The motion pattern generation of the 13-link semi-looper robot is discussed in this paper. The semi-looper robot can perform both motion patterns of a green caterpillar and a looper. The serial link mechanism constructs the semi-looper robot. A central pattern generator (CPG) is introduced to generate the motion pattern of the 13-link semi-looper robot. The CPG is composed of Matsuoka oscillator. The CPG's structure and design parameters of Matsuoka oscillators are discussed. Some simulations using the open dynamics engine (ODE) demonstrate the designed motion pattern of the 13-link semi-looper robot.

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A poly vinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuator shows great potential because of such positive characteristics as movement in the air, large deformation, and being lightweight. This actuator has high usefulness and a wide application. We have proposed a structure of a contraction type actuator and investigated various characteristics of this actuator. In order to use this actuator as a control element, we propose a mathematical model and a position feedback control method of the actuator and investigate the validity of the control method in this paper.

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Currently, Japan is getting rapidly aging population. In such an aging society, it has become a major issue how to solve the problem of increasing care burden. That preventive care is carried out around the country that is called power rehabilitation because of an increase burden of this care. Therefore, it pays an elderly person's lower limbs movement function from the viewpoint of the power rehabilitation, rehabilitation/training equipment mainly composed of rising and sitting movements is developing in this study. In addition, the current rehabilitation/training effectiveness and outcomes have to rely on subjective criteria with subject and physiotherapist. Accordingly, the effect of rehabilitation/training can be quantitatively judged in the study, measures of "stand up age" proposed to establish a method of estimating, study experimented to the basic data construction for the presumption method establishment.

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This paper proposes a controller design method from a given stabilized system. Between two dynamical systems, a state-space mapping is introduced satisfying dynamical consistency. Not only motions but also controllers are transformed based on the obtained mapping to generate dynamically equivalent motion. For linear systems, a linear state transformation is introduced based on eigen value decomposition of state transition matrix, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated by using two inverted pendulum systems. Moreover, by transforming the inverted pendulum motion into a two mass spring system, it is shown that the proposed method is available for completely different systems. For nonlinear systems, a nonlinear state transformation is utilized and conditional equations to be satisfied for transformation are introduced. The proposed method does not suffer from time-delay of the closed loop system because of the attractor based controller. The proposed method is applied to the tap dancing robots and the effectiveness is evaluated by experiments.

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It is necessary to create appropriate configuration and geometry at the upstream design stage to satisfy the design specifications at the detail design stage. In our study, a simple algorithm is proposed for generating torque transmission mechanisms under the nonparametric geometry and the design constraints on the specified area. The design specifications are input and output torque and position, rotation direction and design space. The spur gear train is generated by using the Monte Carlo method based on the generation of random numbers using probability distribution functions. For several examples, the optimum gear trains is generated successfully. The effectiveness of the mechanism generation algorithm is reported.

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This paper addresses online optimal motion planning for a machine. The proposed online controller selects semi-optimal motion from a reverse-time search tree while stabilizing a machine. We made the tree using a framework, rapid semi-optimal motion planning (RASMO), that plans semi-optimal motions rapidly. To validate the proposed controller, we conducted several simulations using double inverted pendulums. As a result, the proposed controller selected and controlled the motion of the pendulums online, and stabilized the pendulums quickly. The high resolution of the mesh improved the control precision.

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A mobile inverted pendulum robot is expected to be applied to a robot which is used in human living space and personal mobility. In this study, we propose a nonlinear controller for accelerating and driving the system with interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PBC). Although deriving the IDA-PBC for an underactuated system is difficult, we show that the dynamics of the pendulum can be properly described as a full actuated port-Hamiltonian system and the controller is derived. The proposed controller guarantees asymptoic stability of the pendulum angle to a desired one with a large stable region. This leads to the accelerating and driving based on the relation between the pendulum angle and the translational acceleration arising from instability of the system. The proposed approach can realize various controllers which have desired properties through energy shaping of the system. The effectiveness of the controller is verified in simulations.

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Passive walking robot loses kinetic energy on landing process of walk. Therefore, energy loss of landing process decreased, walk speed and energy efficiency will improve. At first, speed ratio of typical passive walking model before and after plastic impact is discussed theoretically. Next, we proposed a walking model with the spring for saving kinetic energy as potential energy that next walk can reuse.

