In this paper, we propose that the teaching material of PLD for beginners. PLD is used in various equipments. But, engineers who can use PLD enough are short. So we need the teaching material and curriculum of PLD. We are using "Coolrunner 2 Training kit". We can study PLD and foundations of digital circuit. After the curriculum ends, we will evaluate the result of the questionnaire and we will investigate the effectiveness of this material to examine the improvement method of the curriculum.

View full abstract

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. The class consists of hardware production, software development, and time trial. We wish students to feel fun as well as difficulty of hands on practice of engineering, and pleasure when they completed their mission. This paper describes the result of the lecture of the Department of Electrical Engineering named "Engineering Practice" which adopted these educational materials.

View full abstract

In this report, the design of the line following robot competition as idea training is discussed. First we set the line obstacle: separated lines and perpendicular corner. Next, we set the physical obstacles for touch sensing and road branch. And we report the future considerations, (a) Evaluation of algorithm and adding a slope in the college practice, (b) The teaching in the robot class for children.

View full abstract

We propose a new type of 'hands-on' and 'minds-on' program for Mechatronics education which contributes to the physical sense developments for the mechanical hardware design. For this program, we provide a new developed reconfigurable handicraft kit of the 4-wheeled car which is composed by the inexpensive and commonplace parts, and the performance of the assembled 4-wheeled car is sensitive to its assembly arrangement. And then we also implemented the program to the freshmen at our college, and verified the effectiveness. In this paper we report the procedure and the effective results of the program.

View full abstract

In this paper we propose a new type of hands-on program for Mechatronics education. The program consists of two parts; one is for developing a physical sense of the mechanical hardware design, and the other is for a systematic hardware and software design. And then we report the implemented results of the program to freshmen of our university, and verified the effectiveness by a questionnaire survey to the students after the program.

View full abstract

Visually handicapped person has an occupation as an acupuncture after training the Oshide technique. But their training practice has not been sufficiently supported because the development of training equipment has been on a way stage. It is very hard to judge for acupuncture whether it having stuck accurately for myself or not. The visual impairment is difficult though materials of silicon etc. are used for the skin to change under the present situation. We are developing he suggested device which can indicate the spatial offset with the sound and the light from the ideal position and form.

View full abstract

The robot assembling system (ROBO-BLOCK) which could be used from the education to the 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 and the students made many original robots and moved them. We explained the development approach and application of ROBO-BLOCK.

View full abstract

We developed a cleaning robot for office buildings, and we were in use. And we study it to make a cleaning robot better. And we are executing making of the mobile robot in the office building RTM. In this text, outlines of activities are described, and it reports on the result in 2008 fiscal year.

View full abstract

Weed mowing works at agricultural field is one of sever and dangerous works in summer time. Therefore this Study is aimed for the development of the mowing robot which could operate by a remote control or an autonomy direction safely. This robot consists mainly of a crawler type moving device, a weed mowing device and a controller. It is possible to cut redge grass by this robot, and to detect a progress direction by the image processing using Web camera.

View full abstract

An intuitive tractor navigation system using augmented reality was developed by superimposing a virtual 3-dimensional (3-D) image on an actual camera image. Two real-time kinematic (RTK) global positioning system (GPS) units and an inertial measurement unit determined tractor position and direction, and were used to create a dynamic, virtual 3D terrain of the area. Static tractor positions, including roll and pitch, were changed to compare the virtual and actual images. In static positions, position errors were less than 6 cm within 5 m of the tractor front, and directional errors were less than 1 degree.

View full abstract

Although container conveyer or monorail system has been introduced in Japanese citrus orchards, a measurement system to assign information to fruits, trees, and orchards is desirable. Recently some mobile fruit grading machines for sweet peppers and eggplants were reported for precision agriculture. In this research, a mobile citrus fruit grading machine was manufactured. The machine can collect all fruits information of color, size, shape, and sugar content and others, because a machine vision system and an NIR inspection sensor were installed. A GPS to obtain its location could help make orchard maps of the information for precise farming operations.

