Teleoperated robot systems have recently been deployed in disaster response action such as gathering information in a disaster-stricken area. In that situation, it is important to utilize the failed operational information when the operator trains teleoperation skill. In this paper, we propose a storing and warning method of perilous environment for teleoperation of rescue robot using potential field. Further, we confirmed that proposed method can detect the perilousness of the current environment based on previous perilous environment and indicate it to the operator of the rescue robot.

Personal mobility (PM) attracts attention as a daily means of transportation for commuting and attending school. A standing ride PM with one-driving wheel “Oteller” has been proposed by preceding study. Because Oteller is designed that the user control its balance, the production cost is low. However, Oteller is not compliant with Road Traffic Act because control of the maximum speed is not performed. Furthermore, sudden stop is not possible because it does not have a braking function. The turning mechanism is not suitable for an outdoor run. In this study, Oteller is improved to be used on a public road. A speed controller introduced to Oteller enables it to slow the speed down. Furthermore, the steering is improved by employing a mechanism of a skateboard for smooth turns. In this paper, the details of the steering mechanism and speed control are described.

Studies on the underwater vehicle: UWV are classified into automatic control called AUVs and wired control type: ROVs. Generally driving force of the UWV is employed a screw or a water jet. Most of UWV studies have been focused on attitude control systems. However few researches attempted position control systems. Since viscosity of water is higher than the ground of viscosity, the UWV is strongly influenced by disturbances such as wave. It is difficult to stay at the constant position. The purpose of our research, therefore, is to propose fixed position control for the UWV. In this paper, a novel control system for the position control with disturbance observer is proposed. Finally, validity of proposed system is experimented by several simulations.

JAMSTEC has developed several underwater vehicles. These vehicles are currently being used for tasks ranging from seabed topography mapping to deep-sea biological survey. In particular, the AUV "Yumeiruka" was developed to perform seabed resource survey. "Yumeiruka" is equipped with two sets of X-rudders, one in the front, and one in the rear part of the vehicle. This arrangement of the rudders enables the vehicle to trace the sea bottom with controlled attitude. For example, "Yumeiruka" can follow the terrain of an irregular seabed with its pitch angle fixed to 0 degree. The attitude control capability allows the vehicle to aim the onboard sensors vertically at the sea bottom, resulting in more efficient survey of the seafloor. This paper describes the observation performance achieved by "Yumeiruka" during attitude controlled cruise.

The authors have been developing an underwater robot for surveying lakes so far. One important objective of the robot is to sample the bottom sediment of lakes. It is necessary to make the robot small and lightweight because the operation of the robot would be difficult in the field. In this paper, a small and powerful thruster module by optimizing the matching between the propeller and the motor characteristics. Using the optimized thruster, a new concept of implementing an underwater glider mechanism designed for the underwater robot to be used during surveying of lakes is proposed.

In the current study, we have been developing a wireless sensor network system to support the coral ecological system survey activities for conserving the coral reef environment. In this system, coral images are gathered by stationary underwater monitoring sensor nodes with fixed-point observation. In a long time observation, however, a camera view is interfered because the algae attach to the sensor node surface and grow. Therefore, removing attached algae is important to maintain view ability of camera images. This paper studies attached algae removal function for the sensor node. Although a prototype of wiper device was developed to wipe and remove attached algae on the surface of sensor node in the previous paper, several issues were identified. This paper describes about an improvement of the prototype of the wiper device, and confirmation of its action.

This paper has been written about the development of ROV for Ryusendo cave investigation. Because of the structure in a Ryusendo cave that is intricate narrow, ROV must be a small. On the other hand, to explore long distance is required propulsion, increase in the size of the ROV cannot be avoided. Therefore, in this paper, the method of operation by connecting a plurality of small ROV has been proposed. Also we noticed that a land route movement is necessary from a field survey. Therefore a new function was added to ROV. In this paper, a summary of part and design of ROV are presented.