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A planar kneeless biped walker with a torso can walk efficiently on level ground by only using hip actuators. The hip actuators are used for a torso and swing-leg control based on passive dynamics. In this paper, numerical simulations show that the walking speed of the biped walker can be changed by changing the desired torso angle. The biped walker can walk over a wide speed range without falling by the simple control algorithm. The desired torso angle varies between 0.1 rad and 0.6 rad. The walking speed is 0.7m/s when the desired torso angle is 0.1 rad, and the walking speed is 1.4m/s when the desired torso angle is 0.6 rad.

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In recent years, the number of patients with a disabled limb is increasing globally, with development of the aging society. The study proposes "The wearable master-slave system implementing energy regeneration" that is expected to be used for the equipment to assist rehabilitation for above patients. The proposed system consists of two identical DC-motors and has two main advantages. One is miniaturization of drive sources with energy regeneration and the other is force sensing without force sensors. In this paper, I describe the theory of the proposed system and report the result of experimental characterization and a challenge to performance upgrade.

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In this paper, we consider the continuously variable transmission (CVT). The conventional CVTs are classified as belt-type CVTs or toroidal CVTs, and each CVT is basically composed of several friction parts or wheels. Since these conventional CVTs use friction force, their energy transfer efficiency might be inferior. Although these CVTs require precise processing, they make noise, and are not durable. Consequently, we propose a new structural CVT in this paper. The proposed CVT mainly consists of a couple of quadric crank chains, ratchets (or one-way clutches), and a plate cam.

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We have been developing MKR (Muratec Keio Robot), an autonomous omni-directional mobile robot system for transport application in the hospital domain. This robot has a chamber to transfer safely luggage, important specimens, and other materials. This robot has some kinds of sensors such as stereo camera, laser range finder and ultrasonic sensor to recognize circumference environment, and some kinds of user interfaces such as touch panel display, display scrolling a message to interact with human. Some experiments in several hospitals were carried out to verify the performance of the elemental technology for MKR-003. From the experimental results it was confirmed that the robot can move without colliding with static and moving obstacles.

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We have surveyed how consumer accept the risks of future coming personal care robots and how aware of the safety certification of such robots. Compared to some other products which are used in daily lives, personal care robots are acknowledged to be with middle range of benefits and middle range of risks so that their safety are preferred to be verified by independent public agencies. Indeed, we have also found Japanese consumers do not aware of the existing safety certification bodies or their schema of certification compared to USA or German consumers. The reasons of these gaps are from the difference of choice behavior of products.

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In this report, we propose a risk evaluation technique for human symbiotic robot. We evaluate probability of accident such as collision and scissors by action measurement of human of robot role. In this technique, subjects perform the work requested for a robot, and we measure his arm's presence probability in the spaces around his body. That space is cylindrical, and it is divided vertically and circumferentially. Then we estimate accident's probability by using the data obtained and considering the spatial overlap between role of robot and human. We measured human motion of walking and vacuuming. Then we estimated the accident's probability by our technique.

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Fuji Heavy Industries have undertaken robot business no less than 20 years since 1988 and we have many delivery record. Sometime service robot move in the environment that there are many people. It is different from industrial robot. Before we bring in robot system, we have to save safety. This report introduces technology and vision to safety of Building Cleaning Robot System.

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The paper concerns a safety testing method for human wearable robots applied to their lower-limbs. The study focused on the mismatch between the motion of a human knee and that of a robot knee joint when it drove the human lower limb through cuffs, and promoted our development of an experimental system for the data described below. First, we investigated the difference of loci during flexion motion of a participant which were drawn by the markers applied to both his lower thigh and the lower link of the wearable robot when worn by him. Second, we detected the interactive tensile force vector data at the cuffs which supposedly originated in the mismatch between the two loci. Then, we produced and manufactured a prototype lower-limb dummy to use it for safety evaluation tests. Finally, we measured another series of interactive tensile force vector data between the dummy and the robot, and found a major difference in the tendency of the two kinds of force vector data which originated in the flexible and adhesive property of the cuffs fitted to human lower limb.

