose a new framework of light-weight RT-Component, which is named "RT-Component-Lite", for various types of embedded devices. This framework is characterized by template-code generator, which supports same style programming for various types of CPUs. Finally, we will verify interoperability between RT-Component-Lite based components and CORBA based RT-Components.

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Construction of robot systems complicated at various functions, such as recognition, movement control, and an action plan, is required of realization of a remote mobile robot.However, the time and the labor which the method of building a system and development take pose a big problem.In this paper, the remote mobile robot architecture based on RT middleware is proposed.

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We have proposed Ubiquitous robot to provide an informational, physical service by distributed the robot functions (computer, sensor, and actuator, etc.) in the human living environment. The ubiquitous robot supports human, and the infrastructure for the robot. It is proposed that the sensor component used as an infrastructure by using RT-Middleware.

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This paper presents the navigation system for mobile robot using IDC (Intelligent Data Carrier), Mapping system and Traffic rule. In this system, a mobile robot reads the information that is necessary for a run by non-contact from IDC and writes the own information to IDC, and a mobile robot can run without an accident in crossing using a mapping system based on object oriented information. In a before study, I evaluated the effectiveness of a control system of a mobile robot in around the university building (4km/h) and Meijo University yard (20km/h). I inspect whether this system can apply to a further high speed run by computer simulation.

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This paper is given about having developed the NPA (Network Plug-in Actuator) that unified a motor (the sensor internal organs), a driver, and reduction gear. NPA realized half size in comparison with the before and easiness of installation to a robot, because unification, wiring saving, and network plug-in. In addition, developed the ICN (Intelligent Connector) that connection is possible in various networks by serial communication. This ICN can connect to servo driver of NPA and various sensors. ICN can let a control cycle become independent because ICN has two CPU and DPM (Dual Port Memory) between the two CPU.

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There are many Linux based system for controlling robots, vision research works, etc. While the author introduced and have used common Linux as robot OS for five years, current version of 2.6 has different type of scheduler from 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4 that decides timing of execution. Therefore, re-evaluation was needed whether we can use 2.6 in the same manner. In this paper, differences and improvements between Linux 2.4 and 2.6 are shown first. The kernel 2.6 becomes more suitable for real-time application with one precaution. Then, application of KNOPPIX including Linux 2.6 to wheeled robots and vision processing works are described as examples.

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During the last decade, various haptic interface has been developed. However, workspace of the conventional haptic interface is restricted by the mechanical constraint. The limitation of the workspace reduces operationality, because work has to be suspended at the boundary. To tackle this problem, a spherical haptic interface has been proposed in our previous work. It utilizes a ball as an interface with the human. As a result, it achieves boundlessness workspace for orientation. In this paper, a novel mechanism based on the magnetic force which effectively keeps the ball is introduced.

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A 2-DOF haptic device using electrostatic film motors was fabricated for feasibility evaluation. The electrostatic motors used in the device are proved MR-compatible; hence, the device is intended for use in fMRI study, although the first prototype described in this paper is not fully MR-compatible. The haptic rendering of the device is done by admittance control, where a controller receives interaction force as an input and calculates position response that the device should follow. Then, the positioning of the device is done by open-loop position control, utilizing the synchronized behavior of the motors. This paper describes the setup and the control diagram of the prototype system, as well as evaluation results, which confirmed that the device could successfully render the intended haptic scene.

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Human beings acquire such object information as surface conditions, hardness, temperature, and smoothness by cutaneous sense to enable skillful operation. Material texture and other tactile sensations greatly affect our tactile erceptions, such as the feeling of use and comfort or discomfort. In this study, we developed a new haptic device having a structure involving direct drive by shaft motors and capable of horizontal and vertical direct drive at a time. This device will enable the presentation of texture with higher reality. This paper introduces the basic structure and features of the haptic device. And elemental presentation experiments were described.

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For determining reaction force from virtual environment, a constraint-based method using a proxy and a virtual coupling has been used. This method is useful because in this method, the reaction forces are determined in a geometric manner. This method, however, does not include dynamics such as viscous damping. This paper presents a geometric algorithm that includes damping to maintain control stability.

