In order to enable optimization of the kinemetic calibration condition of parallel mechanism considering its task, we proposed an evaluation method of output pose error after calibration and error evaluation index. The index is derived from linearization of relationship between positioning-error and measurement errors. It depends on kinematic parameters of the mechanism, calibration condition and error evaluation conditions specified by the task. Simulations considering measurement error for the Stewart platform were done to clarify the relationship between the proposed index and positioning-error of the mechanism after calibration. Effectiveness of the calibration conditions selected by the proposed index was confirmed through comparison with conventional method. Results of experiments using a Stewart platform were shown to support the proposed method.

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The purpose of this research is to develop a haptic interface that realizes a human-machine interaction at many force output points. We have reported in the previous paper a haptic interface that named "Active polyhedron" having 12 force output points. In this report, we aim to develop a new active polyhedron having 42 force output points. To realize the new active polyhedron, we develop a new intelligent pneumatic cylinder on which a micro optical encoder and PSoC are mounted and two kinds of link-joints that connect each cylinder mutually. Developed active polyhedron realizes a 120-DOF link mechanism with position / compliance controller.

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Closed-link mechanisms are known to be usually ones that are more complex than open-link mechanisms. Therefore, a scheme that is applied to closed-link mechanisms is actively researched. In this paper, we show a computational method that is employing Jacobian connecting center of gravity (COG) of links with active joints. This Jacobian usually connects COG of the whole-body with active joints and it is used for motion planning and controls of humanoids. This method is deriving COG Jacobian that connects COG of each link with active joints, and calculating the inverse dynamics by using the principle of virtual work.

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Parallel link mechanisms with multi drive linear motors (MDLMs) are proposed. The multi drive is a control method of linear motors that multi moving parts are individually driven on a stator part. Various configurations of parallel link mechanisms are constructed on the MDLMs are proposed. The proposed mechanisms have additional features of wide moving area with original characteristics of the parallel mechanisms of rigid mechanisms, high precision and high speed. More over, they are suitable for force control because of low friction direct drive actuators. In this paper, kinematics and dynamics of 2-DOF (xy) with 2MDLMs, and 3-DOF (xyθ) with 3MDLMs (non-redundant) and 4MDLMs (redundant) planer parallel link mechanisms are investigated. Singularity analysis and internal force control method of the 3-DOF with 4MDLMs redundant mechanism are derived and confirmed by numerical simulations. Condition of a dynamical decoupling and constant inertia design of the 2-DOF with 2MDLMs and 3-DOF with 4MDLMs are derived.

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Authors think that a set policy of professor person's learning field influences the study change in child and students' learning teacher. The learning field such as stories in study and sharing of the community is important. Authors consider what should teacher make to contribute to the learning field on an educational approach of positivism and constructivism in the robot education and the creative play.

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Authors performed questionnaire survey of 175 high school students about understanding of science and technology. As a result, there were the following opinions. "Should not of develop the science and technology.", "Because the structure becomes complex, seem not to understand.", "The mechanism of the system is difficult." The high school student was an answer where the sense of resistance, the anxiety, and fear to the science and technology appeared. Authors thought that the high school student had to learn the science and technology. Then, authors practiced, and verified the robot creation education by "Joho A (Information A)".

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This paper deals with mechatronics education through design and product for robot contest. In Nagaoka university of Technology, department of mechanical engineering, the curriculum producing a robot for the robot contest from 1995 is executed. We improved contents by a curriculum revision of 2004. We developed our original mechatronics board, and changed to the robot production that used this mechatronics board. We composed the basic game course with line crossing parts, corner parts and straight line parts. Since 2004, we execute robot production for the game rule that increased some changes in the basic game course. In this paper, we report on details of 6 years after it changes to present contents.

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This report describes the development of a mobile robot to learn about control technology for students of technical high schools. It is not easy for the students to learn control technology. For this study, we have designed a mobile robot based on Keller's ARCS model of motivation. With this model, inverted pendulum by using two wheels is adopted to the mobile robot. Then, the robot is possible to ride. The body is interesting and motivated to ride. Students feel several different motion on various control parameters, and learn control technology by feeling them. Through experiments, effect of PID controller is confirmed by using the developed robot.

