Conventional tendon driven robots have difficulties in achieving explosive movements because of antagonism which a muscle's contraction is blocked by the other one in the opposite side. This research is focusing on solving this problem and utilizing antagonism as a power amplifier with hybrid actuation method composed of electrically driven tendon and pneumatic artificial muscle which are connected serially. A pneumatic muscle tensed with motor-driven tendon can function as an energy storage which is so significant in achieving explosive movements such as jumping and kicking for a tendon driven legged robot. We introduce the method and illustrate its validity with lifting expriment by 1-axis test bench.

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The purpose of this study is constructing a foot reaction force control system to realize dynamic motions by a self-contained pneumatic-driven musculoskeletal humanoid. We aim at realization of jumping motion as one of dynamic motions by utilizing resonance. We constructed a foot reaction force control system, because foot force control can control center-of-mass motion. Center-of-mass motion is an important point to jump. We performed real world experiments in which. As the result, we got dead time of this system. And vibration amplitude of foot reaction force expanding was shown in the result of square-wave response.

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This paper presents an elastic tendon driven robot arm with its tendon composed of soft rubber strings. Our goal is to expand the field of robotic applications to the welfare robotics and agricultural robotics by the significant elasticity and its potential advantages in cost and safety. This paper describes: (1) the stiffness relationship between the task space and tendon space, from the viewpoint of designing the stiffness at end effector, (2) a force control method based on the static mechanics and force sensor feedback with integral compensation. Experimental evaluations on these control methods are shown.

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For the purpose of the backlash reduction in a serial link manipulator, we develop a manipulator where a constant-force spring is used. The spring has the characteristics that Hooke's law is not satisfied. Since it is not necessary to consider the force characteristics of the constant-force spring, the position control with high accuracy can be accomplished.

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This paper presents a new innovative design of our second generation assistive robotic walker, the JAIST Active Robotic Walker ver. 2 (JARoW2), aiming to help elderly people in need of walking assistance live independently. The previous generation JARoW can autonomously adjust its motion direction and velocity according to the user's walking intent without requiring any additional user effort. In addition to those basic functions, JARoW2 has advanced features that facilitate pelvic rotation. The focus of our paper is placed on how to synchronize human walking patterns and the assisted pelvic rotation by the proposed mechanism. The design and features of the proposed mechanism will be detailed in this paper.

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It is indispensable for physical therapists in training to experience various symptoms during their period of education; however, such chances are limited in educational institutions. We developed a prototype of a wearable dummy-robot system to simulate equinovarus, which is a typical disorder of the foot caused by stroke, to enhance the training of physical therapists (PTs). The wearable dummy system enables us to simulate joint disorders while allowing the trainees to learn humans' complex joint movements such as those observed in human feet. The dummy system deformed the foot of its healthy wearer through a wire mechanism such that the resultant foot posture and resistance force required for therapeutic operations resemble those of typical equinovarus. Through evaluation experiments involving PTs, we explored design parameters to well represent equinovarus in the acute and chronic phases. The results suggest that the dummy simulator is expected to be an effective training tool to aid the trainees of physical therapy with potential future improvements.

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In recent years, the number of care workers is increasing and a care worker's burden is increasing. There is an idea of using a manipulator as one of the ways to reduce the burden of caregivers. We developed R-SaDaCo (Ritsumeikan Safe Daily Cooperator), a dual-arm manipulator that can be separated from and combined with the wheelchair. However, with conventional interfaces for operating the manipulator armed fixed to a wheelchair, it is impossible to operate of R-SaDaCo. Therefore, we propose a head mount type interface that can be used easily by care-receiver.

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The revised Variably Configured Wheelchair is proposed, which can locate the safe position on an escalator steps instantaneously. The measuring rod attached in front of the wheelchair is pressed against an escalator step riser in order to set the wheelchair constant distance and to work the parallel link. I case of descending, the center of gravity locates out of step. Therefore, regular 20inch tire diameters should be reduced to 14inch. The stopping mechanism is developed in order to keep the wheelchair within the safety area. The parallel link mechanism push the lower link by the rod reaction force to the escalator step surface in order to keep the sheet posture horizontal. The toggle link is applied for magnifying the operation force.