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In this paper, we tried to reexamine Size-Weight Illusion on Virtual environment using Haptic Interface. However we can't confirm the Size-Weight illusion. Therefore we reexamined the Size-Weight Illusion not only with vision, but also without vision on Real environment. These results imply that there exists the relationship between the illusion and people's awareness of an object's size.

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A basic device combining a tactile display function and a touch position/force direction sensing function is proposed. The first trial device consists of two major components, a tactile graphic display and a 6-axis force/torque sensor. The proposed device is substituted for the mouse function of a click and scrolling, and it provides a fundamental GUI operation. From the knowledge acquired from the first trial device, the new tactile input/output device which forcused on enlargement of tactile presentation area, the improvement in position detection accuracy, and improvement in easy-to-transport is developed. In this paper, we explain the structure of the device, and development of a 3-axis force sensor. Since the newly position detection principle is drawn with change of the device mechanism, we also illustrate the position detection method.

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Force feed-back application is an important part in tele-operation, train and many other virtual realitys. In this paper, we introduced a new force display method used the artificial-muscle. Differ from passive force display, large numbers of actuator(artificial-muscle), than the human degrees of freedom are used. Using this method, we expect that the force can be fed back to any selected human muscle. In this paper, we used the muscle/artificial-muscle integrated model to control the muscle force. The human muscle is complicated and can not all be control separately. In order to control every muscle, a taxonomy is proposed.

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We developed a haptic interface using rotor friction. The principle of this system is very simple so it can develop small and lightweight interface device. In this study, we developed the handheld interface device for wrist rotation. The recognition experiments of rotor friction and the basic experiments about direction guidance were conducted using developed device.

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The purpose of this research is the development of the distributed haptic interface to realize physical man-machine interaction. In this research an intelligent actuator including a DC motor, sensors, a control processor and the communication device was developed. The multi degree of freedom haptic interface having the shape of polyhedric parallel link was constructed with this actuator. The control peripheral device including PSoC (Programable System on Chip) was built in the intelligent actuator to realize position/force/compliance control. Each actuator was serially connected, resulting in wiring-saving control system.

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In this study, we developed a human interface for heat sensation. This system was consisted of the thin heater and the thermocouple having fine leads and so on. Measurements of characteristic controlling temperature and basic studies on transmitting information for human were conducted using these devices. We realized about 0.5 Hz temperature control between 25 and 45 degree.

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Some haptic display systems to form surfaces shapes of objects have been reported. However, most of them are panel type systems not to be able to display the whole body of 3D objects. This paper proposes a new type of 3D shape forming system utilizing pneumatic balloons. A balloon can have different characteristics according to the thickness arrangement of the rubber skin and the entire shape is easily controlled only by supplying or exhausting air. The experimental system can display a cylindrical shape to mimic human body and control the shape to be as tall as the human standing in front by using two infrared sensors equipped on the top of balloon..

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Recently, small manipulators are increasing and usage of these robot are spread. And then the user who has not enough knowledge about the robot is increasing. Therefore, the improvement of the controller and the interface of the robot is necessary, so that such user can use the manipulator easily. In this paper, the authors propose an operation method with a pointing device to control a SCARA type manipulator, and explain about experiments to evaluate the proposed method.

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We constructed a pointing gesture recognition system using multi cameras. This system reconstructs the human body from the multi camera images using volume intersection. It finds the human head and hand from the human body voxel data, and estimates the pointing gesture direction.This system doesn't depend on the user's position and the pointing direction. We also constructed a poster explanation system by applying the pointing gesture recognition system.In this system when the user points across at a poster, the explanation of the poster is played.

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We studied on a curved surface stereoscopic display using laser scanning. We spotlighted a screen with a laser beam and made small pixels. The laser beam was scanned in two dimensions using a rotating polygon mirror and an oscillating mirror. And the screen was placed on the focal surface of an optical system. The focal surface was a circular arc with its center at a reflecting point on the polygon mirror. And we controlled the blinking of the laser light. With this device, we draw two dimensional images on the curved surface screen. We attached a lenticular lens to the screen and displayed directional images. As a result, we achieved the curved surface stereoscopic display which could generate three directional images simultaneously.

