We manufacture an anthropomorphic hand with three fingers and control the fingers consisted of the multi joints to grasp various objects by wire driven actuators. The state of grasping and holding objects can be detected using force sensors on the tip of each finger. In this paper we will observe the motion of grasping objects and examine the performance of the hand from the force sensor data. The experimental results show that grasping and holding various objects can be realized, while the elongation of wire should be reduced and the force sensors may be properly distributed.

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In this paper, we propose grasping method based on Compensation Force and Binding Force. We also discuss grasping method for the soft (deformed) object for multi-fingered robot hands. Using Mass-Spring-Damper lattice model, grasp of the soft object is considered correcting the error between a real object and a model.

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Extensive developments have been in progress in recent years to make robots that can move and inspect in narrow space which is not accessible to human such as sewer pipe, and small opening among buildings. In this paper, we focus on narrow space between two walls and introduce a robot that can move in vertical narrow space. This robot is composed of two driving modules and a pantograph in between that generates pushing force against the walls to prevent from falling down. Two different kinds of springs are installed to the pantograph in order to secure certain amount of pushing force. The proposed mechanism reduces the changing of the pushing force even if the inter-wall distance changes and makes the smooth movement possible.

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Roller-Walker is a leg-wheel hybrid mobile robot using a passive wheel equipped on the tip of each leg. The passive wheel can be transformed into a sole mode by rotating the ankle roll joint when Roller-Walker walks on rough terrain. This paper reports propulsion experiments on ice using a specially manufactured skate edge. We verified that Roller-Walker could propel on ice at 0.5 m/s.

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Precession is a motion when the rotation axis of a rotating body (e.g. spinning top) is out of perpendicular, the rotation axis describe a circle like trajectory. In this paper, we control the motion of a spinning top using precession principle. For the first approach, we add torgue to a magnet-attacched spinning top by actuating electromagnets. In this way, we can both retain top's spin and move the top. Secondly, we equip a motor and a gimbal to a spinning top. In the computer simulation, we confirm we can control the motion of a top by actuating and de-actuating the motor.

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On the previous friction roller mechanisms for the spherical wheel, while the one of the roller rotates, the other one produces the friction loss on the touching surface area. The mechanism proposed this time can reduce this friction loss with keeping the high friction force by the differential gears unit.

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There are a lot of academic studies on the leg-wheel hybrid mobile robot with the high mobility by combining both functions of legs and wheels. In case each of locomotion has its own actuators, actuators for one locomotion become load for another. In case the wheel-drive mode uses passive wheels to limit the number of actuators, the performance of high efficiency in the wheel-drive mode does not work very well because of the cyclic motion of legs for its propulsion. In this paper, a prototyep model is composed of four limb modules with the proposal drive system. The drive system limits the number of actuators to the minimum required for the leg function, and requires no cyclic motion in the wheel-drive mode. The performance of the prototype model is described.

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This paper describes propulsive characteristics of a rotating spiral. These days, the wetland area has decreased, and the water examination was done for environmental preservation. People who made the examination was entered the wetland on foot and it was researched. However, it required hard labors and time due to wetland grass and mud. Therefore, the mobile robot to support the research works are requested. In general the crawler and some other mechanisms are popular for the locomotion system in the uneven terrain. However, they are inadequate to move in the wetland because it probably crashes the grass in the wetland. Then, the propulsion mechanism using the spiral is being developed to move in the wetland. To realize it, we developed the rotary drive equipment for spiral rotation. The relation between the static torque and the load was examined for the design. The relation between the dynamic torque and the traction of spiral examined by the equipment. Then, the relation was formulated and the formula was compared with experiment value.