In recent years aquatic biota or seabed resource attract attention, and underwater exploration is carried out. However, underwater is a difficult extreme environment for people to work directly. When developing underwater robot, also to adjust the posture of the robot in a laboratory pool, it is necessary to re-adjust the attitude because the buoyancy is different in an environment to operate in practice. Therefore we developed the automatic ballast system to adjust the pitch of the robot automatically. In addition, this system has the function to move up in emergency.

Distribution map of the degree of coral has been created by Manta method to use coral conservation activities. The manta method is a survey method that divers investigate the degree of coral and whitening state while being towed to a boat. But the manta method makes great physical burden also underwater robot can substitute, and desirable underwater robot that can maintain an altitude between underwater robot and seabed. Therefore, we have developed the altitude maintenance system for underwater robot for the purpose of investigate by Manta method is described in this paper. The distance measuring method using the laser beams and a monocular camera with image processing is adopted reason that waters inhabiting coral is high transparency. The evaluation experiments in the pool with the system and underwater robots were confirmed to have sufficient accuracy for the assumed survey mission.

Underwater Recharging System (URS) was devised to perform seabed exploration efficiently. URS has the ability to charge the battery of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) by a non-contact method underwater. In this paper, describes the development of the URS and AUV (Otohime).

Ocean development has actively progressed in the sea near Japan. However, in marine research, it is impossible for people to work in deep sea because of low temperature, high pressure and so on. Therefore, underwater robot that specializes in fixed-point observation in the polar regions, such as volcanoes and sunken ships have been required. We are in order to achieve it, we have developed the underwater robot that mimics the quad-rotor helicopter in the past. This robot is capable of performing freely exercise of translation and rotation by controlling the rotational speed of the four rotor. In this research, we carried out the design of the control mechanism for the robot was developed, confirmed the effectiveness of the control mechanism by numerical simulation.

Recently, development of robots which are able to operate and investigate extreme environments such as deep sea, space, nuclear power plant and so on attract attentions. Above all, underwater robots are expected to operate and investigate deep sea and submarine volcano. Underwater robot consists of ROV (Remotely operated vehicle) and the AUV (Autonomous underwater Vehicle). In this study, we focused on an underwater robot applied the flight principle of drones. In this paper, Development of a hovering type ROV using the flight principle of drones.

In the autonomous underwater robot, high autonomy is required in order to make the main operations under extreme environments , self-diagnosis to detect the abnormality can be said to be an important feature . In this paper, we propose a self-diagnostic system using a model of abnormal behavior is assumed

Notched Archimedian helical screw propulsor which aims amphibian remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) for shallow area was developed. Conventional helical screw propulsor generate thrust force by shear stress on rotating blades and its thrust efficiency is very small. On contrary, the developed notched helical screw proplsor in which behaves small blade cascade, improves thrust efficiency under water. In this study, thrust performance was evaluated on several test fields. And the notched helical propulsor achieved 20% improvement on under water propulsion test.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) is one of the key technologies for deep ocean research. However AUV cannot work long time due to battery capacity. To solve this problem, a noncontact power supply is required for AUV to conduct observations for extended durations. In this study, we use resonant energy transfer method which has a wide transmission distance. We report results of the performance evaluation in water environment.

In the current study, we developed a wireless sensor network system to support the coral ecological system survey activities for conserving the coral reef environment. This paper studies the required functions of a data browsing system to confirm information of underwater environmental conditions gathered by sensor network. Sensor information acquired by each sensor node is transmitted to and gathered in the base station. The base station serves as the Web server. The users such as coral researchers can access monitoring information by using a Web browser. The web page displays monitored information that was gathered by sensor nodes. The Web page can display the temperature and image information of a period required by the user. Each sensor node condition can be checked by selecting the sensor node.

We have been studying and developing an underwater robot for coral reef conservation. In this research, we propose a towed robot using flap device for underwater survey. This underwater robot is developed for two purpose. The first purpose of this underwater robot is reducing the physical load on the research diver. The Seconds purpose of this underwater robot is to investigate underwater of improving efficiency. We designed with towed underwater robot and umbilical cable. The robot consist of three parts, two pressure vessels, and a flap device. The umbilical cable using PLC communication. We are going to experiment after to make robot.