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In this paper, a double-motor driving type joint module is proposed, which can be introduced to a manipulator with a long and slender shape of joint. It consists of a double-motor driving actuator, a safety system and a control system. The joint module has a low backlash in its gear train in spite of using a bevel gear converting the rotational direction of a motor. From the evaluation of driving characteristics, it was confirmed that backlash angle could be reduced to 0.15[deg] and speed-torque relation was linear at 1[V] offset voltage. A 1oo2 safety system was integrated to avoid exceeding a dangerous speed and torque, and it can be confirmed through a verification experiment that a safety function cutting off a power to motors was successfully executed at dangerous situation.

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Human safety is one of the most important issues in human-friendly robotics. We have developed the safety device to improve the safety for humans in the robot's workspace. The safety device consists of only mechanical components without actuators, controllers and batteries. The safety device locks the robot's joint after detecting the overdrive on the basis of the joint's angular velocity. In this paper, we design and develop a human-friendly robot with the safety devices. We experimentally examine the usefulness of the safety devices in the human-friendly robot.

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The author has already proposed a new control method referred to as "passive dynamic control (PDC)" based on inherently safe design. The PDC divides the control process into some steps, confirms the safety in each step, and permits the execution to realize the high-safety control. The braking device is indispensable in the PDC to prevent execution being output until safety is confirmed. Furthermore, the brake operation plays more important role then the actuator operation. In this note, the PDC inverted pendulum with an electromagnetic brake is developed. Power is taken out of minute rotational vibration by the brake control. The effectiveness of the PDC is examined through swing up control, continuous positioning control, and follow-up control to follow-up a sine curve.

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In this paper, a system configuration of a first prototype of a wheeled inverted pendulum type power assist personal mobility (PM) and its driving performance are described. The mobility consists of inverted pendulum type mobile platform and a leg rowing mechanism; therefore, it can be actuated by an electric motor and person's leg rowing motion. The mobility is able to perform a pivot turn motion by installing a differential gear box between both wheel shafts. Through the driving experiment, it was confirmed that the mobility could drive by both an electric driving mode and a power assist mode that using leg rowing torque and an electric motor torque.

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In this paper, a wheeled inverted pendulum type power-assist mobile platform that can realize omni-directional motion is proposed. The omni-directional mechanism consists of three omni-directional wheels located at the bottom of the mobile platform. The two wheels are located at the left and right side of the platform as a conventional two-wheeled mobile platform, and other one is located between the two wheels, which has an axis perpendicular to those of two wheels. A power assist motion is achieved by inclining the body to forward direction, and a turning motion and a side moving motion is realized by a joystick. Through a simple deriving experiment, it was confirmed that the proposed mobile platform could achieve an omni-directional motion and a power assist motion.

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This paper presents an assist control method for flexible parts conveyance task using power assist type conveyance system. The assist control method should be designed so as to not only suppress the vibration but also reduce degradation of operating feel. For this purpose, multiple impulse shaped signals are used as feedforward signals in order to reduce the vibration of flexible parts during conveyance. Especially, this paper discusses introduction of alignment time and repetition of applied impulses for improvement of vibration suppression ratio and reduce degradation of operating feel. The effectiveness of the proposed system was verified experimentally.

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The authors have studied on control systems for power assisted conveyance of flexible structures. Generally, this system includes influences of various kinds of uncertainties. One of them is vibration of controlled objects. Another one is structured uncertainty such as nonlinear friction or parameter variations. This paper shows a robust assist system design by taking these uncertainties into account. It consists of an impedance controller, a disturbance accommodating optimal controller, a disturbance observer and a reaction force controller. As a controlled object example, this paper adopts a power assist cart with a vibration system. The effectiveness of the proposed control system is verified by experiments and their corresponding simulations.

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We have been developing a novel human-friendly/cooperative work support robot. This system named PaDY (in-time Parts/tools Delivery to You robot) supports worker by delivering parts and tools to worker based on statistical analysis of the worker's work in an automobile assembly line to reduce the worker's physical workload and improve work efficiency. In this paper, the quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness in this system is proposed.

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We have been developing a novel human-friendly/cooperative work support robot. This system named PaDY (in-time Parts/tools Delivery to You robot) supports worker by delivering parts and tools to worker based on statistical analysis of the worker's work in an automobile assembly line to reduce the worker's physical workload and improve work efficiency. In this paper, the collision risk reduction system is proposed.