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The structure, walking procedure and kinematic model of a double spiral propulsion robot suitable to move in wetlands are addressed in this paper. Environmental protection has been people's concerns for a long time. The reduction of wetlands' area is becoming one of the most important environmental conservation concerns and investigation of current state of wetland is urgent by now. The most significant challenges to the field surveys focus on the development of locomotion mechanism, which can carry measurement devices in wetland without suppressing damages to the vegetations and do not sink in mud. Spiral propulsion robot is proposed in this paper, which can move forward between gaps of plants and cause very little damage to the plants. Kinematic model and structure of the robot are presented. The simulation is also carried out and the result shown that the manipulator can move as expected.

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In order to apply the mobility intelligence modules developed by intelligent technologies of next-generation robots project to humanoid robots, realtime estimation of 3D head motion and camera view stabilization while walking around are needed. In this paper, we estimate 3D head motion by integrating 3D flow information from image recognifition hardware module and estimated head rotation information from head-mounted 3D inertia sensor. Using this estimated head motion, camera view oscillation during walking motion can be compensated.

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We have been developing RT-Component (RTC) debugger for the intelligent robot software platform in "Intelligent RT Software Project" of NEDO since FY2007. RTC debugger is a test tool for RTC. In this paper, we introduce the state of correspondence to OpenRTM-1.0.0-RELEASE and additional functions of the DataPlotView, etc.

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OpenRTM-aist has Data Port and Service Port. The design of Data Port hides the inner CORBA processing. But the design of Service Port makes users use CORBA. Service Port users have to know the how to program by CORBA and CORBA IDL syntax. Therefore using Service Port is more difficult than using Data Port for users who do not have knowledge of CORBA programming. We suggest a new Service Port implementation. Its concept is to be used easily. It does not need to write IDL. It uses not CORBA servants but normal functions to construct Service Provider. In this paper, we introduce the mechanism of the new Service Port.

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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 a implementation of RT-Middleware for VxWorks that is the real-time Operating System.

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To perform the tasks by robots in actual environments, the performance of robots are not sufficient to cope with these tasks. Robots need more robust performance in against actual environments. Thus, our group has proposed a new robot system to perform tasks more robustness through the development of robust sensing, recognition, and motion control .Software modules have been developed and verification test was performed partially with a new platform robot.

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For the purpose of developing a practical support tool for human workers engaged in industrial robot teaching, the activity of teaching operation positions to a robot is analyzed by use of a mechanical explanation model to capture the force-displacement relationship inherent in the work system. The analysis clarifies a basic, normative operation strategy making use of a characteristic frame of reference in the position search space. Based on this finding, a prototype GUI is developed that can provide effective information supports for different granularities of the activity in position teaching. In terms of the distributed information resources model, each element of the GUI is qualitatively investigated to confirm that the proposed GUI represents the activity-related information in a way that affords the robot operators' strategic operations.

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This paper proposes a new method of measuring position of daily life commodities placed on a floor. Picking up an object on a floor will be a typical task for a robot. However, it is difficult for a. robotic vision to detect a small object left on a large floor. Various objects may also exist on the floor and the surface of the object has various optical characteristics. Our method uses a laser range finder (LRF) together with a mirror. The LRF scans the laser beam just above the floor and measure the distance to the object. Some beams are reflected by the mirror and measure the distance from different origin. Even if the two measurements fail, the method calculates the position of the object by utilizing information that no measurement is available. Thus, the method achieves two major advantages: 1) robust against occlusion and 2) applicable to variety of daily life commodities.

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In order to verify the effectiveness of OpenRT Platform, we have been developing various intelligent RT software components for a mobile manipulator mimicking the functions of a service dog. In this paper, we describe examples of software components for grasp planning of everyday objects. The components select some robotic hand grasping configurations based on the abstracted models of an indicated object and work environment; and then plan the detailed grasping position and orientation.

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A systematic way of designing autonomous decentralized control system is still lacking, despite its appealing concept. To alleviate this, we have so far developed a design scheme of interaction between the control and mechanical systems (i. e., brain-body interaction) based on "discrepancy function". However, it was still insufficient to fully describe the brain-body interaction, because the dynamics of spatial distribution of muscle tonus was not considered. In this paper, we propose a design scheme of the brain-body interaction in which not only phasic but also tonic control is considered, by taking serpentine locomotion as a practical example. Its validity is confirmed by simulations, where adaptive locomotion is emerged through the coordination of the phasic and tonic control.