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The ultimate goal of this study is to develop an anthropomorphic violin-playing robot that can produce expressive sounds, which will realize more natural communication between human and robots. In order for a robot to perform a musical piece, it is necessary to plan its motion based on the information of the musical score. It is, however, impossible to plan all motion only the information expressed on the score. Thus we developed an algorithm to determine information to plan motions of both arms. In this paper, we focus on the bowing direction and three main bowing parameters: the bow speed, the bow force and the sounding point. We decreased the number of the combination of bow directions by increasing the bow speed, and introduced an evaluation function to determine the bow directions. We also determined other parameters based on a physical model of a violin.

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In this paper, we propose a sword-fighting robot system controlled by a stereo high-speed vision system as an example of human-robot dynamic interaction systems. The robot recognizes motions of an opponent human player quickly by using CAMshift. CAMshift is an tracking algorithm based on the pattern of the color histogram of a target, and it is robust against disturbance of image noise. The vision system recognize the positions of both the hand of a human player and the sword grasped by the hand. We suppose the sword is controlled by a 6DOF virtual arm and predict its state by using Extended Kalman Filter. The robot achieve defensive motions based on this prediction.

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As one field of sports, there is a game of bike trial. Riders operate mountain bicycles with various advanced techniques. The purpose of this research is to create a bike trial robot that can operate a mountain bicycle and perform various maneuvers such as jumping, bike wheelie and etc. The bike-trial robot is able to clear level differences and ditches which other wheeled type robots cannot clear such obstacles and also cannot intrude into narrow spaces. Therefore, it is possible to use the bike-trial robot in the means of mobility at disaster sites. In this paper, in order to control the robot, it is studied how to generate the joint trajectories for maneuvers, for example, Daniel or Wheelie. The prototype physical model of bike-trial robot for experiments is designed and constructed on a scale of two to five.

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It is essential for a saxophone player to have non-disabled ten fingers. If one or the other arm is disabled or even one of ten fingers is disabled, the player inevitably cannot play the saxophone. It is the main purpose of this study that such players can play the saxophone continuously. One of the ways of the solutions is to develop very handy and dexterous artificial hands but it is very difficult. Another way is to customize the instrument or to make a special device attached to the instrument to make the player possible to perform it only by his single hand or by his own foots alternatively. In this paper, it is considered that by using a MIDI keyboard which can be played by a single hand, the player can perform the saxophone making use of the playing function of the automatic saxophone performance robot. Besides, the system can have a secondary function that it can make novice players possible to play the instrument easily.

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We develop an omni-wheeled robot that can move autonomously between the under the sheet of wheelchair and lavatory of home for reducing the care burden due to the excretion care. In this paper, we constructed a movement control system using the signals from line tracking sensors and an optical sensors.

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The increasing number of the elderly who need long-term care or rehabilitation has become a serious issue in JAPAN. To maintain the quality of life, it is important for the elderly to conserve his or her strength. We have been developing an exercise support system which consists of an exercise instructor robot and an exercise evaluation equipment. Three kinds of exercises are contrived and implemented to the robot. The robot shows one of the exercises to a user visually and verbally. The user follows the exercise, and the motion is detected and evaluated. The evaluation is fed back to the robot motion and speech. The developed system was applied to home-visit rehabilitation. In this paper, we focus on the implementation of the exercise instructor robot. We show an example so that the motion of the user improved with the exercise evaluation feedback.

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In this research, for the purpose of improving the operability of power assistant mobile robot to support HOT patients' going-out, we measured the human operating force as the input and the trajectories of commonly-used carry cart as the output. Then we estimate the human operating characteristics from the result and propose an operating method, and mount the method to the prototype power assistant mobile robots actually to investigate the effectiveness.

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Pressure ulcer is the one of the biggest problems for persons with disabilities. One of the cause is thought high contact pressure between a body and a mattress. However, it is difficult to control contact pressure of a body to prevent pressure ulcer. On the other hand, new production systems, known as rapid prototyping systems, are developed. Using the systems, we can made a complex three dimension surface. In this paper, we proposed new method to construct a surface which fits human body from body pressure distribution. And we demonstrated that the surface maintained the body pressure low.