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This paper proposes a new hand-guiding robot system for assembly-line work which is targeting an instrument panel installation work in a final assembly process at automobile factories. The robot in the system transfers a heavy/large panel module to nearby a target vehicle body on a carrier line, and helps a worker to assemble it to the moving body, by following worker's operation. The system automatically transforms the 3D orientation of the robot to the body on the line, so that, the worker can assemble only with adjusting position of the panel. The proposed assist method enables to reduce operation time and to make assembling tolerance wider. The effectiveness and performance of the assembling are confirmed by several experiments.

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This paper introduces a haptic control interface device that allows users to feel a foot contact of user's lower limb or an exoskeletal walking support system. The support system assists paraplegic people for walking by physically supporting his lower body. The control interface device that operates the support system plays vital role for a user to receive appropriate supports according to user's wish the patient and the support system. Haptic feedback and sensory substitution is very important to connect between them. In this study, a haptic feedback function is therefore added to a finger operation type control interface device that successfully operated a humanoid robot in experiments. The advantages of the haptic control interface device are confirmed through some experiments with a humanoid robot.

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The purpose of this study is to develop an interface that detects the contact conditions and a robot motion control method for a human-robot cooperative task. The proposed interface is set at the lower tip of the robot to detect the contact conditions between the robot and the external environment. The proposed device and impedance control method provide stable motion of the robot that comes in contact with the external environment. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed control system, human-robot cooperative contact experiments were carried out. Experimental results show that the proposed impedance control makes the system stable. It is confirmed that the robot comes in contact with the external environment with high shock absorbing efficiency.

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The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate the haptic device, "Parallel Glove" which displays reaction force caused by contact of robots with work environment to a human operator's hand. The Parallel Glove is installed around a human wrist and employed for gesture interface systems. The proposed haptic device is designed to implement a 3-DOF parallel mechanism. The perceptive force of a human operator is estimated from force sensor signals of the Parallel Glove and the surface EMG signals. To evaluate the proposed control system, experiments of force display for human operators were carried out. Experimental results show that the motion of the Parallel Glove is controlled to keep the magnitude of perceptive force of a human operator with that of displayed force of the device.

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We introduced passive mobile robots consisting of various wheels, omnidirectional wheels or one-wheel casters, which are controlled by servo brakes. These robots employ passive dynamics with respect to the force applied by a human. In this article, we derive and analyze a feasible braking force/moment of each robot that can be applied to the robot on the basis of the characteristics of the servo brakes. We reveal the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages to control, of each robot about the feasible braking force/moment. In addition, we introduce a passive type double wheel caster unit, called PWC, on the basis of the analysis. Finally, we handle a long object by two PWC-P1s actually, and realize the path tracking function as example to confirm its validity.

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To assist human motion in the fields of rehabilitation and sports training and so on, haptic devices have been developed by many researchers. They are a form of a physical human-robot interaction system that can transmit a force to the user. Most of the haptic devices studied so far are driven by servo motors. Although haptic devices with servo motors are useful for realizing several functions, they have serious potential to injure the user when servo motors are not controlled appropriately. On the other hand, in terms of safety, passive robotics concepts have been proposed. We propose a passive motion support system consisting of wire with servo brakes and a control method to guide the human hand.

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There has been more interest in nursing-care robot in these days. Safety and reliability are required to these equipments. Additionally, low acoustic noise and energy saving performance are expected. In this research, we make a prototype of a link mechanism using magnetic particle brakes at each joint in place of servo motors. The magnetic particle brakes are proportional torque devices. The torque is controlled by varying the excitation current. This mechanism can hold up a target object and support positioning action passively. A dynamics analysis of the prototype is described at first and self weight compensation and force display to support positioning action is realized by appropriate actuation of magnetic particle brakes.

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In this paper, we discuss methods for using sensor data, combined with biographical and behavioral data, to investigate people's impressions towards a robot during an interaction. We outline a methodology for how to create a relevant and reliable data set from raw sensor data taken from the robot, and how these data can be interpreted psychologically. We conducted a large-scale human-robot interaction experiment at the University of Tokyo campus, where the humanoid robot HRP-2 greeted subjects by bowing, waving, and shaking hands with them. During the interaction, we collected sensor data including temperature, force, and tactile data. We found significant differences between different subject groupings, indicating that biofeedback can be a useful too to implement within a robot's design.