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A systematic way of designing autonomous decentralized control system is still missing, despite its appealing concept. In order to alleviate this, we have so far focused on serpentine locomotion, and have proposed a design scheme of interaction between the control and mechanical systems in which both the phasic and tonic control are taken into account. In this paper, we aim to verify the validity and universality of this design scheme by applying it to peristaltic intestinal movement. As a first step, we construct a model of the intestinal movement that incorporates the phasic and tonic control, based on anatomical knowledge.

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There are many studies on hardware and software experiments to control autonomous robots. This study has focused the elastic robot which has a body with multiple degrees of freedom. The elastic robots consist of homogeneous or heterogeneous simple modules. A feature of them is that their behavior is obtained by an each module movement based on local communications between linked modules. A physical simulation on the computer is carried out to achieve given tasks autonomously for a virtual elastic robot. Our goal is to acquire a control system in evolution and to analyze a motion mechanism for the obtained behavior.

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This paper addresses motion analysis of a double spiral propulsion mechanism. Now there are many wetlands in Japan, but area of wetlands has been decreasing. Therefore, some groups of conservation of nature have preserved environment of wetlands, and they have surveyed it as a part of preserving activity. But there is a demand of development of robots which support the surveys, because human beings are difficult to move in wetlands due to mud and dense weeds. Single spiral propulsion mechanism have been proposed for movement in wetlands. Double spiral propulsion mechanism is another type of mechanism for movement in wetlands. This research studied about motion of double spiral propulsion mechanism when it is driving.

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This paper describes about a vertical movement climbing robot using worm gear. The worm gear has a characteristic that about two digit reduction ratios with one step and is not driven reversely to the drive side. Using this characteristic, we developed the robot which prevented a fall by reverse drive even if a motor stopped during going up and down. In this paper, we describe about climbing mode and turning mode. We checked the operation of the climbing mode in speed feedback control and positioning with the turning mode.

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We have proposed and reported a new wheel-feet hybrid mechanism, named as Enhanced Wheel System (EWS), for passing through a step or stairs. In artificial environment, wheels have much more superiority in flat and tight terrain locomotion than legs, they are not able to pass through even a step. To climb up stairs or a step by the EWS, several 'feet' combined on each wheel are kept horizontal by parallel link mechanisms. In this paper, we proposed a more compact stair climbing robot by improving 'feet' locomotion following the tracks of square using property of a Reuleaux triangle.

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In this paper we report on experiments on jumping motion using a 1-DOF legged robot. First the dynamics and basic characteristics of the 1-DOF legged robot are derived. Three jumping patterns based on the sliding contact between the leg and the ground are represented. In particular two-step jumping method is newly proposed, which is effective for high-speed and powerful actuator. Next the influence of structural parameters of the legged robot on jumping motion is analyzed. It has proven that the optimal parameters for high jump exist.

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The OMG Robotic Component Specification defines RT-Component model including "Port". RT-Middleware (RTM): OpenRTM-aist has provided "Service Port" for service oriented communication between RT-Components (RTCs). In this paper, new explicit connection mechanism between "provided interfaces" and "required interfaces" is proposed. A new naming rule for interfaces is introduced, and new connection process is implemented. RTSystemEditor, which is a tool for RTCs manipulation, is improved for this new feature.

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RT-Component's interface and its lifecycle have already been defined in the OMG RTC standard. However, in order to manage whole lifecycle of RT-system such as lifecycle of RTCs before instantiation and after destruction, a cirtain management systems are necessary. In this paper, the design and functionality of newly introduced RT-Component manager is discussed. An implementation of the service, and tools which control the service by GUI or CUI are shown.