This paper proposes a new underwater robot for dam inspection. The proposed underwater robot contacts a dam body by using passive wheels. The contact force and the moving force are generated by four thrusters. To make various motions of the underwater robot, the four thrusters are driven antagonistically. Moreover, in order to increase pressing force to a dam body, negative-pressure effect plates are proposed. In this report, an overview of the robot system is described and the effectiveness of the proposed effect negative-pressure effect plates is demonstrated by some experimental results.

As part of the NEDO robot project, we are engaged in developing a surface/underwater robot system which investigates underwater infrastructure such as dams and river facilities. Its physical configuration can be changed according to working environment or task. In this paper, we propose a moored boat system with a control arm that can change the position of a coupling point with mooring wire. Sailing of the boat is controlled by changing only angle of arm and rudder with using visual tracking system and wireless communication device to reach the desired goal against running water. Through experiments conducted in an indoor pool with a miniaturized catamaran, the results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The mobility and the large area are evaluated, and tilt rotor type vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) machine is being expected by not only the army but also the private organization. The tilt rotor mechanism is used for the flying mode conversion. The tilt rotor mechanism of minimum degree of freedom is added to the quadrotor helicopter, and it proposes a new usage in the present study. This report compares three kinds of frame types of the tilt rotor mechanism.

This paper suggests cable tension compensation control for helicopters cabled to the ground station. This method can be applied to human operated system and reduces required skill. In this method, three-dimensional cable tension vector is measured by a force sensor and an angle sensor mounted on the helicopter. Thrust and helicopter attitude to balance with resultant force of the tension and the gravity force are calculated and added to control input by PID control. Experimental result illustrate validity of the proposed method

We present a pusher configuration VTOL aircraft which combines the advantages of Rotating-wing aircraft and Fixed-wing aircraft. In previous researches, we developed DFO3 that has Gimbal mechanism for thrust vectoring, and controlled it 3-axes attitude by PI-D control. PID gain has calculated by pole placement method and its simulation. We succeeded VTOL and hovering maneuver. However, DFO3 has some problems. Therefore we developed DFO4 that has vectored nozzle mechanism instead of Gimbal mechanism, and proposed PID gain setting method that apply real time flight data to transfer function with selected poles. DFO4's experiment show that vectored nozzle is effective to control attitude and VTOL maneuver. Finally, we developed DFO5 based on R/C Fixed-wing aircraft aimed to the horizontal flight.

In this paper, angular rate feedback control of multi-rotor helicpter is designed by using adaptive PID method. Adaptive PID controller with parallel feedforward conpensator : PFC is designed based on mathematical model of the helicopter. The effectiveness of the proposed control system is verified by numerical simulation and experiment. The results of the experiment with jig, and free flight experiment shows the efficiency of proposed adaptive angular rate controller.

Use of a Quadrotor is considered as one of methods to inspect infrastructures such as a tunnel or a bridge. In such a case, it needs to control the position of the airframe. Note, however, that it is difficult to realize the position control using GPS in environments, such as in a tunnel or under a bridge, because there is a problem, such as the weakness of the GPS signal or the incomplete reaching. Therefore, the present research is aimed at developing position control not using GPS, and proposes a method for detecting the airframe position of a tethered Quadrotor, from the length and tension of the tether. Especially, a tether winder is produced so that the length and tension of the tether are measurable. This paper describes how to detect the position of a Quadrotor, presents the motion experiment of the produced tether winder, and the associated result.

We describe a first person view (FPV) system designed for an aerial manipulation of the workspace above the flying robot. The aerial robot used in this study is equipped with a monocular camera which can be rotated by 90 degrees, enabling the direction of the visual axis of the camera to be changed forward or upward. The images captured by the camera are displayed on a monitor mounted on a controller via wireless module, allowing an operator to control the aerial robot by adjustable visual feedback and remotely performing a desired task with high precision. The feasibility of the proposed system was demonstrated through several flight experiments.

