This paper describes development of milking machine. This milking machine innovate tongue motion. We recently reaffirm importance of breastfeeding. Because breast milk excel in nutrition value and immune properties, sucking behavior affect development of gnathic bone. In addition, women's social advancement makes the needs of milking machine increased. General milking machine is pumped breast milk by negative pressure. There is a possibility that such sucking behavior exert an unexpected influence on mother's body. We developed new milking machine. It emulates human's sucking behavior. The present study carried out the difference of quantity of sucking milk among several artificial rubber nipples. The experimental result shows availability of new milking machine.

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In this study, we are aimed at examining shoes for healthy walk acquisition of infants by examining the influence that weight and the weight balance of the shoes give to the walking process. The subjects were six infants, between the age of 18-24 months. The experiment sampled four kinds of infant shoes of different weight and weight distribution. In this experiment, we filmed the subjects walking with a video camera from the side angle, barefoot and once each with the four samples. We analyzed these images and determined the angle variation area of an ankle and the knee. The shoe which has a center of barycentric position in the tiptoe side is hard to plantarfle, and has a negative influence on walking, by making it easy to trip. We understood that it reduced the movement loading of the knee to lower the inertia moment of shoes.

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The stress of treatments in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) has been considered to affect autonomic nerve activity and motions in premature infants. In order to improve the treatments in NICU, we surveyed the actual environment in NICU, quantitatively. In this paper, we measured heart rate (HR) and motions of 8 premature infants at 4 types of stimuli according to the care in NICU. As the results, we clarified that physiological response was different depending on the kind of stimulation. We found that the motion by stimuli was different depending on the premature infants, from the analysis of motions. Therefore, motions by stimulation were different in each premature infant. Importance of treatment according to individual premature infants was suggested.

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Safety issue of consumer products is recognized as a big social problem recently. This paper proposes a new methodology "robotization of consumer products" which integrates the following methods as a kind of a feedback system ; 1) sensing how consumer products are used in everyday life, 2) constructing computational model from the collected data in a data-driven way, and 3) improving the products based on the constructed model. This paper reports study on playground equipment as a case study for establishing robotization methodology.

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This paper describes a bodygraphic injury surveillance system in which a conventional injury surveillance system and a bodygraphic information system are integrated. The bodygraphic injury surveillance system allows us to represent and accumulate external injury related information in a normalized and multilayered way. The system also enables to retrieve necessary data using not only text query such as injury situation and injury mechanism and but also bodygraphic query. This paper also reports examples of injury modeling and statistical analysis by the developed system and 1,628 injury cases data collected in a hospital.

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We have developed the surgical robot system with heart-beat canceller for coronary artery bypass grafting. This robot system accomplishes the compensation by synchronized with heart-beat. The purpose of the research is evaluation of synchronization performance in the surgical robot system. We used a three dimensional motion capture (OPTOTRAK) for tracking the synchronized motion of the surgical robot system. The evaluation experiment showed that the position of the surgical robot system is greatly different from the position of the heart. Future work is the development of the closed-loop in the tip of the surgical robot system for decreasing the error of synchronization.

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Master-Slave for TUR-P (MSST) for minimally invasive surgery has been developed in order to relieve the burden of surgery for the surgeon and prevent the infection. In this system with five degrees of freedoms (DOFs), a user operates a master interface and receives feedback of slave via the interface while a slave robot mimics the master's maneuvers on the remote environment. Both of them are divided into two parts, arm and tool. The former has 3 DOFs to describe the motion of user's arm during the operation the latter has 2DOFs to describe the motion of endoscope. This system employs a bilateral control system by using some encoders and 2 force sensors. Therefore, this system can control position and force. In this paper, we proposed the new master arm and describe safe positional control in the arm systems.

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Vitreoretinal surgery is one of the most difficult microsurgery because surgeons have to manipulate extremely delicate tissues on the retina peering through a microscope. Therefore, there are only few surgeons skilled enough to perform it successfully. In order to make more effective treatment with high precision, we have developed a parallel manipulator with six degree of freedom. The primary concerns are size, precision and sterilization considering the characteristics of the surgery. The result of evaluation experiment shows that the manipulator moves around therapeutic range keeping remote center of motion. The experiment also shows that this system ensures microscopic field.