View full abstract

Large scale Dutch style greenhouses for tomato production have been introduced in many countries recently. Automation systems for many kinds of operations in them are required for improving the conditions of labor shortage, monotonous works, sterilization operation, working efficiency on seedling production, spraying and harvesting operations. In this research, hormone spray and harvesting operations were focused, and machine vision systems and an end-effector were investigated. Because tomato flower petals have higher reflectance in UV region than in visible region, a UV camera and a color camera images were compared. Although end-effectors to harvest individual tomato fruits were already reported so far, an end-effector to harvest a whole fruit cluster was developed and experimented.

View full abstract

This paper describes a vegetation survey system using a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). A handy and effective means to observe vegetation for the agriculture and forestry environment are highly desirable. Accordingly, a more useful and low-cost vegetation survey system than traditional methods which use satellites or manned air planes is developed by our research. This system autonomously collects the aerial images using the visible and near-infrared digital cameras equipped on the UAV. In addition, this system makes a widespread mosaic image of aerial pictures, and makes land cover classification image of a mosaic image by the unique classification method based on the k-means method. The field experiments were conducted at Kirigatani moor in Hiroshima Prefecture. It was confirmed that this system is effective and low-cost for the vegetation survey by the results of experiments.

View full abstract

We propose an organic cultural method for paddy fields in hilly and mountainous areas. In this method, a small rover (AIGAMO ROBOT) assists weeding work by running and stirring soil in the paddy field. So far, we confirmed the effects of weeding by the robot in experiments. In the experiments we controlled the robot manually by radio control, but autonomous drive control is necessary for reducing farmer's labor load. Therefore we developed a drive control system detecting the row of rice plants by a small NIR camera.

View full abstract

For large scale cow farmers, we developed activity monitoring system for cows with small wireless sensor nodes. After continuous operation of this system, we found problems and disposed that.

View full abstract

In recent years, the necessity of efficient and high accuracy mapping method is increasing. Aerial survey is one of the mainstream methods of mapping. The aerial survey can measure wide area in one flight, but it cannot measure tunnels and those objects under elevated road or roadside trees. Therefore, the efficient land survey technique is required under those environments. A Mobile Mapping System (MMS), which consists of GPS/IMU combined navigation system, cameras and laser scanners, is one of the powerful terrestrial survey methods to compensate the disadvantages of the aerial survey. On the other hand, positioning performance of the GPS/IMU combined navigation system is depreciated by the long-term GPS blockage as well. Therefore, the landmark update method using the conventional survey results and the GPS/IMU combined navigation system is addressed in this paper. Road survey research, which is executed under elevated road where GPS blockage occurred, showed the accuracy of the proposed method.

View full abstract

In these years, various research and development for achievement of the driving safety support systems (DSSS) in next generation Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are increasing. At the same time, more detail and various road data like road alignments, road gradients, intersection detail data and lane detail data are demanded for the achievement of next generation ITS. But these road data are not recorded in the present digital road map (DRM) which is used in car navigation system. In addition, aerial survey which is one of the mainstream methods of measuring DRM data is not the ideal method on the point of cost and efficiency. A Mobile Mapping System (MMS) that is a vehicle consists of GPS/IMU combined navigation system, cameras, laser scanners, is one of the methods to measure detail road data with high precision. This paper describes the algorithm for measuring detail and various road data for creating next generation DRM using MMS.

View full abstract

The total extension of Japanese road is over 1.25 million km. It is said that the development of efficient road maintenance and management system will become a mainstream of road related research works in the near future. This paper describes a road surface management system using a Mobile Mapping System (MMS). The proposed MMS, which consists of a GPS-Gyro/IMU combined navigation system, CCD cameras, and laser scanners on the top of the vehicle, can measure road 3D environment in high resolution and high accuracy. In this paper, road surface roughness survey and rut survey and road management method using the MMS and GIS (Geographic Information System) is described. The field survey result proves that the proposed method is valid and effective.