In this paper, we propose an autonomous patrol robot moving on the ceiling using the balloon buoyancy. Recently, flying robots are applied for the surveillance task. In the flying robots, the balloon robot has some advantage in terms of quietness and energy efficiency. However, if the robot stay in the air, it always have to control the altitude using fans. We propose a balloon robot moving on the ceiling. It can stay the ceiling if it switch the power down. We explain the system of the robot, and indicate the design guideline of the robot. Furthermore, we developed the robot according the guideline and confirm the feasibility of the proposed balloon robot.

This study discusses the practical usefulness of Sliding Mode Control (SMC) in application to a quad-rotor vehicle as an autonomous flight control system. SMC shows high robustness to disturbances and modeling errors in theoretical conditions, where control inputs are assumed to be switched in a very high frequency. However in real systems, control input is calculated after a specified time interval, and furthermore rotors of vehicles have time delays due to motor's time constants. Thus, it is not clear that SMC systems can keep flying stability and robustness to disturbances and errors. In this paper, the effects of time interval of SMC and time constants of rotors are investigated in numerical simulations as a preliminary study of experiments.

Recently, multi-copters have safety problem that depends on operator or flight control program. In the case of multi-copter's operation, taking off on uneven ground such as Inclinations and unbalancing ground are difficult. In this paper, we present novel operating methods that are the hand launching method instead of taking off. In our approach, an operator releases the test multi-copter held by hand. Where upon, the testa multi-copter is controlled its attitude, altitude and position and so, hovering stably by flight control system. Furthermore, multi-copter's maneuver stops as soon as the operator captures the multi-copter's frame. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach is beneficial.

We have developed UAV hanging type sampling device using rotating rollers to realize unmanned and quick sample-return for pyroclastic material. However, the device cannot obtain samples which are at depth of over 15 mm from the earth's surface. Therefore, we aim to improve the sampling depth of the device. In this research, a new method that is rotated the device using tapered rollers has been proposed, developed, and evaluated. As the result of the evaluation, the slight improvement of the sampling depth has been proved.

In this Paper, we report the proximity and tactile combination MEMS sensor for controlling manipulation of delicate objects. This sensor can detect proximity of the object by the internal photoelectric effect in Si substrate. And normal and shear loads as tactile information are also detectable by deflection of three cantilevers fabricated on the substrate surface and embedded in the silicone elastomer. The sensor is attached on the electromotive actuator and the sensor outputs are obtained during grip of the target object. The proximity output depends on distance to the target object. On the other hand, the tactile output depends on normal load applied by gripping the object. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that slipping of the gripping object can be detected by the tactile output. Therefore, gripping force can be controlled by monitoring of the sensor output.

A spray-coated tactile sensor is proposed to have a simple structure and it can be attached to complicated three-dimensional shapes such as a curved surface. This sensor detects strike points using the signal phase delay. The signal phase delay is caused by the vibration of base material or distributed constant RC circuit. In this paper, modeling a spray-coated tactile sensor is discussed. We modeled the sensor as a concentrated constant RC circuit. Finally, we succeeded in the construction of the basic model of the sensor.

When a human places his hands over a heat source, his hands become worm owing to thermal radiation. In this research, we employ spatially controlled thermal radiation to display a virtual shape. At a temperature near the nociceptive temperature, a person will tend to avoid a heated region. Using this space, our proposed system displays the virtual shape-like region. In this paper, we describe the proposed radiation system and calibration method, and evaluate the displayed feeling.

Monitoring of biosignals plays important role in health and safe management in daily life. We have developed wide range load sensor based quartz crystal resonator (QCR load sensor) for casual sensing of biosignals such as pulse, respiration, and body motion. Expansion of the measurement range of the sensor is required for enhancing the usage of the QCR load sensor as casual sensing. We described the design of QCR load sensor to expand the measurement range of the QCR load sensor. Fabricated sensor with proposed design had practical resolution of 0.4 mN and maximum allowable load of 600 N, so that we successfully enhanced the measurement range of the QCR load sensor to 1.5 x 10⁶.