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In this paper, a new mechanism and its analysis of a minimally invasive surgical robot are presented. A new parallel link mechanism was introduced to the robot that we previously developed as a surgical motion base. In this mechanism, the rigidity of the robot was improved by composing both orientational part and linear part as a parallel link mechanism. By introducing a new mechanism, the inertia of the endeffector was decreased and the sterilization process of the surgical instrument can be easier.

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In this paper, a master manipulator with a high force feedback capability and operability for surgical applications is described. The developed master manipulator is composed of a translational mechanism and a rotational mechanism. The translational mechanism has 3 DOF of translational motions, and realizes a high accuracy, a high stiffness, lightweight and wide working area by using a newly developed redundant parallel mechanism. The rotational mechanism has 3 DOF of rotational motions and 1 DOF of gripping motion. The mechanism is a newly developed spherical parallel mechanism, which its center of motions is corresponding to the operator's wrist joint.

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To solve the hand-eye coordination problem in endoscopic surgery, this paper proposes an intuitive human-machine interface for 3-D positioning of surgical instruments that uses the monitor as an input device of the desired point. This interface must achieve 3-D positioning from only 2-D image information. To cope with this problem, we propose a new 3-D positioning method using a laser pointer. This method achieves 3-D positioning of a surgical instrument by determining and controlling the direction of insertion of the instrument based on preoperative and intraoperative learning data, followed by estimating the distance between the instrument and organs using projective invariants. To evaluate validity of this interface, we conducted an experiment in which the interface system makes trajectory tracking with keeping the instrument-organ distance constant. As a result, it was confirmed that a laser beam was irradiated along the desired trajectory in few gaps while keeping the distance less variant.

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This paper describes the development of a slave manipulator for the tele-lapaloscopic surgery. The authors have investigated requirements and constraints for the slave manipulator. Based on the investigation, we developed a slave manipulator with 33 DOF, which consists of three arms. The center arm for endscope has 7 DOF ; 4 for preoperative setting and 3 for intraoperative driving. Right and Left arms for forceps have 13 DOF respectively; 6 for preoperative setting and 7 for intraoperative driving. With the help of respective DOF for preoperative setting, the manipulator realizes easy position setting. The paper also describes the experimental results for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy performed on a pig.

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Master and Slave system to assist the surgeon has been studied actively. In the neurosurgery, the development of micro neurosurgery system that is manipulatable in the deep surgical field with the engineering techniques is also studied, and there are some famous robots. However, regarding the master system, manipulator should be designed for each surgical field, because the target workspace and precision are different. Furthermore, operability is important for the safety reason. Therefore, the authors tried to develop a master manipulator with higher operability especially designed for micro neurosurgical system.

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To prevent accidents during a surgery using a master-slave surgical robot, we proposed an autonomous avoidance algorithm of danger area. This proposed algorithm generates avoidance motion with manual operation by an operator and autonomous operation based on position information of the danger area. Using usual methods of the autonomous avoidance, it is difficult to juggle two demands postulated as follows: the stability of the slave motion around the danger area and avoidance when the danger area approach to the slave robot. In this paper, we described a new method that can juggle them, and evaluate the availability using simulation and actual equipment.

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This paper presents the development of robot capable to simulate heartbeat. It is difficult to operate off-pump coronary-artery bypass surgery. Consequently, we develop the surgical robot system with heart-beat compensation. In the process of developing the robot system above, it is necessary to evaluate the tracking capability of the robot system quantitatively. Therefore, we developed the Robotic heart-beat simulator which evaluates the robot system. First of all, required specification of the robot was found by the heartbeat data in vivo experiment. Second, the link parameters of the robot that satisfy the specification were optimized. At the end, the robot was evaluated for accuracy of position and posture. As a result, the robot moved with maximum error of 0.28 [mm] and 0.54 [deg]. In addition, the robot was evaluated in the experiment of movement based on the heartbeat data, it showed a little error and time-lag, but utility of the robotic heartbeat simulator.