View full abstract

We proposed the shaft tillage cultivation for autonomous robot. Under this cultivation, deep vertical shaft is drilled by rotating the tillage tool, after that, seedling is transplanted to the shaft and grows until harvest time. We have discussed the possibility of application of legged locomotion to our robot. The feature of wheel locomotion is not made good use of, because the robot must stop to do the shaft tillage and transplanting. Meanwhile, one of the effectiveness of legged locomotion is to select ground contact point. Under the shaft tillage cultivation, the tillage and transplanting place is managed in the point. From these viewpoints, it is suggested that the compatibility between the leg locomotion and the shaft tillage method is higher. In this paper we show how to select ground contact points when the legged robot repeats the sequence of movement and work.

View full abstract

Weed control is a significant issue on organic rice farming. Weed can be managed without agricultural chemicals via rice duck farming, crop cultivation and multing, but they are labor-intensive work or need much cost. In this research, a small and row-cost weeding robot was developed. The robot was equipped with three propellers and floats on the surface of paddy water. Water stream from the propellers drove robot as well as control weed by churning the surface of a paddy field. The robot marked an average acceleration of 0.053m/s^2. A result of a simulation showed the robot could weed 0.03-ha paddy field within 2 minutes and the speed was considered enough for this robot weeding.

View full abstract

All stigmas of saffrons which are used as a spice or a dye are harvested by hand. However, it is heavy work to gather an enough amount. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether harvesting saffron's stigmas automatically is possible by using image processing. As a process of harvesting saffron stigmas automatically, we conceieved an idea of cutting the root of flower and harvesting stigma which is hanging by turning it down. Features to harvest stigmas are detected by using color information. The feasibility of this method was shown by the experiment.

View full abstract

Aiming at labor saving of packing task for strawberries, we developed the automatic packing system which consisted of fruit separation supply device, machine vision, four-axis manipulator, end-effector and three conveyers for containers. Basic performance tests of the packing system were conducted; the success rate of the size judgment of the strawberry by the machine vision was 80.4[%]. The success rates were more than 90[%] in M-size and L-size strawberry, by the packing examination. The system developed in this paper suggested the possibility of automation for packing strawberry fruit, but gave the scope for future development.

View full abstract

This paper describes a power cable type harvesting robot for asparagus. Electric power supply is very important for harvesting robot which worked in green house. Conventional harvesting robot is working by electrical battery. However, there is not electrical battery with capacity which worked harvesting robot every day. On the other hand, asparagus is crops that should be harvested every day because growth speed is very early during summer season. For the reasons stated above, we are developing a power cable type harvesting robot for asparagus. Using power cable, our harvesting robot can work continuously in green house every day. Experimental results show that our harvesting robot have good performance to asparagus harvesting in green house.

View full abstract

Many TV cameras have been often used as machine vision systems for harvesting robots. However, it was difficult to use camera under sunlight because of fluctuation of illumination intensity and color temperature of the sunlight. In this presentation, distance measurement and recognition of asparagus were conducted by using near-infrared laser rangefinder in night and day time, and were compared with stereo vision using TV cameras. As a result, it was found that measurement accuracy was not much affected by fluctuation of illumination intensity and color temperature and measurement errors were within about 10mm. Success rate of recognition of target asparagus was about 80%.

View full abstract

This robot is a device performing weeding the intrarow spacing of the onion autonomously. The burden of the farmer is reduced by a robot performing weeding work and prevents the many use of the weed killer. The robot consists mainly of a running gear, a rectangular manipulator, a weeding hand, and a computer. The robot steps over the ridge and runs. A manipulator goes and returns the intrarow spacing of the onion. The weeding hand which is end-effector is form of the hammer knife. The robot detects the crops with a sensor and image processing not to injure the vegetables when a weeding hand weeds a garden. As a result of weeding examination, the weeding hand was able to remove most weeds.

View full abstract

We are currently developing a strawberry-harvesting robot which has 5 D.O.F. manipulator, 1 D.O.F. gripper, and a stereo vision system. In this paper, a new gripper and evaluation experiments are shown. The prior gripper sometimes caught a wrong peduncle, so we developed a less-invasive gripper which has two finer fingers. As a result of the evaluation experiments, we confirmed that the failure rate of harvesting decreased.