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The automatic saxophone playing robot is the robot that can play music with a normal saxophone using data of a MIDI file. If we try to make performance of some music with the robot and human players, as long as using the existing system, the human players have to synchronize the performance with the robot. Therefore, a cooperative performance system, that the robot synchronizes its performance to human players, should be invented. In the case, it is necessary that the robot changes tempo of its own performance along with the tempo of human players and hence MIDI file is used to control the robot because it is easy to edit and adjust. The control program of the robot did not play the saxophone using specific kinds of MIDI files. Therefore, it was needed to develop a control system by improving the control program of the robot to be able to play the saxophone using all kinds of MIDI files. As a result, the robot has become to play all kinds of MIDI files.

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With the aim of regional development, it offers customization for some support system which delivered into the local community. Moreover, the improvement of the system by the local community is much more required. In this paper, we developed the playground equipment as a support system for regional development and installed in the local community. Also, we analyze festivity of the event using a playground equipment and attempted to improve the service system based on the local community with the aim of the regional development.

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Entertainment is one of the successful fields in robot industry, and especially, the typical entertainment robot is the small humanoid robot. To offer the people new elements of entertainment, we focused on figure skating. In the previous research, HRP-2m was used as a figure skating robot. However there were many hardware limitations to realize skating motions. In this study, we developed a small humanoid robot for figure skating.

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In these days, there are many patients with ataxia, which is paralysis caused by a brain stroke or asynergia. Early detection of functional deterioration and sufficient rehabilitativetraining are necessary for these patients. Rehabilitation support systems for upper limbs using force display devices are expected to quantify the effects of rehabilitative training and enhance the motivation of patients. This paper presents development of new software for upper-limbs rehabilitation system PLEMO-Y.

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In these days, there are many patients with ataxia, which is paralysis caused by a brain stroke or asynergia. Early detection of functional deterioration and sufficient rehabilitative training are necessary for these patients. Rehabilitation support systems for upper limbs using force display devices are expected to increase the effects of rehabilitative training and enhance the motivation of patients. This paper presents PLEMO-Y.

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There are many patients with movement impairment, which is paralysis caused by a brain stroke. Sufficient ehabilitative training is necessary for these patients. Rehabilitation support systems for upper limbs using force display devices are expected to quantify the effects of rehabilitative training and enhance the motivation of patients. In this paper, we describe about development of rehabilitation systems for the limbs with horizontal and vertical displays.

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The level walking of the passive walker that is realized only by a waist assist is high transfer efficiency very much. We studied the walking assist device based on human-assisted passive walking. In this paper, we introduce the legged assist walker harmonized with human and demonstrate its effects.

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Solar-powered Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are one approach that has been utilized to address the problem of energy consumption in AUVs. However, their duty cycle is often short due to their charging algorithms or low efficiency, making them impractical. To solve these drawbacks, we have developed an algorithm which decides whether the robot should operate underwater or charge on the water surface. Taking into consideration the transition of solar radiation, time of day, and battery voltage, it is possible to increase the overall operational time the robot. Using weather data, we compared our algorithm with previous methods through experimental simulations.

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This paper describes development of water hydraulic vane-type oscillating motor that oscillating angle is 270 degrees. By this motor, a swing motion required for driving a joint of an underwater manipulator can be obtained directly. The structure of the motor was devised in order to use tap water of poor lubricity as a working fluid. By aligning three single vane-type motors axially, the radial force due to the pressure in the motor which acts on the axis was balanced. The developed motor was smoothly rotated by water pressure. The performance evaluation of the motor was carried out by measuring internal leakage and starting torque. Angular velocity characteristics were also measured using the water hydraulic proportional valve that the authors had developed. The measured internal leakage and starting torque characteristics will be used in modeling of the motor.

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Robotic manipulators for the Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator System (UVMS) are designed to execute tasks such as handling and catching objects. Moreover, a vision system using cameras is becoming a necessity for assisting robot operator in underwater manipulation. Therefore, it is necessary to equip UVMS with camera vision system that can observe and measure the position of the target object. We have been developing a stereo vision system using cameras that are able to pan, and tilt individually using RC servo motors. In this paper, we will describe the results of performance comparison between P and PI controller on controlling the pan and tilt servo motors to measure the position of an object.