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The purpose of this study is development of a manipulator system guided by intraoperative image information. For improving response to motion of affected area, manipulator system is controlled by motion planning which is generated by virtual force and viscosity. We decided the intended task is needling with adapting to liver motion due to respiration, and developed simulation, and decided parameter involved in virtual force and viscosity. With developed simulation, we evaluated the response of manipulator system about (i) Difference between motion planning and visual servo, (ii) Effect of tracking ability of manipulator and resolution time of image.

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We have developed a forceps manipulator having force sensing using pneumatic actuators. In this paper, a pneumatically driven forceps manipulator which is suitable for suturing task is developed. The manipulator has a wire drive rotating joint at the tip part and enables precise gripper rotation into practice. The gripper mechanism which consists of a small cylinder and slider-crank mechanism is proposed and implemented at the tip part. The gripper is driven by air pressure supplied through a fine tube so that the interference of other joints can be avoided. The gripping force of 20 [N] is achieved. We constructed a master-slave system with the forceps manipulator and conducted some suturing experiments using a sponge object. It became clear that the forceps manipulator had good maneuverability and could estimate the external moment within the uncertainty of 10 [mNm].

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This paper shows the development of ultrasound-guided needle insertion manipulator driven by flexible rack. The manipulator holds an ultrasound probe and unifying it. The manipulator has three degree of freedom and realizes the positioning on Ultrasound image. In this paper, we measure the positioning precision of developed manipulator. From these results, it is suggested that the manipulator realize precise positioning under 0.1mm. Then, the registration method is shown and the manipulator realizes precise positioning under 1mm on ultrasound image from registration experiment.

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In laparoscopic surgery, surgeons often make a 7-8 cm incision through which traditional instruments for abdominal surgery and their hands directly when it is difficult to perform surgery by using only slender instruments for laparoscopic surgery. We have developed an assemblable three fingered five-DOF hand like a human hand that can be inserted through trocars. This paper describes an improved finger mechanism and its evaluation in In Vivo experiment. The middle finger and the forefinger have interlocking joint mechanisms in which the two joints of each finger equally or proportionally rotate. The base joint of the thumb adopts a locking mechanism. Experimental results verify that the hand can grasp and open internal organs.

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This paper examines dynamic characteristics of a feed drive system with the nonlinear spring behavior. The dynamic characteristics during the microscopic motion can be described with the Coulomb friction term in the ranges beyond 100μm. However, in the range less than 100μm, the dynamic characteristics demonstrate the nonlinear spring behavior and the relationship of displacement versus the driving torque is given by the hysteresis curve. In this study, we clarified that the effect the parameter of mathematical model for the hysteresis curve gives the driving torque and the nonlinear spring behavior can be represented by the mathematical model of the hysteresis curve.

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The fundamental motion of a rotary crane is consisted of rotation, boom hoisting and load hoisting. The rotary crane is mainly used in factories, construction sites, harbor and so on. However, rotary crane has a problem such that load sway generated by the influence of acceleration of the carriage, and centrifugal force. However, shortage of the expert by aging also poses serious problem of crane operation. This paper present to 2-degree of freedom control system by straight transfer and feed back controller. Then reference governor is applied to give the good reference considering the various constraints.

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In recent years, plane substrates and semiconductor wafers become larger year by year. Therefore, some problems occur such as fracture and stain of substrates under conventional contact transportation. In order to solve these problems, a new non-contact transportation technology is proposed in this study. The substrates are levitated by an aerostatic force and transported by the acoustic viscous force by the traveling wave of flexure stator deformation. In this paper, transportation unit with derailment prevention capability is proposed and experimental results are presented.

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This paper presents advanced control for automatic pouring system with the tilting-type ladle in casting industry. The falling position control of outflow liquid poured from the ladle is proposed in this paper. Flow rate, flow velocity, and falling position of outflow liquid are derived from mathematical model of pouring and falling position . Using the estimated falling position, the actual falling position tracks to target position by transferring of ladle. Moreover, because sloshing by transferring the ladle is generated, the sloshing suppression control is proposed. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control system, simulation and experiments of automatic pouring system were conducted.