When we add tactile feedback to a scaled 3D aerial image of a real object, it is necessary to tune the tactile stimulation signal according to the visual scaling. The goal of the paper is to clarify the scaling law of the tactile stimulation signal added to the scaled 3D floating image. As the first step, we clarify the acceptable scaling range of visual 3D image for a constant tactile stimulation. The tested events were collisions between a rigid object in a subject hand and three kinds of balls hung as a pendulum. The results show that there is an acceptable range for each event and the range was comparable throughout the experiments. The results presented here provides the basic knowledge for practical 3D tactile-visual display in mid-air.

Recently, human activity support systems by remote control of robots have been developed. Bilateral control is an effective control system of teleoperation because it can transmit the information of position and force. However, it is difficult to design multi-degree-of-freedom wearing robots that have used in previous studies. It can be solved by using functional electrical stimulation (FES) in the teleoperation system. On the other hand, there are only few studies of human-machine bilateral control systems using FES and they are not sufficient because the control systems have not been compared. This paper considers bilateral control systems using FES through comparative analysis.

We have developed a system that provides tactile stimuli by controlling the water flow of the shower to enrich the music experience in the bathroom. User studies have revealed that the music experience while taking a shower was enhanced, particularly when the music has characteristic beats or melody. However, the previous system can simply switch between ON and OFF, and sophisticated tactile expression was not possible. In this paper, we made a new shower type tactile stimulation device by controlling the water flow of the shower in an analog manner. We evaluated the performance of our prototype both physically and perceptually, by measuring pressure and discrimination threshold of the flow rate by the shower.

In place of Braille learning such as specialized courses at schools for blind, many people with acquired visual impairments cannot adequately read Braille. One of the reasons is the scanty knowledge regarding what Braille patterns would be easy to read for beginners. In this study, we conducted an experiment to determine the suitable character spacing ratio (ratio of character spacing to dot spacing), which affects Braille readability. Specifically, considering Braille beginners with acquired visual impairments who are unfamiliar with reading Braille, we evaluated the effect of character spacing ratio on Braille readability through an experiment using sighted subjects with no experience of reading Braille. As a results, we could determine the conditions required for character spacing ratio to allow correct and fast reading for Braille beginners.

Recently, several types of flexible tactile sensors have been studied as whole body skin for personal robots. However, these sensors have several problems, for example, disconnection of electrical wirings in flexible materials and difficulty of replacing flexible materials which contain electromagnetic device. In this study, we propose a new magnetic type flexible tactile sensor using a magnetorheological elastomer. The sensor has a set of flexible layers made of magnetorheological and non-magnetic elastomers, on a sensor base that holds a magnet and a magnetic sensor. Its flexible covering layers does not contain any wiring, therefore, wirings are not damaged if the flexible layers are largely deformed. Further, it is easy to replace flexible layers because its positioning is not necessary. Results of magnetic field simulations and actual pressing tests show that our sensor can measure applied depth and normal force, and that its sensitivity depends on thickness of the elastomer.

One is contact force sensation and others are vibration methods in researches of tactile display. Vibration methods are suit for slip sense. Contact force sensation is not suit for wearable display. Therefore, we use MEMS technology to represent high-density stimuli. We improved the layout of cantilever actuator and confirmed performance of actuator using FEM analysis. We also considered process of MEMS device and made the metal mask of patterning. C-axis orientation was confirmed PZT film using sputter deposition.

In this paper, we construct a master-slave system with two 4-finger 12-d.o.f. hands composed of inexpensive servo motors. Six-axis force sensors mounted in all fingertips, and the system gives the presentation of force to a human operator. A bilateral control method is implemented, in which joint angles of the master is sent to the slave and the force of the slave is sent to the master. TCP/IP is used for the communication between the master and slave. In order to evaluate the characteristics of the master system, a virtual slave force input is applied to the master. Using the master-slave system, a grasping operation of an object is also performed with the presence of force. Contact parameters are also identified using the force information in the operation task.

This study analyzes the recognition process of examining the texture of fine particles through tactile sensing using human fingers and aims at establishing the structure of texture recognition. Characteristic values of the tactile sensing are studied in order to investigate a relationship between tactile sensing and its verbal response. In this study, the SD method (Semantic Differential method) is used to execute the language estimation (the evaluation value) of fine particles. In this paper, the recognition of tactile sensing in mid-teens, mid-twenties and around 60 years old is shown by the relationship between particle size of fine particles and the evaluation value.

