The passive dynamic control (PDC) is a mechanical system control method based on an inherently safe design means using a brake mechanism effectively. Since the follow-up control by the PDC can be envisaged as gradually narrowing down the wide area around a control object to enclose it toward the target trajectory, the authors designate this control as “enclosing control.” Here, the proposed method is evaluated by comparing with PI control and sliding mode control for rotary pneumatic 2 link manipulator. By experiments, in the enclosing control, the stick-slip is suppressed by the brake mechanism, and good follow-up accuracy can be obtained compared with the other control methods.

We made a structural health monitoring system with MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) acoustic sensor. Compared with conventional AE sensor or acceleration sensor, MEMS acoustic sensor has a wider frequency range, which integrates conventional sensors with different frequency characteristics. The sensor unit has a wireless interface. When the sensor unit detects waveforms, the sensor unit extracts characteristics as parameters and send them to Google Spreadsheet. When some waveforms are detected, the sensor unit counts up threshold-crossing pulses and send them. We enabled it to construct a structural health monitoring system that can detect vibrations in a wide frequency range with a single sensor.

Swarm robotic systems have an advantage that they can execute difficult tasks that cannot be achieved by using a single robot. Self-organization is a useful method to control swarm robots because it enables to create collective behaviors from local interactions of agents that perform simple behavior. We previously proposed a simple model for self-organization that is based on asymmetric interactions, and demonstrated via simulation that various non-trivial patterns emerge. In this study, we examine the applicability of the proposed model to a swarm robotic system. As a first step, we developed five mobile agents and demonstrated via real-world experiments that they can reproduce simulation results.

Clarifying the control principle underlying animal locomotion is expected to provide us a novel design scheme for building highly adaptive and resilient robots. To this end, we have been investigating an ophiuroid as a model living organism, since it exhibits surprisingly adaptive and resilient behavior even though it is composed of primitive and decentralized nervous system. Recently, we have proposed a novel hierarchical decentralized control scheme, and successfully reproduced behavior of an ophiuroid via simulation by the proposed control scheme. In this study, we build a real physical ophiuroid-like robot for validating the proposed control scheme in the real world.

This paper studies a self-position estimating method for each robot in a swarm in order to realize dispersive formation control in a collective movement of swarm robot applied Thermodynamics model. In the model, because robots form a hexagonal lattice and move collective, a self-position in an aggregation can determine by unit vectors of three axes equally in a two-dimensional plane and coefficients of unit vectors. In order to not require all information on the swarm robot, the proposed method realize by the recursive algorithm using the communication between the neighbor and this system of coordinates. Experiment results show that self-position estimation is possible dynamically even if the shape of the aggregation change in the collective movement applied the proposed method.

In this paper, we propose a system for a robot swarm in 3D space based on local interaction by using low-dimensional information. Generally, communication cost of multi-robot system rises by using high-dimensional information. Using low-dimensional information can hold down communication cost of a robot swarm. Thus, we propose the system with a phase oscillator. It is known that phase oscillators interact with each other, by using a phase which is only one-dimensional information. We propose the phase oscillator model with directional information in order to control a robot swarm in 3D space. Also, we show the effectiveness of the proposed method by analysis and experiments.

In this paper, we focus on the emergence of swarm robotic systems. Thus far, we have presented a chloroplastic robots system. Chloroplastic robots are allowed to swarm around a light source while avoiding shadows and obstacles. However, a fixed light source has been assumed. In order for the chloroplastic robots to cover shadow areas due to obstacles, we move the light source in an adaptive manner. In this regard, the formation of the chloroplastic robots is broken if the light source moves without considering the arrangement of the robots. For this challenge, we propose an external formation control of the robots based on the moving light source. Through simulation experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed control for the reformation of the robots is discussed.

The purpose of this study is to design and develop circular-arc-gear type modules which enabled inter-robot communications. In the recent modular robotics, there have been a lot of modular robots, however, circular-arc-gear type module robots which enabled inter-robot communications hasn't been developed. In this study, we developed circular-arc-gear type modules robots, moreover, we confirmed that the robots realized the communication between multiple modular robots integrated the wireless communication devices using ZigBee.