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RT-Component framework in OpenRTM-aist provides DataPorts (a.k.a. InPort and OutPort) as data-centric communication interface. DataPorts have provided control methods for communication characteristics that vary according to the relation between RT-Components. Some additional functionalities for data exchange are introduced in the newly released OpenRTM-aist-1.0. In this paper, design and implementation of these features are shown and discussed.

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In this research, we are developing Plug and Play (PnP) system for RT-Middleware. We need robotic system that a user can easily add or remove optional functions and/or devices. To change the composition of the robot easily, we developed the PnP system for RTC-CANopen. However, the PnP system is not support the devices conformed to other various communication systems. If not only RTC-CANopen also other devices are possible to correspond, it becomes possible to change composition of the robot more easily. Therefore, we extended PnP functions developed in the RTC-CANopen to other devices. In this paper, we describe the design and development of RTC PnP system for USB devices.

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In this research, we aim to improve developmental efficiency and reusability of robot device. For this aim, we need standard profile for development of robot device. Therefore we have decided to construct CANopen profile for mobile robot. By making the profile with CANopen, the reusability is raised. In this paper, we describe about detail of the profile, parameter, and operation.

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The purpose of this study is to build practical RT-Middlware for distributed control robot system. For this, we adopted CANopen supported by CiA (CAN in Automation) to RT-Middleware (RTC-CANopen). This makes it possible to construct the distributed robotic system using CAN network very simple and flexible. In this paper, we describe the system of RTC-CANopen.

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It is an important issue to make a disaster reduction plans. In this paper, we focus on evacuation guidance and propose a modeling and control method of swarm based on vector field. The model reflects some features of evacuee for example field of view and evacuee group. By giving the desired vector field that indicates the safe route for evacuation, the guidance operators are optimally distributed. The number of guidance operators is minimized by the degree of contribution. The proposed modeling and control method of swarm for evacuation guidance is applied to swarm robots and the effectiveness is evaluated by the guide experiments using swarm robots.

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This paper describes the design and implementation of Waist Module of Functional Modular Robot. This Waist Module controls center position of the gravity of upper module. This module solves the problem of the control gravity of center position of conventional Modular Robot. This Waist Module enables to design many modules of Functional Modular Robot without consideration for the problem of gravity of center position. We implement it and do some experiments. The result shows this module is effective.

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This paper discusses dynamic self-assembly of an autonomous decentralized multi-robotic system induced from a balance between building and scrapping of a swarm formation. To this end, we particularly focus on not only the effect of Virtual Spring but also asymmetrical interaction between robots, the former of which is used as an aggregation control mechanism of the swarm, and the latter of which destruct the geometrical structure generated. Simulation results indicated that the swarm maintains a specific shape, i.e., disc-like shape, by causing both building and scrapping. And then, by modifying degrees of aggregation and destruction, the swarm showed successfully various behavior, i.e., random walk or convection-like movement.

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This paper presents a decentralized deployment scheme that enables robot swarms to configure themselves into three dimensional space toward forming an ad hoc network of mobile nodes. Specifically, the self-configuration algorithm constructs regular tetrahedrons, keeping individual robots at a uniform distance from each other. Simulation results demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm.

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In the densely-populated urban areas, pedestrian flows often cross each other and congestion occurs. In order to reduce the congestion or the risk of an accident, it is required to control swarm behavior of pedestrian. This paper proposes an implicit control method of the crossing swarm behavior. Swarm behavior is modeled by the continuum model and its congestion degree is calculated as the fluid density. From a simulation of the crossing flow of swarms with the continuum model, it is verified that diagonal stripe pattern of the congestion degree emerges. Based on this model, we propose a control method to give priority to one of the swarms. Implicit control is realized by moving guide people in the swarm.

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This paper addresses an advanced cooperative theory for Multi-Agent Systems based on Sheepdog simulation. A purpose of this simulation is for cooperative swarm handling. Most of conventional studies of MAS focused on one target handling by multiple agents. If the target were multiple agents, the cooperation would be complex. However, this cooperative theory would be more available for practical applications such as robot motion planning for prevention of forest fire spreading. As first of the challenge, simulation platform and evaluation technique are described.