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A crane suspended load must be transported with swing suppression and positioned in target location precisely. The control of a traveling crane is not easy because of its nonlinearily. In this paper, we present experiment results of the traveling crane positioning and swing suppression within motions of traveling/rope hoisting which is controlled by visual feedback control using a three-dimensional camera and velocity command system with variable feedback digital gains, based on digitizing the regulator controller of continuous-time system.

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The purpose of this research is to develop hi-speed and hi-accuracy machining system. It is necessary to considerate various elements such as deterioration of geometric information on NC program, tool deflection and thermal deformation to achieve hi-speed and hi-accuracy machining system. In this research, to solve these problems, the tool path generation system that is able to predict and compensate the tool deflection and fluctuation errors of cutting load based on NC geometric simulation. Moreover the servo data which is control servo motor finally is generated from geometric model directly by geometric model interpolation. This report refers to the basic concept of proposed system and confirmation result of application to a simple model.

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A NC geometric cutting simulator is widely used software that is enable to verify a tool path without real machining process by executing the machined shape check and the interference check between a tool and a workpiece. The purpose of this study is to develop a high-accuracy NC geometric cutting simulator which is able to predict the tool deflection and wear based on removal volume. This paper describes about calculation algorithm of the tool deflection, tool wear, and direction of the tool deflection based on removal volume, and refers to the result of comparison of the tool deflection and wear between NC geometric cutting simulation and machining experiment.

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A liquid packaging machine produces liquid packaging bags by controlling a side seal roll, an end seal roll, a cut roll coordinately. These rolls are driven by servo-motors separately as a multi-axis servo mechanism. In this paper we propose a two steps velocity controller to produce bags of arbitrary size and a phase control system which determines the cut position on a film according to the seal position. The control system changes the rotary phase difference of two rolls by changing the velocity reference of the cut roll. Experimental results using a liquid packaging machine show the effectiveness of the proposed control system.

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First of all, when a humanoid robot with the expression of the face is made by using the artificial muscle such as organic actuators, it is necessary to make up a flexible mask which becomes the base. Moreover, it is preferable that the model of the mask is a face of the researcher. 3D copy system which reproduces a three-dimensional thing such as these masks purely technologically is described. This 3D copy system is composed of 3D measurement such as 3D laser scanners etc., the surface making based on measured points data, 3D design by 3D-CAD, and 3D forming by heat melt accumulating method etc.

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In our country, it is expected that the super-aging society will be becomes in the near future. Therefore, the number of the patients is increased. Moreover, it is feared that the nursing and medical workers are decrease. Then, a variety of rehabilitation support devices are developed. The purpose of this study is to develop the upper limb rehabilitation support device using a pneumatic cylinder for rehabilitation training. This device uses the link mechanism and it is simple composition. In this paper, we reports the characteristics of the device and results of examining effectiveness of rehabilitation support function.

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Authors are developing DVR that can do strength training in more places per one that can easily train everyone by even staying at home especially aiming at the senior citizen's independent walking maintenance. Because this DVR generates the load instead of the weight electrically, it is lighter than the past one. By the way, man can not show the same muscular power while operating. It necessarily is effective and not efficient to add a constant load while operating for man. There is a possibility to be able to train effectively if the load can be dynamically changed while operating. Then, because the mechanism and the control system that was able to use the resurrection brake in this research, and to operate a dynamic load were designed, it reports.

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We have been developed the 3-dimensional rehabilitation training support robot for upper limb motor function. However, the robot is not available for all patients, because there are many kinds of patients and patients' conditions. Moreover, it is difficult to make a training program for all patients considering patient's conditions. This paper presents new training and evaluation systems using the robot. We develop a user interface program to make patient's training program and install it to the robot. The training system enables therapists to easily make a training program to suit the individual needs of the patients. The evaluation system enables therapists to easily perform MMT (manual muscle test) and to evaluate it quantitatively.