In nursing homes and welfare facilities, the positive utilization of power bathing assistive machines is strongly promoted as a measure to prevent nursing care staffs from being suffered lumbar pain. However, elimination of hazards or reduction of risks associated with the machines by technical protective measures that are implemented at the design phase can be considered inadequate in comparison with other industrial machinery. In this paper, three protective devices for a bath lift trolley against the hazardous compress of operator's upper limb are proposed, which are devised on the basis of safety technologies having been cultivated in the manufacturing industry. Furthermore, usability evaluation tests that nursing care staffs simulatively carry out bathing help works using the bath lift trolley equipped with the proposed protective devices are conducted to confirm that the proposed devices do not adversely affect the usability of the bath lift trolley and the operator's working conditions.

A human-friendly robot that consists of two arms, a body and a mobile base has been developed. The robot has a collision force suppression mechanism that passively operates without power supply and a control system. The mobile base has four omnidirectional wheels, and is covered by an air cushion bag to absorb collision forces. In this paper, a new passive collision force suppression mechanism capable of being operated by wires is proposed. When a collision between an object and the arm or the body occurs, the collision/contact force is suppressed by the collision force suppression mechanisms. Through collision experiments, the effectiveness of the suppression mechanisms is confirmed.

For robot nursing-care robotic devices, protection measures will affect the usefulness of operations. Since safety and usability tend to conflict, and it is necessary to properly balance the both relationship. Based on the safety design specification confirmation document, factors which are in a tradeoff relationship of safety are arranged and the optimization method is examined particularly with regard to usability.

This paper is concerned with a localization method of swarm robots based on the adhoc network, which we call “Mi-Nashi”. In the method, every node is capable of exchanging position information within its communication range. The point we wish to emphasize here is that any node never knows its global position, i.e., every node only revises the relative position in a group as a clue to the discrepancy of situations. We ran repeated simulations by changing total number of robots and the communication range, to show that our proposed method has appropriate communication range, in which the localization accuracy dramatically increases.

We focus our attentions on the investigation of adaptive flocking behaviors consisting of a large population of agents nevertheless individual agents decide their actions by simple rules and local interactions. Based on the idea, we proposed a “Push-Forward model” exhibiting three nontrivial group behaviors; rotation, procession and sudden direction change. This paper tries to the realization of Push-Forward model. We verify from the experiments that swarm robots can produce two of three collective behaviors, namely, rotation and sudden turning in direction. On the other hand, the procession motion cannot be observed in the experiments due to the disturbances in real world.

This paper proposes a new kind of navigation method for mobile robots. Instead of designing a complicated control structure for every robot, we dare to make a potential field, which manipulates the robot movement. We adopt sound in order to create the potential field. On this method, a robot selects an action from proceeding and turning based on the strength of the field. We design a control method of the sound field and a sound hearing robot, and we examine the effectiveness of the proposed method in the real world. After conducting experiments, we found that a mobile robot succeeded in a goal-navigation task by habituating appropriately the robot to the sound.

This paper proposes a new kind of snake-like robot, consisting of multiple lateral-directional driving units connected by a passive joint. Interesting snake robots mimicking living organisms have been developed by robotic researchers because they has an advantage of going on unstable grounds, though their control law tend to difficult due to nonholonomic constraints. Our developed robot has four active omni-wheels, each of which is attached at the center of each unit and rolls in the lateral direction. The head and tail units have constraints in the lateral direction due to the attachment of passive wheels. We derive the kinematic model of the developed robot and singular posture of it in designing a decentralized control law.

In this paper, we propose a programmable lighting control system composed of multiple LED lights and multiple windows that can change their transparency. The ON/OFF modes of lights and windows are determined by distributed controllers which are embedded in lights and windows. Thus, the proposed system is able to control the distribution of light and shadow by determining ON/OFF modes. We first formulate a design problem which finds distributed controllers such that actual illuminance distribution is similar to a desired one. Then we propose simple distributed controllers. Finally, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed method by a numerical simulation.