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IT Craftmanship project is planned by ministry of economy, trade and industry in Japan. Our project was adopted last year. The title is "Education of Robots by Making Use of a PIC Micro Computer". This paper describes about contents of the project and explains the effect of the program. From the questionnaire consequence of this project, it is cleared that many students are satisfied with this program.

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The robotic workshop that had used the cleaning robot was executed to 1300 participants at seven halls for eight days in "Robotic engineer promotion program in the future" in August, 2007. We report on the outline of the workshop and the survey of the participant's questionnaire result.

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We are developing mechatronics education program using the line tracing robots which are controlled by the microcomputer. This program is applied to the freshmen as an introductory course of an engineering experience. This paper describes the result of the lecture of the Department of Electrical Engineering named "Engineering Practice" which adopted these educational materials.

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In this paper, we propose a mechatronics curriculum with making robot system including Speed Control of DC Motor. Students make a robot one by one, and it is including general elements of the robot system. This curriculum makes student get knowledge and technique of mechatronics, by study through actual experience. We executed the curriculum, as trial edition to students belong to Department of Electrical Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology. And we investigate the effects of our curriculum, using questionnaire.

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This paper describes the robot contest produce competition and its purpose on creativity education. In this competition, participants plan an original robot contest for children including the rule book, the field, the robots for demonstration and the promotion video. Then, they present the robot contest as the trial management. This competition aims to promote their creativity, especially the problem-raising ability and the problem segmentation ability, and presentation ability too. The robot contest produce competition 2007 is also reported as an embodiment.

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Robot Contest Produce Competition(RCPC) aims to train engineers with planning ability, originality, imagination and presentation ability. In this short report, we introduce our proposed robot contest "Block Tower" in RCPC2007 and consider significance of it at the stand points of mechatronics education.

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This paper addresses development of Robot-triathlon standard robot version 4. Robot triathlon is a contest such that an autonomous mobile robot runs a course including three kinds of tasks as fast as possible. Combination of the simple tasks allows us to adjust difficulties of the contest to a suitable level for introductory mechatronics education. To support students who want to challenge the contest, Robot-triathlon standard robot was developed and on sale. It contributed to increase of participants to the contest. However there was a question how many students intended to understand technologies implemented in the standard robot. Last year we upgraded the standard robot to version 4. To encourage students' understanding additional functions were prepared in printed circuit board of the version 4, such as sensor adjustability and enhancement of extensibility. Simultaneously new type of handmade rotary encoder was developed, and noise suppression functions were improved.

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This paper aims to propose a method of robot contest that enlightens welfare activity for children. Recently, many children have few chance to meet and communicate the grandparents, because numbers of two-generation family increased. A lot of current robot contests for children have given priority to the education of creativity. Then, we give the chance that children think about the welfare activity by adding a moralistic theme to the robot contest. We designed "Grandpa Mission" as a robot contest to rise awareness for welfare activity and propose how to execute it.

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The engineering introduction education using the small humanoid SANSYRO-2 was done. SANSYRO-2 has 16-DOF joint. Its height is 300mm, and its mass is 1.25kg. SANSYRO-2 is designed so that it can bend the knees deeply. SANSYRO-2 can twist the waist. SANSYRO-2 is being made so that it can do maintenance easily. The cam was used for the Roll axis of the ankle. The experiment that SANSYRO-2 got up was done, and the walk experiment was done. The students were concentrated, and they made the experiment. The students' communications became active.

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The robot assembling system (ROBO-BLOCK) which could be used from the experiment practice to research was developed. ROBO-BLOCK consists of the servo motors, the parts for servomotor rotor, the brackets for servomotor fixation, the board parts and the controllers. The various forms of robot can be made by using ROBO-BLOCK. The student experiment was done at College of Industrial Technology. Students made many original robots and moved them. ROBO-BLOCK has various possibilities. The development and possibility of ROBO-BLOCK were discussed.

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We study the difficulty of line following robot competition for junior high school students, thorough the case of college students in a practice class, and the First Kumamoto Prefecture Junior High School Students Programming Contest. The key points are the algorithm with keeping the previous motion, and sequential algorithm, and the consideration of its hardware properties.