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In the future the final aims are to quantitatively evaluate the therapeutic effect of upper limb motion during the training and to develop a new rehabilitation training support robot with the evaluation function. In this work we consider sanding training, which is one of resistance training for upper limbs widely performed in occupational therapy. In this paper we analyze upper limb motion of healthy people and patients during sanding training and propose evaluation methods of therapeutic effect. For this purpose, firstly we measure the upper limb motion of healthy people and patients during the sanding training by using Shape Tape. Secondly, from these measured data we propose three kinds of quantitative evaluation methods for achievement level of sanding training, cooperative movement of healthy arm and disabled arm, and cooperative movement of forearm and upper arm. Finally, we show the validity of the proposed evaluation methods using the patients' data.

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This paper describes a design and experiments about wearable robot for rehabilitation. We investigated the relationship between muscle and movement at the upper limb from anatomical point of view, and examined the proposed assistive mechanism with the hand. We verified that even weak pulling force on the wearable skin can be used for teaching movement. A silent actuation unit based on shape memory alloy is used for the actuation. Potential application includes a rehabilitation support tool for the disturbance of higher cerebral function.

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Hemiplegia is one of the main squeals of stroke. As for the hemiplegic walk, weight load on affected side decrease. The ability of loading weight on affected side has strong correlation in standing balance and walking performance. Therefore, it is need to load weight on the affected side actively. This study targets developing walking support robot which alleviating asymmetricity of weight load in hemiplegic walk. As a method of alleviating the asymmetricity, deferring speed of right and left belt in separated treadmill was contrived. To validate this method, walk of subjects who simulate hemiplegia was analyzed with separated treadmill. As a result of the analysis, decreasing speed of simulated affected side belt make single support phase of affected leg and double support phase increase and weight load on affected side further. From this result, it is guessed that decreasing speed of affected side belt for real hemiplegic patient can further the weight load to the affected side.

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In our current research, we are developing a force assistance system for standing up motion. Our developing walker system realizes the standing up motion using the support pad with three degrees of freedom which is actuated by our proposed linkage mechanism. Furthermore, our walker system has a mobile function. In this paper, we develop the control scheme which realizes the natural standing up motion with safety and stability. For developing control scheme, we measure the typical standing up motion by the nursing specialist as control reference. In order to maintain the stability of the patients during this motion, the patient's center of gravity should be into the range of his foot. Therefore, we propose the novel control scheme for standing up motion using active walker function. The performance of our proposed control scheme is experimented by experiments.

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In this study, we develop a wearable walking assist device to realize an independent daily life of caretaker required. To support walking in safe hands and not to give user fear, affinity for person is concerned. Also, the device need be lightweight and simple structure. The pneumatic rubber artificial muscle is placed in the developed device and support extending and flexing each joint of leg. In this paper, structure and characteristic of this device is described. Additionally, the effectiveness of this device is evaluated by wearing it.

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Movements of the upper limbs are indispensable for daily activities. Upper rehabilitation is important for aged people or patients of ataxia caused by damages to their central nerve system. In recent years, the needs for rehabilitation support systems are increasing, which use robot technology and virtual reality technology. Applying these technologies make efficient rehabilitation possible. We have developed upper rehabilitation support system to evaluate synergy pattern of stroke survivors and to train stroke survivors. In this paper, we report measurement of reaching movement and propose application software for reaching training with this system.

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In order to evaluate upper limb's rehabilitation of patients after stroke from a quantitative viewpoint, we present about development of training and evaluation system using 3-DOF Rehabilitation robot "EMUL", goniometers and Near-infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS).

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Estimation of joint torque is one of motion analysis of humans; it has been applied to virtual reality, sports training and so on. This paper presents a torque estimation system for the human leg in passive motion. In this system, two wires are used to drive the human's leg in 2-DOF motion. The work space of two-wire system is analyzed, then the estimation of joint torque is demonstrated through an experiment.

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This paper proposes an intelligent ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) for hemiplegic patients. The proposed AFO is equipped with a pneumatic passive device at its ankle joint, whose mechanical impedance property can be properly adjusted to the subject's gait. The effectiveness of developed AFO is confirmed through orthotic gait analyses based on gait measurement and ankle-joint torque measurement. The experimental results reveal the following advantage of our method : (1) the range of motion of ankle and knee is increased ; (2) the stability of upper body in stance phase is elevated.

