In this study, correlation between Electromyogram, EMG, and lateral acceleration of the car was examined to check the possibility of EMG as an indicator of ride comfort. EMG is a physiological signal, recently it has been used as an objective indicator in some researches. Experiments are conducted with a car on the market and its modified car. Two different cars are driven slalom in the test course, and a subject sat in a rear seat.EMG of sternomastoid muscles which are on both side of the neck is measured. Authors found that EMG of opposite side to the direction of acceleration is growing. In addition, the results show a tendency that RMS value of EMG gets smaller when the acceleration is smaller.

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Rear-end collision in the vehicle-following situation has captured vast interests of active safety researchers. This paper presents one of the major causes of this collision, a hurry driving. The behavior of the driver during the normal and the hurry driving has been analyzed comparatively, and the statistical models of the driver behavior are developed. These model features are the moving average and the moving standard deviation of the time headway. A classifier for hurry driving diagnosis is produced based on the bivariate distribution model between these features. The results clearly distinguish normal and hurry conditions in terms of time headway and its standard deviation.

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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the body load of the wheelchair users during propelling wheelchair on the various road conditions by the oxygen uptake (VO2) values and the damic wheelchair driving force. We measured the oxygen uptake values collected with a portable metabolic analysis system (VO2000) ranging from rest up to wheelchair ascending or descending the slope (gradient 8%) and also by walk The oxygen uptake values per meter when ascending the slope by wheelchair showed approximately three times values of that by walk It was concluded that the oxygen uptake values per meter was useful to verif,i the body load of wheelchair users.

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Crossing slopes, electric wheelchairs deviate from their straight course under the influence of gravity. In order to keep traveling directions of the electric wheelchairs on slopes, the users must frequently operate input devices. This is a severe problem for the users who operate electric wheelchairs by switches. The switching devices are less smooth than the joysticks on veering. This research aims at reducing the operation strain on the slopes, and presents a system that guides the electric wheelchairs to run straight-ahead by only one operation. The proposed system has a feedforward controller and a feedback controller on the basis of posture angles of the electric wheelchairs. We mounted a prototype system on a ready-made electric wheelchair, and made a learning experiment on the system in a simulated environment.

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A vehicle for the individual usage called a personal mobility vehicle (PMV) is investigated in terms of its affinity with pedestrians. A PMV sometimes share the space with pedestrians. Therefore, it is veiy important to ensure the safety and comfort of pedestrians and PMVs in the space. In this investigation, we evaluate the affinity between pedestrians and PMVs using the personal space. The personal space is the space which causes the psychological strain by the approach of others. By using the personal space, the psychological strains of the pedestrians and the PMVs are measured by physical distances. It is shown that the personal space of the two-wheeled dynamically stabilized vehicle has higher affinity with pedestrians than that of the bicycle, which has 2.0 to 2.3 times larger personal spaces for the front, back and side. It is also found that for a pedestrian, the approach of the dynamically stabilized vehicle for the front does not have high impact, however the passing of the vehicle side to the pedestrian causes more discomfort and fear.

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Kashiwa city was adopted as one of ITS model cities in Japan in June 2009. The responding ground concept and the outline of study menus of the model ITS field test project in Kashiwanoha district by the Advanced Mobility Research Center (ITS Center) of the University of Tokyo is described.

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The car has an important impact on the elderly activities of daily living and social participation. However, the physical depression by aging has also the cause of the car accident. In this report, we research about the physical and environmental factors of a car dependency based on a survey. To identify influencing factors, a survey on the attitudes of over 60 years of age people was adopted in a study on 767 elderly. The investigation revealed that the aging and physical diseases were significantly related to driving abilities. In addition respondents living in an aging area have a strong need for a car driving, anxious about the risk of leaving a car and need an encourage improvement of mass transport system.

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Automatic Identification System (AIS) equipment has been fitted to all vessels above 500 gross tonnage and to those 300 gross tonnage that are trading internationally. Information concerning the vessel's navigational data, such as position, heading and speed together with other relevant information such as ship's name, dimensions and destination, are automatically transmitted to other vessels and to facilities. Kanmon channel is one of the most congested passages and there is strong tidal current. We received and saved AIS data around Kanmon Channel by MS receiver and analyzed the traffic characteristics, such as number of vessels, relation between tidal current and vessels' length, and destination.

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In a container terminal, the workload distribution among storage blocks (container stacking areas) changes over time. Therefore, transfer cranes (TCs), which are mobile cranes for container handling in storage blocks, have to move among blocks appropriately according to the distribution, and, the efficiency of yard operations depends heavily on the productivity of TCs. In the proposed method, we calculate the distribution by looking ahead to determine the deployment of TCs dynamically. The simulation results show that the proposed method can improve the efficiency of yard operations.