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The micro pipette puller and the chemical etching method are used for manufacturing the optical fiber probe for scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM). However, the micropipette puller is too expensive. Moreover, the waste fluid of the medicine used is feared as for the chemical etching method. In this study, we developed low-cost probe manufacturing system with the marketed gas burner for SNOM.

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We propose a novel type of micromachines driven by light-induced dielectrophoresis. The optoelectronic driving system consists of an upper photoconductive layer of amorphous silicon on an indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrate and a lower transparent, conductive ITO-coated glass substrate. Micromachines are fabricated on the lower ITO-coated substrate by two-photon microstereolithography. To optimize the driving condition, we examined the movement of microparticles by focusing a laser beam. Micromachines such as manipulators and micro-rotor were successfully driven at the optimal condition. The optoelectronic micromachines will be applied to high-performance, low-cost lab-on-a chip devices.

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We are trying to realize low friction rubber sheets with thousands of micro passive walking legs. In a related report, we report a 120-legged rubber sheet consisting of micro 4-legged structures by a rolling movement, which realizes miniaturization to 600[μm] of the leg size and simplification of the leg structure. In this paper, we report the results of further miniaturization to 40[μm] of the leg size. In the fabrication of a 50-legged rubber structure with this leg size, we made micro molds by WEDM (wire electrical discharge machining) using a wire electrode with diameter of 20[μm]. Then we layered the molds for integral molding.

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In this research, redundant mechanism for RTC-CANopen Manager is investigated to improve reliability of the system built with RTC-CANopen. In the RTC-CANopen system, it becomes impossible to monitor the CANopen devices when RTC-CANopen Manager is down. By solving the problem, the reliability of RTC-CANopen will be improved. And, it becomes a key to spread RT-Middleware. We tried doubling RTC-CANopen Manager as a solution for it. RTC-CANopen Manager is one of main RTC of RTC-CANopen, and has the function as the master node on the CANopen network. We achieved the reliability improvement of the system that used RTC-CANopen by this technique.

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We develop RT component for obstacle avoidance of autonomous mobile robot. Specially, we deal with avoidance algorithm for omni-directional mobile robot. For autonomous robot passes the narrow route, not only position, but also direction of path should be generated according to configuration of environment. To solve this problem, we propose a potential method with translate and rotary motion. In our method, repulsive force is applied to circumference of robot. Therefore, the force is not only applied to the center of gravity of robot. Then, the robot generates rotary motion for avoiding obstacle. By such method, translate and rotate path is generated according to reference model. We introduce a method and confirm its effectiveness by simulations.

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In this paper, we discuss on path generation for robots with different driving systems. We are developing RT-component to generate a path for various mobile robots. To develop a reusable component, we propose a method to generate path with hierarchical components. In upper component, it generates universal path according to map data. In lower component, it generates individual path according to characteristics of robot and demands of operator. We indicate the method and confirm its effectiveness through simulations.

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In this study, we have developed a force disturbance attenuation RTC control system for a personal mobility robot. Firstly, we have investigated dangerous situations related to the control system based on a risk assessment report, and we have also clarified the necessity of force disturbance attenuation of the control system. Secondly, we have developed an input speed filter RTC which has restricted the input speed of the control device. The effectiveness of the proposed RTC has been demonstrated experimentally by using a wheelchair. Through our application of the RT-Middleware (RTM), the reusability of RTM has been confirmed as an advantage of RTM. In addition, we have argued that the documentation of RTC information is very important in order to improve the reusability of RTM, which is not sufficiently established at this moment.

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Three different levels of attention is realized: broad attention to whole environment, detail attention for the part of the focused human, and realtime attention for the 3D motion of the whole body of the focused human. We developed the humanoid head with wide viewing angle and high visual acuity by using five cameras and Image Recognition Module. RT-Middleware enables several simple functions to work together very easily. With the systems, the humanoid can observe human attention efficiently.