Nowadays, the number of IoT devices are increasing. And, user interface for such devices is very important. One of the method to improve the easy usability is gesture controlling. Many researchers have studied gesture recognition with using camera. However, these devices are inconvenient to carry nor to use in various places. Therefore, one attractive solution is to use wearble devices for recognizing arm motion. The wearble devices commonly have an intertia sensor and used for getting arm motion. Therefore, in this research the acceleration of gestures was used for getting arm motion. The acceleration data was analized by SVD(Singular Value Decomposition) and, rognition tool is SVM(Support Vector Machine) that is one of the machine learning model.

In this paper, we studied on hand-gesture-based interface for an omni-directional home mobile robot, using the LeapMotion sensor. The LeapMotion sensor is small device that can sense hand movements in the air above it. In our previous study, we conducted simulations of a hand-shape-based operation method and a hand-motion-based operation method. Based on the results of the previous study, in this paper, we propose a new operation method for an omnidirectional mobile robot, using both of hand-shape and hand-motion. From the experiments using a real mobile robot, subjects gave good evaluations about the understandability of the operation method and the enjoyment of operating the robot.

A task instruction is carried out in various situations such as a cooking training. In the task instruction, a lot of information is translated by interactions between an instructor and a learner. So, the task instruction requires that the instructor and the learner to be at the same place and time. If we use a robot for mediating between them, such limitations could be eliminated. In this report, we describe a model of interaction between robot and person. In order to better understand the task, the robot plans and executes appropriate interactions such as questions to person according to the current model of the person’s task understanding.

The authors developed an image processing method for estimating the progress of eating behavior of an elderly recipient. The image processing is based on depth images and does not require any visual markers on plateware such as dishes. The authors’ medication management support system can make a reminder at the correct time (e.g., after eating) depending on the progress. In addition, a human support robot will be able to pass a dose of medicines to the recipient in advance by predicting the end time of eating behavior.

Dishwashers are owned by less households than many of other home appliances in Japan. One of the reasons is that it is difficult and troublesome to decide the layout of dishes in a dishwasher rack. Thus we proposed a system that decides the layout instead of human users. The purpose of this study is to make this system more practical. We develop an anytime algorithm with a genetic algorithm (GA) for optimization of dishwasher loading. The objective function of the optimization is the total number of loading dishes in the dishwasher. We define genetic locus as the dish position in the dishwasher rack, and gene as the kinds of dishes. This system shows the temporary best layout with 3D graphics. In conclusion, this system can provide dishwasher loading layout, in shorter time than the previous study. Moreover, the layouts are improved gradually because the anytime algorithm is used. Thus this system becomes more practical in optimization of dishwasher loading.

In recent years, the amount of care person is decreasing even though people who need nursing care are increasing. The sensor which can sense 7 different items each time and the application that was developed for monitoring the sensing data were used for determining if the room condition where children or elderly are can be managed or not. This experiment to use this sensor have shown that each place where the sensor was put has different impact.

In this research, a soft passive rotational joint using magneto-rheological fluid(MRF) is proposed. The proposed device has a rotational vane which allows us to utilize not only the shear mode of MRF but also its valve mode. Experimental results show that the proposed MR joint can adjust the yield torque (i.e. the torque at the zero-velocity) depending on the excitation current for magnetic flux coupling with MRF. FEM non-linear magnetic field analysis results show large magnetic flux leakage, which means that there is a room to improve the device by redesign the device structure.

In previous studies on the magnetorheological piston, the system performance was evaluated only as a traditional damping system. Here, the piston is connected to a pump to create a hydraulic compliant actuator, and is capable to control the piston speed and force independently by using the pump and electromagnet voltages, respectively. Different combinations of these parameters can be used to achieve diverse system properties; e.g. low response time or energy efficiency. Several experiments are conducted to evaluate its performance, including force, friction, speed, and step response. The results indicated that the potential of the devices to be used as an active system for compliant hydraulic robotic applications.

In this study, we propose a backdrivable rotatory actuator using magnetoreological fluids and several fundamental control modes for actual applications. The base design of this actuator is a vane motor considering the easiness of modification, and the passages needed for a variable viscosity mechanism are located in the vane because it can offer high backdrivability. The control modes are designed based on a finite state machine using PID control independently of the speed and force of the actuator. Several experiments are conducted to evaluate basic actuator's performance and controller's performance. The results indicated that the actuator could move adequately as the implemented control mode.