View full abstract

This paper proposes a novel tele-operation system for the UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) in the outdoor environment. The unique remote control interface using 3D environmental map measured by MMS (Mobile Mapping System) is addressed. The driver can control the vehicle by looking at a virtual vehicle model on the pre-obtained environmental map. In addition, the obstacle information measured by a laser scanner and a stereo camera is also displayed on the map. It is easy to grasp the whole environment around the vehicle and is effective to control the vehicle with safety and speedy. From result of the remote control experiment, this system is proved to be valid and effective to find the obstacles compared with the usual on-board camera image.

View full abstract

Traffic accidents have been serious problems. Therefore, the necessity for driving safety support systems are high. In order to verify the validity of these systems, it is necessary to evaluate risk values of each vehicle. Conventional risk indices as TTC(Time-To-Collision) are not appropriate to be applied to more complex situation like the case that a high speed vehicle is surrounded by multiple moving vehicles. In this research, we proposed a criteria which evaluates the risk of each vehicles over moving obstacles as high-speed vehicles on an expressway. In this criteria, a potential risk of surrounding vehicles is calculated by an elliptic potential function, whose major axis is along the velocity of moving vehicle and center is the future position of the vehicle. The proposed criteria is applied to a driving safety support system and verified by a realistic traffic simulation including the driver models calibrated by real traffic data in the situation with multiple surrounding vehicles.

View full abstract

In recent years, the necessity of efficient and high accuracy mapping method research is increasing. Aerial photogrammetry is one of the mainstream methods of mapping wide area. But the information, under elevated structures, in tunnels, shadow of buildings, and under street trees etc, cannot be captured from aerial photogrammetry. Therefore, the efficient data acquisition technique is required under those environments. This paper describes a data acquisition method using a Mobile Mapping System (MMS). MMS is a vehicle, which consists of GPS-Gyro/IMU combined navigation system and a CCD camera. In this paper, a road ortho mosaic creation algorithm is proposed and the result of road ortho mosaic image is introduced. And this paper describes advantage of road ortho mosaic over the aerial photogrammetry.

View full abstract

The mobile robot that has the water hydraulic manipulator for the dismantlement of the building as the base machine is developed. The paper shows the system design method and mock-up test of this robot.

View full abstract

This paper describes a detection method of two types of exfoliations for outward tile wall. One of the tile exfoliations is an outer exfoliation separated the tile surface from mortar concrete, the other is an inner exfoliation deteriorated space between the substrate and mortar concrete. In order to research these exfoliations, we focused attention on the wavelet analysis that enables to analyze the frequency element of a waveform on time phase continuously. In part 3 of this study, the outside tile wall in an actual building was inspected with the detection system which installed the proposed diagnosis flow using the wavelet analysis. As a result, features of various mother wave let were understood, and the new effective real-time diagnosis flow was proposed.

View full abstract

We have developed the Tile Inspection Robot which are equipped the function to inspect tile clack and exfoliative tile. The function to inspect tile clack is achieved by taking a picture by a camera and analyzing the picture. The function to inspect exfoliative tile is achieved by hitting a wall with percussion device and judging using sound pressure of a picked echo. And its 2 functions were integrated by exclusive software for inspection. More Tile Inspection Robot was used for an inspection in an outer wall in a building, and showed that there is no inferiority more than a check result by a person.

View full abstract

Authors are researching and developing the Construction Waste Separation and Sort System with the use of Robot Technology which is trusted from NEDO. It used the near-infrared light, eddy current, and X-rays fluorescence, and revealed the judgment of materials from demolished buildings. It was decided to make the demolition robot which is a main part of a system the double arm type manipulator. It has been decided as a basic specification of a robot to break a demolition thing small and select/separate of waste. It was estimated outdoors as the using the method of judging materials from demolished buildings and manipulator. We report that result in this paper.

View full abstract

Recently, the asbestos health issues are becoming very large. We aim at the development of asbestos qualitative analysis support method in distribution staining method which used the phase contrast microscope. The automatic detection and counting system for particle and asbestos crystal are proposed in this paper. By using our proposed method, particle detection robust to change of the brightness and color of microscope picture and asbestos detection are realized. We perform actual counting experiment and compare our proposed method's result to inspector's conventional method to show the validity of proposed method.