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Robots are expected to work in human society as a solution for shortage of worker in aging society. Generally speaking, it is difficult to design each complex motion by man, which is necessary to work in human society. As one of the solutions for that problem, it is efficient to imitate human's motion. On the other hand, to utilize robots in human society, it is critical that robots generate motion based on external environment, such as interaction motion. Previous researches, however, do not contain the mechanism that generates robot's motion synchronizing to human's motion. This research proposes the interaction system in which a robot synchronizes to human's motion. We model each motion by means of Hidden Markov Model (HMM), by which temporal relationship between those is modeled. In addition, the robot modifies its motion based on human's motion in order to succeed interaction motion.

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In this paper we propose a novel method for predicting a resident's behavior in a house by one's movement trajectories. The proposed method consists of 1) segmentation of trajectory data into staying or moving and classification of segments and 2) prediction by time-series association rules from transition events of each segment. The experimental results using real resident's trajectory data of almost two years demonstrate that 1) typical staying location are affected by floor plan and furniture layout and 2) prediction of behavior by the proposed method are possible.

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We have proposed a new modeling method of human behaviors based on the relationship between the change of human behaviors and the situation around a person based on If-Then-Rule style. In the previous study, it has been assumed that the human behaviors are expressed by discrete events, which limited the range of the application of the behavior model. Therefore, we study on a modeling and recognition method of continuous human behaviors in this paper.

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This paper describes development of search and visualization system that deals with heterogeneous time-series activity sensor data in distributed databases. We have collected different types of activity data from living enviroments of elderly people in south area of Kashiwa city: walking data by pedometers, indoor actions by pyroelectric sensors and transportation utility data by on-demand bus reservation. Different search methods are prepared for all databases and these methods extract activity history data in a unified form. This mechanism enables the search system to deal with the heterogeneous activity databases uniformly. In addition, the system provides the method for extracting person group by statistics of extracted activity history. The system facilitates activity analysis through searching action history data from diffrent data sources and visualizing these data comprehensibly. Two experiments showed that the system enables cross-sectional search from heterogeneous time-series activity databases: 1) Identification of the same person from different activity databases and 2) Extraction of person group from activity history data.

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Recently, the number of elderly persons who live alone is increasing. The communication robot that resides in home and talks with is expected to relieve elderly persons from a feeling of loneliness. In this paper, we propose a communication robot that speaks variety of contents derived from RSS. It also takes account of the preference of elderly persons so that the contents spoken by robots become attractive ones. We conducted experiments with subjects and confirmed that the proposed robotic system won't be a boredom one compare with conventional communication robots.

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Japan is a country of frequent earthquakes, and there are various problems for the protection against disasters. The disaster measures for the people who need help in disaster as foreign resident, person of advanced age and handicapped are one in the problem. This study addresses the application of the robot technology for the purpose of the transmission for the earthquake information intended for people who need help in disaster. The evacuation action support robot in disaster was proposed by adopting the real time earthquake information and the concept of universal design. Prototype robot was manufactured, and a questionnaire investigation conducted in this paper. As a result, the recognitions ratio of proposed transmission method was about 44% by using the prototype robot.

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This paper describes a research for the mobile robot system which has a cylindrical multi-touch display for human-robot interface device. Using cylindrical multi-touch display, the robot can show information to people and recieve a command by people all-around. This paper shows equipment configuration and design of this robot.

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We have been researching and developing a home healthcare system with communication robot technologies that supports anxiety-free home life for elderly people. Through a communication robot with voice interactions, a graphical user interface and a vital sensing chair, the system estimates user's health conditions from results of blood-pressure, body temperature, weight and some clerkings. Users and their private medical doctor can examine and share the information. One of the most important problems of such systems is difficulty of sustained measurement. Therefore, we aim to realize a home healthcare system that motivates and supports elderly users to keep daily utilization by the communication robot technologies. A developed 2nd experimental system and its in-home verification experiments are described in this paper.