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Thrusters with a single propeller are usually used for underwater robots. The thrust force of the thruster differs according to the rotational direction of the propeller and cannot be measured directly because of the use of magnet couplings. We have been developing a dual-shaft propeller thruster equipped with re_ective photosensors for measuring the rotational speed of propellers. In this paper, hall sensors are embedded on the proposed thruster to measure the rotational speed of propeller. Furthermore, comparison of the performance of re_ective photosensors and hall sensors are presented through experimental result.

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This paper describes an anomaly behavior detection system for elderly people based on laser range scanner with rotary drive. This system can detect the human surface coordinate points, which is useful for the anomaly behavior detection such as falling down and montionless. Some feature values such as the center of gravity and the motion amount are extracted from the obtained data and the anomaly behavior patterns are detected by One-Class SVM. Some experiments are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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This paper presents a fluid powered Motion Socks aimed to prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT). As the basic design concept, "Safe Area" is introduced, which can assure both safe driving direction for the foot and efficient force transmission. To satisfy this concept, two types of fluid powered actuators with flexible structure are proposed to generate pulling motion and pushing one. The proposed Motion Socks can realize four different motions by using three pull-actuators and one push-actuator. Additionally, in order to measure the posture of the ankle, a sensing device composed of two bending sensors is proposed, which is attached on the inside of Motion Socks. The proposed whole system could successfully promote the blood circulation and its validity was experimentally verified.

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This paper describes a system which holds a human body safely and realizes supporting for standing-up motion. It consists of a holding unit connecting human body and walking device, and supporting unit which can aid in supporting human posture while standing. The supporting unit has a weight-compensation mechanism which contains spring, wire, and pulley, so that it can compensate load at any angle. The weight-compensation mechanism also has another pneumatic actuator which can modulate spring rate to respond to the change of compensation weight. The compensation weight can be estimated by a flexi force sensor and appropriate spring constant can also be decided. With the weight compensation mechanism in active state, the system can prevent the patient from losing their standing balance.

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Static stretching is widely used to provide muscle hypotonicity, which is caused by change in muscle tissue structure, intended to prevent musculoskeletal disabilities. However, quantitative evaluation of hypotonicity during stretching was very difficult because traditional measurements confuse mechanical stress relaxation. To resolve this problem, we propose a new evaluation method for hypotonicity based on muscle viscoelastic properties using fractional calculus model that is known to be effective for biomaterials. In this study, we investigated viscoelasticity indexes given by continuous muscle reaction force during static stretching. From the indentation test for stretching of rectus femoris muscle, we confirm that those indexes decreased significantly between early phase and final phase of the stretching. The results suggest that our method is useful for quantitative evaluation of muscle hypotonicity during stretching.

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Recently, The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) developed for many research in underwater. However, These AUVs needs support ship and many people. Therefore, in coastal survey is conducted by the diver. However, divers operation needs equipment and many people. In this research, we developed AUV for coastal survey. The AUV has pressure sensor for measured depth and gyro sensor for measured azimuth. This paper, we conduct the experiments about control performance of AUV. Also we report the result of experiment and evolution of depth control and azimuth control using mounted sensor.

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The purpose of this research is to develop a coral monitoring system for the use of underwater vehicles. Reef coral is very sensitive about changes of ocean environment, such as unusual climate changes or increase of crown-of-thorns starfish resulting from the global warming. Coral can thus be an index of ocean environment. It is widely known that some kinds of corals have an inherent characteristic of fluorescence due to 'coral fluorescent protein (CFP).' The authors are developing an ocean-going solar-powered underwater glider, named 'Tonai60'. The operational depth of the Tonai60 glider is 60m, for ocean environmental monitoring in twilight ocean zone. The glider is equipped with a coral monitoring system at the forefront of its fuselage. This system consists of a network camera and 3-axis digital compass. Coral can be detected from an image binarised with a certain threshold. This paper deals with a coral monitoring system using ultraviolet LEDs and image analyses.