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We have been developing an interactive visualization system for intuitive understanding of 4-D space and data. The purpose of our work is to provide an interactive environment where people can experience and understand 4-D space intuitively. We construct an interactive environment to associate the user's 3-D position with an eye point which lies on the surface of 4-D sphere surrounding a 4-D solid. The system is composed of a glasses-free 3-D display, a controller pad, and a personal computer. In this environment, we can smoothly observe a 4-D solid from an arbitrary eye point and direction, and handle a 4-D solid to understand 4-D space. The proposed system is effective for the data visualization, the spatio-temporal motion planning, and the artistic expression.

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This paper proposes a new method for realistic information monitoring using 3d-stereo display. The visual information from the monitor display plays an important role in teleoperation and tele-monitoring tasks and it affects the task efficiency and quality. In this research, we are going to utilize the 3d-stereo display and the augmented reality techniques for the monitoring of the extra realistic information of the remote environment. Its application field includes the improvement of the reality in the teleoperation, the realistic tele-monitoring of the mechanical system, 3d-TV-phone, etc.

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In this paper we propose a finger-tapping interface, which can estimate the contact states and forces on human fingertips in real time using only the fingertip positions measured by high-speed vision cameras. In particular, we focus on the high-frequency component that develops at the moment when a fingertip contacts something. We introduce a realtime estimation algorithm for the fingertip contact state and force using frequency filtering to detect the high-frequency movementcomponent of the fingertip positions. We also introduce a clickable pointing interface and a virtual musical instrument as demonstration application examples, and we show the effectiveness of non-mountable type finger-tapping interfaces, which can estimate the fingertip positions and their contact forces simultaneously.

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The goal of this research is to develop a new type of haptic interface termed "Active Polyhedron." The interface realizes a physical man-machine interaction with virtual continuum objects in PCs. Active polyhedrons are polyhedron-shaped linkage mechanisms. In this paper, we deal with an active icosahedron consisting of 30 intelligent cylinders, which have position sensor. In previous reports, the active icosahedron system was developed, and realized easy force presentation. In this report, we develop a new algorithm for Active Polyhedron's force-presentation. The algorithm is based on calculation of force which an apex outputs. Applying this algorithm to the active icosahedron, an operator could get force information from active icosahedron. And a new application for Active icosahedron is developed. The application is to design 3D-CAD shape data using Active icosahedron. Actually, the designed data is cut by 3D processing machine.

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This paper presents a manner of utilization of the multi-fingered hapticinterface. Tool-type haptic interfaces such as scissors are used topresent force feeling in virtual reality environment. However,presentation of force feelings of plural tools needs to prepare pluraltool-type haptic interfaces. This problem is solved by equiping tooldevices for the ulti-fingered haptic interface. The conceptual idea ispresented.

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Force information in virtual space is important and often required for many virtual reality systems. While passive force displays which use only passive elements are more effective methods for assuring safety than conventional ones, they have some directions and link postures which are hard to present force. The purpose of this study is to analyse area and orientation of virtual objects which can be represented by passive force display.

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In this research, it has aimed the development of combined sense system that uses the sense of force feedback with the visual by the shape of microscopic features of a micro sample. The visual and the sense of force feedback are expanded and it aims at the efficiency improvement of the operation skill of the micro sample by working in the condition similar to actually feeling that operates the one of size that we can actually grip by finger. As this basic research, we use a haptic device and it presents the expanded reaction force which virtual object of a micro sample has.

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In this paper, the relation between the measured values of human active tactual motion and sensory values in judging the quality of materials was examined. As the result, it was found that man changes each active tactual motion (applied force, dynamical friction force and finger motion speed) in distinguishing the quality of materials. Then, the sensor for discrimination of materials to which human tactual motion was applied was manufactured experimentally.

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We aim to develop the touch evaluation device that reflects the feature of human's sense of touch. The sensor used by the experiment is an electrostatic capacity type force sensor that can measure power in the direction of three axes. Compressive properties, which can be related to the soft feeling of the mouton, were measured. Three kinds of the mouton with different thickness of the fiber (35mm in length) were used as a sample. Linear of the compression characteristic and the compression energy and compression resilience were obtained by the experiment and the results were compared each other. The mouton of three compression characteristic values with a fat diameter of the fiber is larger and it can explain this by the bend rigidity of the fiber.

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