This paper describes a vibration control of a ferrofluid-based robotic sheet for a liquid manipulation. The robotic sheet consists of ferrofluid wrapped with thin polytetrafluoroethylene sheets. The robotic sheet is able to move the object using the shape deformation properties of the ferrofluid due to the influence of the magnetic field. We focused on the flexibility of the robotic sheet and hypothesized that we could manipulate soft and objects like fluids whose shape changes dynamically. In this paper we examine the mixing and transportation of a liquid using the robotic sheet. The mixing of a liquid was achieved by applying pulsed magnetic field from the electromagnet to the robotic sheet to generate vibration. In addition, liquid transport was realized by using the gradient of the robotic sheet surface.

A flexible electrostatic adhesive device was modified successfully to improve an aging characteristics. The experimental results using a previous electrostatic adhesive device has shown that, in concrete wall, the maximum adhesive force was 1kgf or more during applied voltage 10kV. However, problems that the adhesive force decreases depending on aging arose. To solve the problem, the design of the electrostatic device was modified. Thereby, the electrostatic adhesive device succeeded that an adhesive force was generated 1kgf or more during a month or more. The flexible electrostatic adhesive device is useful for a practical use to fix an inspection apparatus on a concrete wall of a bridge or a tunnel.

This manuscript describes how to making a grasping area of belt-like flexible objects for robotic manipulation. To make the grasping area, a robotic hand wrinkles a belt-like object using a wiping slide manipulation. Wiping motion of a deformable object was defined as a task in which there was contact, but no relative movement, between the manipulators and the object, combined with contact, plus relative movement, between the object and the floor, during the displacement of the object. The shape of the grasping area is depended on how to manipulating. In this manuscript, we investigate statistically the difference of the grasping area.

In this paper, we deal with the area patrolling by an autonomous mobile robot. For the robot, the patrolling mission is to detect visitors as many as possible. For this mission, we have thus far assumed static visitors in an environment. On the other hand, we propose a novel patrolling strategy in consideration of moving visitors. Therefore, we focus on target destinations of the visitors. Thus the robot is allowed to mainly patrol the destinations. For this purpose, we use a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) . Through the simulation experiments, we discuss the effectiveness of the proposed patrolling strategy based on the HMM.

Authors have been developing a type of sphere-shaped mobile robots using an omnidirectional three-wheel internal driving unit. Previously, velocity control of the sphere shell has been realized. Basing on the previous scheme, direction control of the sphere shell is considered in this presentation. In order to estimate the direction of the internal driving unit and to compensate for the drift of the direction, an IMU sensor and an open-source pose estimation library are employed. The varidity of the scheme is confirmed by experiment.

Functions such as dialogue, guidance and navigation with human beings are expected for home robots. However, there arise problems concerning hugging on the home robot and falling down of the home robot accompanying it. This paper develops a standing up mechanism during falling down as a home robot function capable of smooth service.

In an aging society, the demand of robots to do housework has grown. The robot which automates domesticities is actively studied and developed with the rise of the demand. Folding cloth is a typical burden work and takes a lot of time of the housework. However, to fold clothes automatically by the robot is difficult and take a lot of time due to difficulty of flexible object handling. Therefore, this study proposes a workbench that resolve deflection by control fan in workbench using data of acquired height by xtion. And this study intended to consider the influence of angle of fan.

Clothes are very important for daily life. We always wash, dry, and fold them for maintenance of clothes. Washing and drying were already automated. However, folding isn't automated. Automation of folding clothes is expected not only for industry, but also home use. Unfortunately, folding system for home use is not perfect yet. In this study, we develop folding system with small mobile robots and a table. Robots must certainly catch a cloth because catching a cloth is important motion for folding system. There are clothes and a camera on a table so we must use small space. In this paper, we changed hand part catching clothes and solved the problem. Moreover, we proposed folding motion with edge of s table and automated the folding system considering limit of work space.

In recent years, interface robots that communicate and provide information to people are spreading. Therefore, in this research, in order to expand the application fields of the interface robot, we conducted an experiment to send latitude and longitude information acquired by GPS to the interface robot and give sightseeing guidance for each point in cruising. As an experimental result, the interface robot could guide at 18 points out of 21 points. In the next step, we will confirm the error of the coordinates of the set utterance point and the coordinates when the interface robot actually uttered.