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In the Abalone Fishing by spearing, fisheries normally sense the size of Abalone fish by looking from the ship. However, sometimes it is hard to sense. Therefore, we have been trying to develop a robot system, which is equipped with stereo camera set, to assist measuring the size of Abalone fish. The robot is a small size and it has 6 thrusters to achieve 5 D.O.F motion in underwater.

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In Japan, there are many underwater caves that have not been elucidated. Underwater cave has a great value scientifically, but the understanding is not complete. In this study, we develop a system for the elucidation of the underwater caves. We adopt a 3D modeling using an autonomous Underwater Vehicle to the elucidation method, will be described in detail AUV in this dissertation. In addition, we report that was also carried out preliminary experiments on 3D modeling.

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In the case of the development of underwater robots, loss is greater due to leaked water. Therefore, it is necessary to pay sufficient attention to the design of the pressure tight case. However, it may cause water leakage by the operation, for example, water leak due to slight cracking of the cable and a small trash at the time of maintenance work of the pressure tight case. Hence, we propose "simple leaked water detection system". This system uses control devices which are generally used for underwater robot. This paper describes about this system and the basic experiments.

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Coral has important value. In recent years, crown-of-thorns starfish is eating coral. It is necessary to rid the object for protect crown-of-thorns starfish. The object of this report is crown-of-thorns starfish. We have been developing underwater robot to protect the coral. This research make a device for rid of the object. The removal method is injection into the object. Therefore, the end-effector uses a continuous syringe. The end-effector is mounted to the manipulator. It is designed to emphasize maintenance and attachment. The object uses the model in the experiments. The effectiveness of this device is verified by the pool experiments.

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In this study, a small and modular underwater robot is proposed. The modular structure of the system improves the maintainability and flexibility of the system and allows the user to exchange modules depending on the desired objective. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of an anchor module and an undisturbed soil core sampling module. Undisturbed soil core sampling is indispensable to radiological surveying but it also introduces the high risk of the robot getting stuck on the lakebed. And so, a safe method of core sampling using an anchor is suggested and prototype anchor drills are evaluated.

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The AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) for research underwater attracts attention. AUV to perform an experiment of the image processing underwater was developed. This AUV is also used for the investigations into reservoir. The concept of the developed AUV is "can manage with a small number of people" and "low cost". Thruster and a depth sensor were developed to achieve the lower costs. Magnet coupling was used for waterproofing of the thruster. Pneumatic sensor was used for depth sensor. The experimental results, the air pressure sensor can be used as a depth sensor is confirmed.

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This paper reports on a hydraulic dual arm robot, which is designed for the prototype of the arms for our humanoid robot RL-H1. The both arms have three joints driven by hydraulic linear servo actuators, which achieve higher torque and speed than those of humans. A double four-bar linkage provides wide range of motion (210 deg) for shoulder joint. Each joint has torque controllability, which is fully utilized for compliant whole-body motion control tasks. The paper shows some preliminary experimental results including gravity compensation under 5.5 kg payloads and task-space force control for object manipulation.

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The paper reports on the development and performance evaluation of our hydraulic quadruped walking robot RL-A1. The robot is one meter length and 60kg weight. Each leg has three active joints and one passive joint. By using force control of hydraulic servo actuators, the robot can compliantly balance and walk through the irregular ground. The paper describes the overview of the hardware design and control system, as well as the initial experimental results without carrying a hydraulic power unit.

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The knowledge on the actuator is important in designing a robot that would operate as expected. Stall torque and no-load speed are often used as the measure of actuator performance. When the robot makes interaction with environment, the load condition changes. For the robots that make interaction as a primary objective, the performance of actuators under different load condition should be investigated in order to make a good estimation of the robot performance. In this paper, we propose a test equipment that utilize inertial force to apply force to the actuator while it is moving. The application of this equipment for evaluating miniature electro-hydrostatic actuator is reported.

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The force control of an actuator was traditionally performed with motor current control. To enhance force sensitivity of the robot system, actuators with underactuated degree of freedom are proposed. Such underactuated DOF is realized by either a spring or damper in the transmission system of the actuator. This underactuated DOF fundamentally enhanced the backdrivability of the system, but introduced the complicated behavior as a drawback. The backdrivable electro-hydrostatic actuators we have been proposing were not the exception. In this paper, by using the relation of speed and output force, we propose the force control method using motor velocity control. In this method, controller is simplified and we can use collocated velocity control as an inner-loop control, which suppress uncertainty of the system and simplify the control. In this paper, we explain the control method and perform evaluation of the proposed method.