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The purpose of this research is modeling of people movement and development of a simulator in public space such as a shopping center and a cafeteria. We decompose people movements into global and local, and make a model for each of them. The global movement corresponds to follow a route from the current position to the destination, and represented by a path on a spatial network whose nodes are defined by divided regions of the whole environment. The local movement is the behavior that a person avoids surrounding people and obstacles, and modeled by a potential method. We also model the behaviors specific to the cafeteria, such as queuing and the search of free seats. As an application of the simulator, we developed a path planning simulation environment by combining the simulator and a path planner. We performed various simulation experiments on people movement and robot path planning. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the simulation.

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This paper describes person following of a mobile robot in dynamic and complex environments. We use the cafeteria of our university as an example of such environments. First, we developed a communication program between PC and an electric wheelchair so that the wheelchair can be controlled by PC. We then made a motion set for path planner by measuring the turning radius and the speed for pairs of the speed commands for the right and the left wheel. We developed an experimental system by installing software for path planning, map generation with a laser range finder (LRF), and person detection using stereo on the wheelchair. In addition, we made data logger which records the processing results such as generated maps and person detection results for debugging. We applied the system to the person following experiments and found the person detection failure is one of the remaining problems to solve. We also discuss future work.

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This paper describes the development of a person following robot system considering the reusability of functional modules using the RT-Middleware framework. In this framework, each module is realized as an RT-component. We can build a software system of the robot by connecting such RT-components. We raise issues to be considered in designing modularized software systems, and show an example design of functional modules and RT-components implementation for person following robots. We successfully demonstrated two robot systems, which share a part of software modules, at International Robot Exhibition 2009.

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In this paper, we report an improvement of retractor for ESD (Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection). The retractor for ESD is designed to prevent medical complications such as haemorrhage and perforation. The retractor for ESD enables to resect the mucosa under observing the submucosa by holding the resected mucosa to the side. The developed device had a drawback in lifting of resected mucosa. It is required to improve generated force and prevent undesired deformation. Thickness of the retractor is modified so as to increase generated force. The tip of retractor is divided into two parts so as not to transmit the undesired deformation at the edge. The lifting force is successfully improved by 44 % due to the modification of the thickness. Two-pronged retractor can prevent transmission of undesired deformation between two-pronged structures. Moreover, master-slave system with a haptic feedback is developed to operate the retractor for ESD. The haptic feedback system is also modified to adapt its performance to the improved retractor for ESD.

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A three-dimensional (3D) molding process based on two-photon microstereolithography and floc casting was proposed and developed to fabricate 3D ceramic microstructures. In this method, a 3D polymeric mold fabricated by two-photon microstereolithography is covered with ceramic slurry and then thermally decomposed to obtain real 3D ceramic microstructures. In this study, a highly concentrated slurry containing submicron fused Si02 particles was used to fabricate transparent Si02 glass microstructures. Thermal decomposition of a photopolymer was examined by thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA). The temperature profile of the heating process is optimized using the master decomposition curve (MDC) theory to reduce the number of harmful cracks during thermal decomposition. It was demonstrated that a transparent fullerene-like model and spiral model could be fabricated by the optimized thermal decomposition.

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This paper reports pyrolyzed polymer as an ^<18>F^- deposition and recovery electrode for positron emission tomography (PET) application. The electrochemical separation of ^<18>F^- from H_2^<18>O water has been studied for preparation of a PET probe. We apply μTAS technology to provide an integrated cell system. This study proposes a pyrolyzed polymer electrode instead of conventional bulk glassy carbon (GC) electrode. A pyrolyzed polymer electrode can be batch fabricated using MEMS technology. The deposition and recovery yield of the pyrolyzed polymer electrode derived from the photoresist (AZ P4620) at 1000℃ was estimated to be 77% and 38%, respectively. Furthermore, we propose a composite of pyrolyzed polymer and GC particles to take advantage of both materials. This paper evaluates developed electrode for PET application.

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