View full abstract

This study proposed the car trasnportation system termed as iCART (intelligent Cooperative Autonomous Robot Transporters). This system composes of two omni-directional robots, which have end-effecter for supporting the car, so that the system transports and handles cars at the narrow space such as parking into the mechanical parking system. This system also realizes various functions such as parking, valet parking, twoing, and the transportation of cars to a factory, ferry, parking areas, etc. The motion control algorithm, which controls two robots in coordination, was proposed. This algorithm is the leader-follower type distributed motion control algorithm, and realized the coordinated transportation of the car. However, the system occasionally undergoes oscillations; as a result, the trajectory estimation by the follower is affected, and coordinated transportation becomes difficult because of the noise and vibration signals recieved from the force sensor. Normally, these signals are very small and they can be neglected. However, the sensor noise is amplified in this algorithm because the distance between the control center and the sensor is large; the control center is defined as the representative point of the car and the force sensors are attached to the robots. It is necessary to transform the force information from the position of the force sensor to the control center. This transformation amplifies the noise recieved form the force sensor. In this paper, a leader-follower-type motion control algorithm that reduces the amplification of the noise and vibrating singnals is described. In particular, the control center of a robot is defined as its representative point. The distance between the control center and the foce sensor is small in this algorithm. Therefore, the amplification of the noise received from the force sensor is reduced.

View full abstract

For transporting a car at narrow place, we propose a car transportation system termed as iCART (intelligent Cooperative Autonomous Robot Transporters). In this system, two robots approach the car autonomously, and lift up it for supporting its weight from right/left side respectively. Then, two robots transport the car in coordination. To realize the transportation of the car, the system needs to handle many things such as the control of robots, the trajectory generation, the environmental recognition and so on. In this paper, these tasks are aranged to five modules and a control architecture and an integrated control system, which control each module in coordination based on a model described using the petri net, are proposed. Proposed systems are integrated to iCART and experimental results illustrate the validity of the proposed method.

View full abstract

If it points to "inserting a bolt" and work and a bolt (work subject) is clicked with a mouse on a camera picture or CG picture, the power distribution work robot which does a bolt insertion work will be developed. A Power Distribution Line Maintenance Robot is developed which The CG simulation and the insertion experiment of the bolt were done. I want to introduce the controller of this system and to propose the agent-ized robot controller architecture.

View full abstract

Cable handling technology is also a critical issue for mobile robots. The length of cable is estimated to be about 60 m. Excessive tension of the cable should be avoided for stable movement of the vehicle manipulator along the rail. The feasibility of a new proposal for a drum cable winding mechanism is under evaluation to determine if it enables compact storage of the long cable.

View full abstract

This paper describes a robot to perform the task of removing tile screws from suspended ceiling beams. Within the larger task of renovating an office building, there are many repetitive tasks that are suitable for automation. With the increasing emphasis on reuse of materials, there is an opportunity to introduce robots that can replace labour while preserving materials in a reusable condition. The robot uses a specially-designed tool mounted at the end of an arm. This tool removes screws by turning them between two rollers. The tool is moved down the beam in a single motion, allowing it to remove many screws fast with little operator interaction. RT-Middleware is used as the implementation architecture, which facilitated development by simplifying testing of individual components.

View full abstract

A method of scooping rock piles automatically by wheel loader has been proposed until now. The scooping method consists of several motion units and for determining the bucket motion in each motion unit the information of reaction forces is needed. The reaction forces from rock piles are composed of five components, and the combination of the components acting on the bucket changes according to the motion units. In this research the reaction forces in each motion unit are modeled with five components and they are examined by using a miniature wheel loader and an actual wheel loader.

View full abstract

This paper describes to develop an automated polarized microscopic imaging system for supporting asbestos qualitative analysis. Dispersion staining is a visual observation method and it is done as that the experts count all particles in the view of the microscope and also the number of the fibrous asbestos fibres. For supporting this work, we are developing an automated system to ease the experts' burden for efficient observation. The system takes the images by the microscope with automated polarizer and registers them on the database via on-line process. A prototype system is developed and the experimental result is also discussed.