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As robots expand into the society, it is necessary for robots to generate appropriate motion according to various situations. In the crowd, a robot should choose the safe route by estimating the other person's behavior. This paper proposes a method to pass through the crowd based on behavioral estimation. A robot estimates the other person's walking route. Then the robot decides the most important person and generates motion that avoids him. Our proposed framework based on "theory of mind" enables the robot and the person to recursively estimate each other's mind.

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This paper discusses intelligent behavior control of robot partner. Robot partner is the robot which lives with a person. This paper mainly discusses the movable robots, like "MOBiMac" we developed. Such movable robot is demanded to control position relations with the person adequately. First, we introduce a method of the position control of the robot using a calculation model imitated a spring. Second, we calculate the output of two DC motor using Fuzzy control. Next, we explain Multi-Objective Behavior Coordination that is a method to calculate robot's output to unify plural behaviors. Finally, we discuss the effectiveness of the proposed method through computer simulation results.

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This paper describes about behavior model for a mobile-projection robot. A mobile-projection robot of which name is Ubiquitous Display(UD) has been developed. UD is visual informative presentation device which is able to support interaction between a projected image and users. In this paper, a behavior model, which is based on parameters of user, obstacles and projected image with dynamic environment for UD is implemented. To verify the validity of the proposed behavior model, experiments were performed.

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This paper describes a study on commanding a robot to move objects using a touch screen and a microphone. We designed a beginner friendly language to command robots to turn, pick up an object, and place it at a location, built a simulated robot that can be commanded in the language, and conducted a preliminary user study using the robot. All of the 17 novice users successfully commanded the robot to move a can and a bottle to a location as instructed. The results of the study show that novice users can learn the language in a short period of time.

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Our goal is to crate a robot which can communicate with people for a long time. To make this possible, we are developing a customizable communication robot "WEAR (Waseda Extendable ARchitecture)". We also provided modules, and experimental subjects can customize the robot by inserting them into the module-port. At the same time, the robot can recognize the customize, and it also can express its autonomy by rejecting the customization by ejecting the module. In this paper, we proposed the communication model to grow self-efficacy. And as the result of the experiments, we found that the proposed communication model is preferred by user than all-accept communication model.

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Android robots that have a human-like appearance have been developed recently. This paper shows an application of the android robot SAYA that we developed in an educational field as a remote class support system. In this system, SAYA plays a role of a teacher, and it can conduct a science class concerning the function of electric and the pendulum. Moreover, SAYA can express facial expressions, call student's name and make eye contact with a student by tele-operation. We conducted the field trial at elementary schools to verify the effectiveness of the system. As a result, we confirmed its positive effects and possibility in elementary schools.

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This research aims at the development of an actuator in order to support the movement of waking up of an elderly person in a care service, and which is able to have a stroke of 6 times its natural size while keeping high rigidity, being light weighted and wearable. The motion of waking up to get onto a wheelchair or just to change posture is a heavy burden for caregivers. In order to lessen the burden of caregivers, an actuator which generates high displacement by pneumatic power is used as base. This actuator is composed of a spiral flat tube, and its straining method is investigated in order to keep high rigidity at all length displacement. This actuator is then mounted to a mannequin and a human body, and the control methods are proposed within the waking up motion. Through experiments, its effectiveness is confirmed.

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A rehabilitation exercises are classified into a passive, an assistive, and an active exercise according to a trainer-trainee force ratio. When above training are realized by a device, it is necessary to regulate a generated force from a device based on trainee force. In order to apply Master-slave training device which has been developed to the above exercise trainings, a control system that can regulate a generated force from the slave device according to progress of training is proposed. If the trainee can not generate enough force to move an elbow, the device can assist the generated force to follow the reference angle from master device. To estimate a progress of a trainee, Neural Network is introduced to change stiffness in a compliance control system. In this paper, the proposed control method is described, and then effective using this control method is verified experimentally.

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A wearable robot to send independently a daily life is expected in order to reduce a physical burden of a care worker. Previous wearable devices have been constructed with a high stiffness material such as metal. In this study, a flexible wearable device consisted with light and flexible materials such as a rubber tube is developed. This device supports a shoulder movement. In this device, a sheet-like and a bend pneumatic rubber muscle are used to measure the performance when the each actuator is used as the actuator for the device. In this paper, the structures of each actuator and the device are described, and then the effectiveness of this device is discussed experimentally.

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