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Recently, the interest in engineering has weakened. This cause is due to the change in ideas of engineerings of young people. Because the technology had developed, it made it to the Black Box. Therefore, it is thought that the young person came not to be interested in the technology. Therefore, it is necessary to tell created pleasure and impression. It is good to make the thing touch through various chances by the time boys and girls become high school students as measures. Boys and girls feel after the thing, and interested system in engineering of the machine, electricity, and software is developed.

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The vibratory mobile linetracer was developed for the use of the teaching material. We observed the movement of the tracer on a straight line and a right-angled line. As a result, the program to return on the line is executed when the traveling direction of the tracer shifts on the line and the tracer runs again. The tracer can be easily made. Therefore, it can be used as a teaching material for children and students.

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In Dept. of control engineering, it is having a class in the system design aiming at a making of autonomous robots for a creative engineer's training. In this paper, we introduced even from an idea to a robot contest and also a presentation, and the effectiveness of mechatronics education is described.

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We have developed a learning environment for embedded system design. The learning environment consist of a multi core microprocessor(Propeller) and cellular phones. The cellular phone provides an interactive user interface and software development environment. The Propeller chip has eight 32-bit processors and can perform simultaneous tasks for multi users. In addition, the Propeller chip realize reconfigurable peripheral module. This feature is very useful for the development of educational materials. Teachers can develop various educational materials with this control module.

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Robotics research was initiated by industrial applications as typified by manipulators aiming at industrial process automation in 1970s. In parallel with the advancement of processing units, robotic applications have been broadened from industry to service areas, e.g., guidance, patrol, tele-operation, surgery, rehabilitation, entertainment, Robocup, etc. In order to realize these new generation robots, a kit of technical issues (sensory system, actuator, recognition, learning, behavior planning, control, etc) remain and should be solved. For the evaluation of new technology, experiments in the real environment play important roles and give us effective suggestions and other research hints. In this research, we describe an experimental environment for mobile robots "RoboCity" and an inhabitant mobile robot of environment.

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This paper describes about activities of science communication at national museum of emerging science and innovation (Miraikan) in field of Robotics and mechatronics. Science communicators demonstrate robot technologies to make close to visitors, for example new robot exhibition "Hull+HallucII" and new course of science workshop.

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This paper describes an approach for a project type experiment by building and programming LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots in Tokyo Polytechnics University. The purpose of this project is to design walking/mobile robot, and to control it by using Intelligent blocks.

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The new seminar that was called "Production Seminar of Technology and Art" was executed at our university in 2007. In this seminar, the student of Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Arts jointly produces an interactive art. This paper describes about content of the seminar and explains the effect of the program. From the questionnaire consequence of this seminar, it is cleared that many students are satisfied with this program.

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This paper describes a robot programming course for 3rd-grade undergraduate students at the department of mechano-informatics, the university of Tokyo. This course includes many issues for building a mobile robot's behavior programming: Programming in embedded Linux environment, image processing, inverse kinematics for an arm and an omnidirectional mobile robot, etc. These issues are integrated as mobile robot's behaviors where robots explore the environment using vision and other sensors and act on the environment using omnidirectional wheels and an arm.

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In this Paper, collaboration and education system for students of National College of Technology (NCT) based on Tele-Control system has been proposed. In the proposed system, Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT) provides experimental apparatuses for tele-control system as a server site, and the client system is constructed by using 1 DOF paddle system with haptic feedback for student's use in a client site at NCT. Several control experiments have been conducted between TUT and 4 NCTs respectively and various data of communication conditions and answers of questionnaire survey have been collected through the experiments.

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This paper describes a training course for 3rd-grade undergraduate students at the department of Mechano-Informatics, the University of Tokyo. This course is designed to facilitate students learn broad regions of information engineering and robotics. It contains robot's behavior planning, controller design, electronics for robotics engineer, and software programming on embedded systems, computer vision and 3D computer graphics. At the closing stage of the course, a creative project is organized to improve engineering skills of the students. In this paper, we introduce syllabuses of each issue in the course, and also report interesting examples and discussions of creative project.

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Students of the fine arts courses designed and made various lighting devices in a class of the university. A teacher of electronics and computer technology cooperated with the artistic teacher in the class. Some lighting devices were made by LEDs and controlled by a microcomputer. A new form of education on the product design of lighting devices could be made by the connection of the arts and the technology of mechatronics.