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We propose a new rehabilitation RT device, PARTY(Perception Assisting Robotics TechnologY) that creates a new bypass-route for perception signal communication between both fingers to enable the paralyzed to feel somatic sensation of a paralyzed finger through a non-paralyzed finger using biofeedback technology. A somatic sensation-biofeedback system enabling patient to feel MP joint angle of a paralyzed finger through the non-paralyzed finger is herein designed.

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We propose a new locomotion rehabilitation RT device, PARTY (Perception Assisting Robotics TechnologY) that enables the paralyzed to get a perception-bypassed communication path via a non-paralyzed-part body for recognizing foot contact pressures on the paralyzed-side. This paper indicates an optimal body part used for the bypass from the viewpoint of neuron communication theory, especially focusing on the bilateral nerve control and the commissural fiber where communications between both brain sides are reinforced.

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We propose a new locomotion rehabilitation RT device, PARTY (Perception-Assisting Robotics TechnologY) that enables the paralyzed to get a perception-bypass communication path via a non-paralyzed-part body for recognizing foot contact pressures on the paralyzed-side. This paper reports a remarkable rehabilitation outcome through validation with Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy demonstrating reinforced attentiveness to the paralytic-side body was achieved thanks to a leg-PARTY.

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Face is considered as one of the most important item in emotion expression. Hence, facial paralysis can cause sever distraction in the patient's life ranging from various physical difficulties to psychological difficulties. Despite facial paralysis been fairly common, over the years only a very limited amount of effort has been put in to the development of supporting systems and it is also virtually zero in the robotics field. This paper describes a novel method of designing a thin, skinny, artificial muscle based robotic mask for facial paralyzed patients. The mask uses artificial muscles based on soft actuators as they can closely model natural muscles while producing silent actuations. Made to closely comply with human anatomy, the unit is developed as an external mask actuated automatically from EMG signal extracted from facial nerve. Testing were done on a healthy person using the 6 actuator single sided version of the mask : ExM1

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Recently, a distributed control system is applied to some robots. We developed a distributed control system using CAN for leg-wheeled type mobile robot IMR-Typel. However, the problem remained when the change and enhancing the system are discussed. In this paper, we describe our proposal of the system architecture with a high extendibility for a mobile robot. The proposed system architecture defines the module which has a similar function as module category. The systematized message is transmitted to the module category. We mounted the system architecture by using CAN, and developed the experimental mobile robot. It is verified by the result of examinations that system architecture that we proposed had a high extendibility.

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Recent development of Robot Technology is accelerating operation in complex and natural environments such as home and outdoor. However, the environment changes well, so robots must be robust to the change of environment. We developed the autonomous mobile robot PAR-NE07 for autonomous navigation on the outdoor environment and participated in REAL WORLD ROBOT CHALLENGE (Tsukuba challenge). PAR-NE07 adopts the distributed control system that uses CAN (Controller Area Network) and RT-Middleware PAR-NE07. These technologies have improved module reusability. In this paper, we describe element technologies that are mounted on PAR-NE07.

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We have worked in "Development Project for Intelligent Technologies of Next-generation Robots" of METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry). For the purpose of efficient development of robotic systems, we have developed the RT-Middleware for Intelligent Mobile Robot. And we finished basic investigation and software design. This paper introduce about the concepts and functions of RT-Middleware for Intelligent Mobile Robot.

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We develop a RT-Middleware on various Operating Systems and programming languages in a "Next-generation robot intelligence technical development project" of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. In this paper, we itroduce concepts of a RT-Middleware for VxWorks that is the realtime Operating System.

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In this research, we aim at the construction of a system which can change a robot's internal composition flexibly and easily in the robot by applying the RT-Middleware. To achieve this, we propose to introduce the manager which supports Plug and Play for RT-Component. This manager that automatically sets RT-middleware is investigated to reduce complex sets up procedure to use OpenRTM-aist-0.4.x. For instance, in the start-up process, the robot cannot execute the requested service if the application program failed to manage RT-Component appropriately. By introducing PnP service, it becomes possible to change composition of the robot easily according to a user's situation or a request. Thereby development efficiency of the robot would be improved.

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