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In recent years, coral reefs decrease in Okinawa. One of the reasons is outbreak crown of thorns starfish. Hence, we have been researching to use underwater robot for exterminate crown of thorns starfish. The underwater robot cannot use radio communication in underwater. So, the robot cannot use GPS. The authors propose the floating robot to measure position of the underwater robot. The floating robot has a network camera and a GPS and an attitude sensor. The floating robot measures position of underwater robot by using these sensors. The authors illustrate design of floating robot in this paper.

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The possible cruising distance of the electric boats is still short compared with that of similar-sized internal combustion engine boats. Currently, electric boat operators have to estimate the possible cruising distance from weather (wind direction or power), wave (height and tide), and battery (voltage, current, state of charge) conditions. Battery failure has to be avoided from the viewpoint of operational safety. In order to solve this problem, a Navigation Support System (NSS) that provides the possible cruising distance and the recommended speed, and restricts the output power to achieve the desired operation, have been developed. However, the previous NSS cannot adapt changes of disturbances. Therefore, this study proposed the new NSS that provides the suitable output power etc considering the influence of disturbances.

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There are many natural resources such as natural gas, methane hydrate and so on in the sea near Japan. Underwater robots are expected as applications which are able to operate and observe under water. Many kind of underwater robots exist. We focused on hovering type AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). Hovering type AUV is able to move several direction and observe complex environments. However, hovering type AUV need to equip many thruster. In this paper, the vectoring thruster module which is able to change direction of thruster was developed for hovering type AUV.

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In general, highly efficient and expensive underwater vehicles have been used for oceanographic survey. However, since these vehicles are not convenient from the view point of avoiding the risk to lose, a new type of underwater vehicles are desired. A module composite underwater vehicle is proposed by authors as a new type of underwater vehicles. A characteristic of a module composite underwater vehicle is that each function of the vehicle is developed as module and worked independently. The other characteristic of it is that a radio wave communication using a dielectric material is adapted for a communication method between modules. The radio wave communication under water can be realized by sandwiching a dielectric material between modules. In this study, characteristics of communication strength depending upon arrangements and materials of radio wave communication equipment are verified.

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In our laboratory, we have succeeded in acquiring forward actions to various biological robot systems using Reinforcement Learning. And we have discussed biotic wonder by using robots that is easy to research. Therefore, this research attempts to reproduce in a quadrupedal robot the phenomenon that quadrupeds change gait from a walk to a trot to a gallop in response to running speed. In the past it has become clear that the acquired locomotion-patters have optimum velocity in point of energetic efficiency. On this point, a robot emulate to quadrupeds. But, in terms of the whole reinforcement learning result, acquired locomotion-patterns of robot are different from quadruped's. So this paper focuses attention on the symmetry of action and studies locomotion-pattern acquisition of a quadrupedal robot.

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In this article, we propose a method of attack motion prediction for Kendo agent. The attack motion is modeled by Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Then, parameters of the GMM illustrate the motion as a ordinary differential equation. In order to predict the motion, the ordinary differential equation is solved by using the Euler' method. Finally, to evaluate the proposed method, verification experiment is carried out, and the efficiency of the method is described.

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Under the influences from the environment, each animal has acquired an optimized body structure by evolutionary developmental process. For example, vertebrate land animals have sophisticated musculoskeletal structure possessing not only monoarticular muscles but also multiarticular muscles against the force of gravity. Many researchers have been developed musculoskeletal robots with a biarticular muscle to resemble the physical performance of the mimicked animal but there are few studies to reveal why such a structure has been developed. In this research, we developed a musculoskeletal robot with redundant actuators to investigate the developmental process of the body structure. By connecting sets of actuators physically, these actuators work as a multiarticular muscle and the motion of corresponding joints are interlocked. The experimental results shows that by changing the connection among the actuators, the response to the external forces can be modified. We also discuss the way to evolve the body structure and the feasibility of our conceptual approach.

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