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This paper presents a hose type rescue robot with a new mobile method which is aimed to pass through narrow spaces and to search victims under debris. At the disastrous site, the fiber scope and the pole equipped with a camera on its head were previously used to search for victims. However, they possess the problem to go into the complex curved and rugged spaces due to the friction between these tools and the mobile surface. In this study, the hose type robot named Grow-Hose-I, Growing with rapid motion type hose, is proposed which can move smoothly with no friction between the hose and the ground surface. The hose is composed of flat tubes driven by pneumatics, and it can be actively curved to steer the direction. The validity of the proposed method was experimentally verified by the developed model.

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The purpose of this research is to develop a handheld pole mounted camera system that can indicate stereoscopic view. This camera system will be used to search for inside of narrow spaces such as buildings and vehicles transformed by the earthquake or some accidents. The system has a stereo camera and Head Mounted Display(HMD). This stereo camera is mounted on the toe of a handheld pole. A firefighter attach a HMD in his head, and he insert a stereo camera in narrow space, when he want to use this system. In this paper, we discussed a summary of this stereo camera system. And we reported three experiments for estimation of this system.

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In this study, we develop some practical rescue search devices which can penetrate under debris. The greatest characteristic of these devices is make hydraulic supply to get the energy source from the water pressure by the fire engine and air pressure by a cylinder for firefighting. We show experimental result which collaborate fire agency to evaluate for these developed devices.

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We propose the new concept tools applicable for the rescue use. In this paper, we developed the unified pneumatic pillars and the pressure sensitive pedal-pump. The unified pneumatic pillar can lift up rubbles and make spaces for inserting rescue tools by rescue team members. In addition, they can be used by combining to adapt to the situation. The pressure sensitive pedal-pump can accumulate air pressure and adjust the human load in proportion to pressure.

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We develop a new jack up rescue tool with rensegrity structure, which are light-weight and realizes long stroke. The design is based on tensegrity structure consisting of triangulated tension networks; the number of parts composing this tool is very small, resulting in light-weight and ling stroke. We use this structure for a jack up tool, and develop the prototype tool. This tool is activated by dragging tensional line such as a lope. The prototype shows, the maximum stroke of 370[mm]. This stroke is approximately five times longer than the initial height.

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Small and light-weighted actuators which generate high force and high energy are strongly required for realizing powerful robots. We have developed a new hydraulic artificial muscle generating very high force and high energy by applying an ultra high strength PBO fiber sleeve to McKibben type artificial muscle. While conventional McKibben muscles are driven by pneumatic pressure about 0.7[MPa] at a maximum, the newly developed muscles are driven by water hydraulic pressure of 2[MPa], resulting in very high force. This report shows materials and structure of the new artificial muscle with PBO fiber sleeve. Muscles are evaluated by two parameters in this paper, force density per volume (FDV) and energy density per volume (EDV) with the comparisons with other linear actuators. The prototype is 40[mm] in diameter and 700[mm] in length. It achieves the maximum contraction force of 12096[N], FDV of about 18000[N/mm^3], and EDV of 2484[J/mm^3], which are 5 to 20 times bigger than those of typical conventional actuators with the same volume.

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This research describes the development of a search and rescue mobile robot "Bari-bari-III", which jacks-up heavy debris while sneaking into a collapsed house. Previous prototypes presented three problems: 1) it needs a plane surface in order to jack-up debris; 2) limited jack-up driving power, and 3) wobbling debris up and down while sneaking through them. By investigating the position of the hydraulic cylinder and by using a capsule structure, Bari-bari-III is able to sneak even through 3-D rough narrow spaces. Furthermore, adopting a wedge body, Bari-bari-III has the function to output constant power (about 1.4ton) in theory regardless of the jacking up height. In addition, Bari-bari-III can sneak with multiple units combined side-by-side, enabling it to sneak with small wobbling motion. Finally, the effectiveness of Bari-bari-III is verified by field test in the environment similar to real situation.

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When the rescue robot rescues the victim, it is necessary to measure human state of living condition. We propose a multi-sensor system to measure the human state such as the pulse, temperature, the blood pressure, etc.