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Through the model experiment, we have investigated parameters of distinct element method which is computer simulations of soil excavation. We constructed a soil mountain, then, insert the cylindrical tool horizontally in it. In the model experiment the force which diffuses in the soil can be measured by the pressure distribution sensor put on the side wall, back wall and the base of the soil. Additionally, we measured the tool reaction force by force sensors. The tool pushes the grain in the soil, then that grain pushes the grains around that. So the force diffuses mainly in front of the tool. We compare the result of the experiment with the result of the distinct element method. The tool reaction force was same in the experiment and distinct element method. However, the pressure distribution was different each other. This difference is caused by the mechanism of grain relocation.

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This paper proposes SSM(Sensor Steering Mechanism) for a lateral guided vehicle with an articulated body which is allowing the vehicle to change moving directions. Authors demonstrate the geometry of SSM for a front wheel steer type, reverse phase four-wheel steer type and rear wheel steer type vehicle. SSM presents the stable lateral guiding performance for automated vehicle which follows a straight and curved path created by guideway. The other hand, SSM is not established for articulated vehicles such as wheel loaders and dump tracks used in mine and construction site. SSM for an articulated vehicle enables a wheel loader to automated moving xi every spaces. This paper leads SSM for an articulated vehicle and constructs an experimental robotic vehicle with proposed SSM. Simulated and experimental data show the advantages of proposed SSM.

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This paper describes a methodology regarding an intelligent cruise control of transport robots which is effective for solving congestion. For this purpose, we focus on an external interaction force between the robots. This force is generated with the use of a virtual damper. In this methodology, two control scenarios are presented: a damping force acts on a moving robot as the external interaction force, (I) only when its preceding robot(s) is/are stopping or being congested and (II) when a robot exists in front of the moving robot before a destination, in order not to become involved in the congestion. A circuit and a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) are objectives in the simulation experiments. From the experimental results, it is shown that the proposed control method successfully solves the congestion, and finally, improves the performance. In addition, the superiority concerning the two control scenarios, (I) and (II), is discussed.

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As the maximum speed of high-speed trains increases, flow-induced vibration of the trains in tunnels has become a subject of discussion in Japan. A basic study of flow controls using jets were conducted to reduce unsteady aerodynamic forces acting on the trains in the tunnels. We performed a wind tunnel experiment with a model train equipped with unsteady jet devices to estimate the effect of the jets. The wind tunnel experiment showed the effectiveness of the feedback control for the jets. We also conducted a numerical simulation to investigate a mechanism of the reduction of the unsteady aerodynamic force by the jets.

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Several visualization methods of train operation record data obtained from train control systems are introduced; Visualization of the data is helpful to identify overall situation of occurrence of delays and the propagation to other trains and to confirm effectiveness of revision of timetables to make them more robust. We present several visualization methods together with our experience to apply them to actual train operation record data of Tokyo Metro, the largest subway company in Tokyo.

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Recently, the designed railway vehicles are expanding in Japan. Odakyu Electric Railway Company has 6 kinds of vehicles "Romancecar"; each of them has different design. Showing the effect of quality designed vehicles for passengers contributes to vehicle development. This study aims to develop the Train-Choice-Model what is able to estimates the effect. This model built by utility function that has some variables of design. The 930 sample data were collected by questionnaire for passengers. As a resi.ilt of analysis, it became clear that the quality designed car increase Train-Choice-Probability

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Conventionally, it is assumed that the damping coefficient in the horizontal direction of an air spring is very small. We measured lateral force of the air spring between the body and a truck in case the body carries out roll vibration greatly in the non-dismantled state included in the truck, and calculated the damping coefficient in the horizontal direction from the measurement result.

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Contact problem between a wheel and rail is a fundamental problem of railway vehicle dynamics. J.J.Kalker proposed the method for solving the contact problem considering the three-dimensional elastic theory using the active set method for optimal calculations required in solving the problem. It is shown that the proposed method using the primal-dual interior point method for optimal calculations is better in calculating speed than Kalkers original method. It is also found that the area which has to be analyzed can be calculated reasonably and automatically using our proposed method. We have concluded that one can solve the contact problem by our proposed method about 2 to 10 times faster than by Kalker's original algorithm.

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It is necessary for Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) to run on sharp curves smoothly. When LRV pass the tight curve, increase of the lateral force becomes serious problem. In the previous research, active control bogie with arranged linkage mechanism has been proposed and it enables the bogie to realize ideal curving. Active steering control requires sensors, actuators and other electronic devices. Therefore, it tends to become complex structure. In this paper, the newly proposed steering bogie with simple mechanism with semi-active damper is studied.

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