While numerous methods were proposed to stimulate vestibular sensation and somatosensory system to enhance motion sensation in the contents with visual movement, they have common issues such that the size of system is large and the presentation area is limited. To cope with these issues, we propose a method to enhance motion sensation by pulling the clothes.

The conventional haptic devices required a large space or expensive actuators. To cope the issues, many studies used a perceptual illusion to present perceptual force to the user. Especially, many studies using skin deformation have been proposed. However, the amount of the skin deformation is limited, and the amount of perceptual force that the illusion presents is also limited. We discovered a phenomenon that perceptual force caused by the strained skin can be enhanced by presenting vibration. In this phenomenon, the direction of the force switches when the direction of the skin strain changes. The result of the experiment suggested that the vibration enhanced the perceptual force caused by the skin strain in flexion direction. On the other hand, we could not conclude it in extension direction. However, some participants reported a strong force caused by the skin strain in extension direction when the vibration was presented.

In this paper, we present a distributed haptic system for high-load anthropomimetic feet of the musculoskeletal humanoid “Kengoro”. It features large load-bearing capacity with the multi-DOF structure of the foot. To achieve this, we had three design challenges. First, each GRF sensing unit with biomimetic thick foot rubber can acquire great reaction force via moment. In addition, we developed minimal multi-sensor circuit board that collect signals of 12 loadcell simultaneously. Futhermore, we arranged the units on the foot in a bio-inspired manner. We show high load capacity of the system with experiments including single-unit test and landing by life-sized musculoskeletal leg with the developed haptic system.

This study aims to develop an unrealistic, but convinced tactile display. We assume that humans can be convinced by supplementing the lacked information, and propose a motionless tactile display with a vibrator by using skin vibration. Two evaluation experiments are conducted on texture and roughness identification. The results demonstrate an availability of the proposed display and indicate an importance of the balance between the vibration information and the auditory information for conviction and accuracy.

In this paper, we propose a new string-shaped tactile sensor that is thin, long and flexible. The sensor is constructed of a speaker, a flexible tube and a microphone (Fig.2). When the tube is touched, it's hollow sectional area around the touch point shall change. We estimate the position of touch and the force of touch by calculating the changes of the tube's sectional area by using acoustic signal that the microphone acquires. The sensor can wind around and fit tightly to any object with 3D free form including devices and machines, for example nursing-care robots.

We have discovered that vertical force or tactile sensation occurred when temperature of participant's skin changes rapidly. In this illusion, upward motion, pressure or force sensation is elicited when stimulus temperature rises rapidly whereas in the opposite case, downward motion or pulling sensation is elicit-ed. In this paper, we propose to apply this phenomenon to sole to present ground slope. We measured result of correlation between stimulation temperature and front-back direction position of center of gravity.

Braille and tactile maps are common information support tools for the people with visual impairments. As one of the most popular Braille / tactile map printing technologies, the screen printing method is applied for printing TRUCT (Transparent resinous ultraviolet cured type) Braille and tactile map. However, it is pointed that TRUCT Braille and tactile map created by the screen printing method has poor quality. In this study, in order to improve the printing quality of TRUCT Braille and tactile map, we created a new printing machine. Additionally, we evaluated finish of Braille and tactile map created by new printing machine. As a results, we found that Braille and tactile map created by new printing machine has high quality.

Velocity perception is important in safety, traffic jam relaxation, comfort, and concentration during driving automobiles. In previous studies, change of velocity perception by using vision has been proposed. We focus on vibrotactile stimulation for changing velocity perception since tactile stimulation can be given only to a driver. This paper proposes a method of changing frequency of vibration on seat. Preliminary test by using a driving simulator shows a possibility of changing velocity perception by using the proposed method, and its applications are discussed.

In this study, we propose a gesture recognition system on a paper sensor sheet which can be folded. Since the sensor is flexible, it can be used in various scenarios. We implemented a touch detection method and applied a gesture recognition algorithm by Dynamic Time Warping (DTW). We have conducted an experiment to analyze the recognition rate of the proposed system.