View full abstract

We understand that primitive static states (PSS), which we have defined, are useful for work or skill analysis, but PSS are not useful for operational support because PSS determine with using only on-off information. In this study, we propose a work state identification for operational support, which includes an identification of the most basic construction work property by modifying PSS and an extraction of operational support providing flag by applying modified-PSS to time-series data. Experiments in transporting and removing tasks using our hydraulic dual arm system indicated that operator supports based on the proposed identification method improves work performance, including decreasing the time taken to complete a task, and the number of error operation, and reducing the moving distance of end-effector after breaking an object.

View full abstract

This paper reports a newly developed hydraulic dual robotic arm system for research and development on advanced intelligent construction machinery that has two joysticks to control the two manipulators with twelve degrees of freedom, control valves with load-sensing system, and sensors for detecting lever operation, cylinder oil pressure, and cylinder stroke information. To clarify important points at addressing an intelligent system, we evaluated basic characteristics of hydraulic machine system. Experimental results showed that hydraulic machine system has measurable time delay from lever input to cylinder actuation, which makes a cooperative operation with two arms difficult. We also found that magnitude of cylinder load greatly changes by lever operation and joint angle, which requires a sophisticated external load detecting method.

View full abstract

There are kinds of flexible objects in house. For example, papers, rubbers, clothes are the typical objects. Therefore, a home service robot is needed to operate for the flexible objects. However, to operate these objects has not established because these objects have characteristics that is different from each material. In this paper, a modeling technique with Neural Network to predict behavior of flexible objects is proposed. Finally, the validity is verified by some experiments.

View full abstract

In this paper, we describe the development of a street tree climbing robot WOODY-2. Pruning a street tree is very dangerous because the workers work at height. Therefore, we are developing a street tree climbing robot which works at height instead of man. The WOODY-2 is constructed of two trunk grasp units and a serial link arm which connects the units. This robot is capable of climbing a tree like a measuring worm motion, and rotating around the trunk and moving between the trunk and the branch.

View full abstract

Our research group study about the autonomous dual-arm assembly robot. The first of goal as assembly work is tightening up nut to bolt. We propose force sensorless impedance control of the three-fingered robot hand and it is proposed to produce soft grasping. Force control is one of the important aspects in industrial and nursing robots for accurate and safe operations. Generally, force sensor is often used for this purpose despite of its expensive cost. This has lead us to use the current sensor instead, where the current between motor and motor driver is measured and used to estimate the external force applied to the finger. Finally, we describe the following control with force sensorless impedance control. In this paper, the proposed method has successfully grasped the M3 sized nut.

View full abstract

In this paper, we propose Master-slave control of Dual-Arm Robot. The purpose of the study is the improvement of the operational performance of the robot by the master-slave system. The person gives the robot the motion trajectory if this system is used and it is possible to operate manual. This system is used as real-time remote control of the robot by the space where the person cannot work directly. It is generally difficult to do advanced operation like the assembly operation with the master-slave system. Then, the operation is simplified by using the system that adds the force control and advanced operation is achieved. Concretely, the robot does the manipulation aid of the crash avoidance by the automatic operation. The first of goal as assembly work is tightening up nut to bolt.

View full abstract

This paper proposes a practical method on the cancelation of unexpected internal inertia force and moment measured by F/T sensors during fast arm motions. With the canceled force and moment, we can measure pure external force applied to the arm.

View full abstract

While it has become aged and decrease-in-birthrate society recently, a human-friendly robot which can support and assist human being directly is expected. We think it is important for mobile robot to have not only the safety function to avoid contact or collision with human being but also the function to preliminary-announce surrounding people the forthcoming motion of the robot before beginning to move. This paper reports on the result of the side-by-side test on the voice and the display.

View full abstract

The development of a load adjusting device with a motion measurement interface and a robot motion control scheme are addressed in this paper. Proposed system can provide a multi load state and a multi dynamics state in human-robot dynamical cooperation. The multi load state including its transition is effective and efficient in the human-robot cooperative task. Under the proposed control scheme, the load state can be adjusted and varied with the various dynamics in the active or passive state. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed control system, a human-robot cooperative experiment is carried out. Experimental results show that the proposed control scheme can provide the multi load state in the human-robot interaction.

View full abstract