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The paper describes development of prototype of the novel sensor node with impact resistance capability for gathering disaster area information. We have been discussing the development of the gathering information system for disaster area by utilizing rescue robots and wireless sensor networks. Then we propose launching deployment method of the sensor node for deploying dangerous place where a human and robot cannot enter. In order to realize launching deployment, the sensor node has to be protected from dropping impact. Therefore, we covered the sensor node by impact-resistance structure. Prototype of the sensor node consists of plastic ball for the impact-resistance structure and the sensor node core for sensing, communication and information processing. Experiment confirmed that prototype of the sensor node was able to communicate and launch.

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This paper presents a disaster mitigation system using a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). When natural disasters such as large earthquakes strike, immediate assessment of damages and continuous collection of information is necessary for saving disaster victims and constructing revival plans. We develop a small prototype UAV and an onboard software using a GPS navigation system and propose a unique disaster information collection system. This system enables us to collect disaster information in real-time by processing aerial pictures transmitted by the UAV and integrate it to the geographic information system (GIS). The usability of this system is confirmed by flight experiments.

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In this paper, we propose the hierarchy cooperation system by the parent and the child type rescue robot searching for the victim and measuring the environment. The cooperative function of the parent-child robot system and the cooperative searching of the plural child robots are examined.

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I do practically with a last purpose that I let a student learn technology and skill to build an "Environment Machine System" in a wider point of view by letting you deal with a design and fabrication of Fuel Cell Vehicle as one example of regarding manufacturing education.

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Photovoltaic Systems are connected MPPT to get maxim generation energy anytime. There are plural control methods in MPPT. However, the conventional control method is not suitable for moving vehicles' PV, such as solar car. Therefore, the Authors tested a generation characteristic of running state. In this study, efficiency of Power Comparing Type and Hill Climbing Type MPPT systems are evaluated by outdoor running experiment. In Addition, it is not made clear about the detailed state for the generation characteristic on running time. So, we measured intergraduation of realtime PV curve with a capacitor charge type I-V curve tracer.

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By the clean energy resources and less energy consumption, small size racing solarcar for competition is studied and developed. With 480W peak photovoltaic system, 80kg lead-acid sealed battery, four wheels vehicle is our basic concept, and we have been participated in the solarcar race in SUZUKA every year since 2004. In this paper, some experimental data are indicated. The purpose of this study is to discuss detailed characteristics of solar power generation and running resistance of the competitive solarcar in terms of energetic analysis during the endurance race.

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We are developing a fuel cell electric vehicle used for university education. The questionnaire on the fabrication experiences was conducted to investigate the knowledge of the university students. Considering the questionnaire results, the fuel cell electric vehicle was designed. The design includes the mechanical design, the electronics design. The experiments of the fabricated fuel cell electric vehicle were conducted, and the results showed that the fabricated vehicle was able to run as we planed.

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Generally, an electrical wheelchair is able to move only short distance because of the buttery capacity. Therefore, we are proposing a new hybrid electrical wheelchair with a solar panel, a fuel cell, and a buttery in order to increase the moving distance. The proposed wheelchair uses an energy control system to switch the energy sources. This paper will present the system concept of the proposed hybrid electrical wheelchair, and the experimental results using a solar panel and a buttery.

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Shinshu university solar car project has been developing a solar and fuel cell powered hybrid electric vehicles, Cocoon series. We participated Japan Intercollege Solar & Fuel Cells Car Championship (JISFC) 2007 held in July, 2007. This paper reports the body design, production, and the performance evaluation of Cocoon 2007. The design intention of the body of Cocoon 2007 was assumed to be the following three items (securing of livability, improvement of body rigidity, securing of aerodynamic performance). The body has GFRP (glass fiber reinforced plastics) sandwich monocoque structure molded by the hand lay-up method. The strength and performance of the vehicle were evaluated experimentally.

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We have been developing a fuel cell powered electric vehicle, which can be used for delivery service applications. This paper describes design and fabrication of the vehicle.

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This paper describes a consideration of the optimal ECO driving technique used for an electric vehicle. The modern control theory is considered to obtain the optimal running pattern. A simple mathematical model of an electrical vehicle was derived based on the ideal condition which does not consider any disturbances. The optimal running pattern was revealed by the simulation results, and the results showed that the velocity was increased rapidly, and decreased slowly.

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