Pneumatic artificial muscles have unique advantages such as high compliance, high ratio of power to mass, and easy manufacturing. We have developed thin McKibben artificial muscle less than 4mm in diameter. It realizes flexible mechanisms which have multiple degree of freedom by using this thin artificial muscles. We propose that novel mechanisms which are produced by knitting thin McKibben artificial muscles. It is possible to fabricate soft mechanisms of a variety of shapes uniformly by knitting muscle fibers. In this paper, we report the knowledge that confirmed by trial manufacture of a heart-liked model.

This paper proposes a novel method of soft actuation called series inflatable actuator, in order to realize a whole-body wearable soft robot for assisting postural transitions between lying and sitting postures. The developed series inflatable actuator realizes the fixed inflation sequence of cascaded inflatable actuators in series, by only connecting a single air supply without any control components. The inflation sequence is determined based on the pressure differences. The amount of pressure drop is varied by changing the number of orifice plates inside the tube and connecting the different number of orifice plates can modulate the sequence. The series inflatable actuator helps to make the wearable soft robot compact and light-weight.

Several types of inflatable robot have been proposed. It is expected that the inflatable robots are utilized in many new applications, because they are light and flexible. To actually use them, stiffness of inflatable links should be set as suitable values depending on tasks. For this purpose, the stiffness should be variable. This paper proposes two inflatable links capable of changing stiffness. The structures of the proposed links are shown and the performance of variable stiffness of the links are experimentally demonstrated.

The proposed sensor system has some air bags connected each other. All bags are made of polymeric material sheets. Due to the structure and the material, the sensor system is light and flexible. By measuring inner pressure of those bags, multi-axial force can be estimated. In this paper, we make clear a mathematical model of a bag to improve force measurement performance. Moreover, we experimentally confirm validity of the proposed mathematical model. As the result, we show that resolution of force measurement and stiffness of the bag are largely affected by the initial pressure of the bag.

We propose a novel Universal jamming Gripper, called Contraction Universal Gripper, in short CUG. CUG is the robotic gripper with the porous granular materials as filling material of UG. Porous granular materials is a powder containing bubbles continuously. Since it's substantially flexible, it can grasp the smaller objects than conventional UG. One of the advantages of CUG is the higher contraction ration than UG. We also propose a novel vacuum gripper consist with skirt part and CUG. It can adsorb the flat object which is difficult to grip by UG. Moreover, both adsorption and gripping is achieved by only vacuuming the inside of CUG. Thus CUG with skirt part is the novel vacuum sucker which complement both UG and vacuum sucker.

Various robot hands are studied by many researchers. Complex robot hand like a human hand can grasp awkward shape objects but need very complex control. On the other hand, simple robot hands are also developed. For example, we proposed and developed the Omni-Gripper that has the torus tubular configuration. In this research, we develop the basic concept of the omni gripper into highly deformable gripper including expandable motion. This time, to realized this concept, we use the expanded polyurethane. Through the grasping experiment, we confirmed the effectivity of highly expandable bubble as a hyper deformation for grasping.

This study proposes a training system for endoscopic surgery. The training system aims to make a trainee virtually experience the previously-recorded forceps operation of a skilled surgeon. The system comprises one desktop computer and two lab-made forceps control devices. In this paper, a skilled surgeon performed to suture the model of enteric canal with a hole, where the movement of the front edge location of forceps and its movie were recorded. This study conducted the experiments using the recorded data on young trainees, and then the experimental results are discussed to make our system more practical.

Today, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique which is one of noninvasive diagnostic imaging techniques for medical use has been applied to industrial product inspection. In this study, hydraulic model test system "flow phantom system" for time-resolved MRI was developed to aim optimum designing of fluid machinery. Steady flow and pulsating flow are given to the attachable test flow phantoms. As the evaluation test, flow passing cylindrical valve with low Re condition and periodic pulsating flow condition were tested using Time-SLIP MRI method which can track the tagged fluid mass.

For accurate insertion by CT-guided robot, we need registration between the coordinate of robot and CT by calculating the section images. In this paper, we intended to develop geometric the marker for registration. The requirements are geometric shapes that the error of 3 DOF (yaw and pitch angles and a craniocaudal distance) between CT image and the maker can be calculated and the material is suitable for CT imaging. Then, marker has four oblique prisms to calculate the error of 3DOG. Oblique prism has advantage on the point of reducing error of angle calculation because of the slope of inverse trigonometric function. From the result of evaluation, accuracy of registration system by geometric marker is satisfactory for insertion to the tumor in lower abdominal region.

An obtained image by ultrasound diagnostic device depends on the skill of the operator. In addition, it is difficult to observe the image due to the organ motions and deformations in accordance with the breathing and pulsation. For this research, we have developed the physiological motion compensation device to track and follow the moving and deformable organ so as to observe the affected area, which is incorporated in the organ, precisely as if it were still regardless of the skill of the operator.

Acoustic shadows, which are generated by rib bones, make it difficult to obtain proper diagnostic images from the proper viewpoints for medical professionals. To cope with this, we combined separate parts of organ images together by utilizing the contours of the kidney. The contours are extracted by the algorithms which are Snake and Partial Active Shape Model. And we constructed the organ composition model that removes the acoustic shadow. It is confirmed that the composition model could be generated properly by the proposed method.

We have been developing the implantable artificial kidney to improve quality of life of the renal disease patient. This system cleans the blood by hemofiltrating the waste molecules and extra water without dialysis fluids. In pervious study, dialysis performance was confirmed through in vivo experiment for 5 hours using rat under anesthesia. Experiments using rats under anesthesia are limited to 5 h due to overdose of the anesthesia. Long-term experiments to assess the dialysis performance and biocompatibility is mandatory. In this study, we fabricated the implant device which has microfluidic channel composed of titanium channel and dialysis membrane to evaluate biofouling on the flow pass. And we established a new in vivo long-term experiment method using rats. In vitro and in vivo experiment for 24 hours revealed titanium channel is superior to stainless channel.

Active Scope Camera (ASC) is the robot video scope that can move by itself to probe narrow gaps for rescue missions. ASC has the ciliary vibration drive mechanism which generates a propellant force to travel in rubble. Nowadays, we also propose a method to lift up the tip of the ASC stably by using air jet and a flexible passive parallel mechanism, which enabled ASC to climb over steps. However, the mobility of the active scope camera is not evaluated quantitatively. Thus, it is not clear where the active scope camera can reach depending on the environments. In this paper, we proposed a model to calculate the region where the ASC can reach.

In the real world, robots have to adapt to the change of their body properties and environment. Coupled chaotic field was proposed for dynamic emergence and adaptation of embodied behavior reflecting the current body-environment dynamics. This model is suitable for soft robotics. However, the system had not been adopted into soft robotics. We applied it to a simulation model and a real soft robot and showed their adaptive motions. Moreover, we investigated the influence of body softness on emergent behavior in the simulation model. We showed the body softness makes the movement of the robot unstable and changeable and the moving range enlarged.

Our previous studies discovered that small particles scattered at the bottom of a water-filled rectangular container align at specific positions when the container is laterally oscillated at specific frequencies. Also, a batch manipulation method of submillimeter-scale small particles was proposed by using this unique phenomenon. In the present study, we attempt to develop a method to separate small particles with various sizes by using the lateral oscillation of a rectangular container. This paper considers lateral fluid velocity distribution in the rectangular container to reveal how the distribution affects the behavior of the small particles, and examines the possibility that the small particles with various sizes can have different behaviors.

We proposed a skin moisture sensor with multiple temperature measuring parts for self-calibration. A resistance temperature detector (RTD) can be used for both heat source and temperature measurement. We fabricated a device with four RTDs to measure the skin moisture content. The temperature coefficients of resistance of the fabricated RTDs are almost the same. On the other hand, a fluctuation of temperature rise was, however, observed. Therefore, we proposed a method of self-calibration of the difference in the calorific value of the heat source by the temperature rise measured by the heat source. By using the proposed method, we showed that the temperature rise fluctuation measured by the resistance can be reduced.