This paper discuses lateral guiding method SSM (Sensor Steering Mechanism) for steered vehicles. Authors are demonstrated the simple lateral guiding relation with sensor arm and steering angle for the front wheel steer type, the reverse phase four-wheel steer type, the rear wheel steer type and articulated type vehicles. SSM presents the stable lateral guiding performance for automated vehicle which follows the straight and curved path created by guideway. Experimental and simulation results show the stable moving and the performance of proposed method.

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[in Japanese]

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Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation has developed four ultra-high-speed, large-capacity elevators, as well as two elevators accommodating up to 27 passengers along the longest running path of 464.4m in Japan. These elevators were installed in the newly constructed freestanding broadcasting tower, TOKYO SKYTREE^[○!R], which started operation in May 2012. We have developed advanced technologies for elevators with larger capacity and longer traveling distance based on our proprietary technologies acquired through the development of the world's fastest elevator for TAIPEI101, super-high-speed elevator for China's highest Shanghai World Financial Center, and so on. In order to realize a safe and comfortable ride, we have also applied new safety and earthquake-resistance regulations prescribed in the Building Standards Act and related laws and regulations to the design of elevator systems, including unintended car movement protection(UCMP).

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In this study, to improve a passenger comfort of railway vehicle cabin, a thermal environment in the cabin was reproduced in CFD analysis. And comfortable prediction under the environment was carried out. As a result of comparing calculation results with the results of actual measurement, it was able to reappear with sufficient accuracy about temperature and wind speed. And it was able to reappear with comparatively sufficient accuracy about comfortable prediction.

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Leg swelling, which frequently occurs during sitting, yields languor on the lower legs and decreases sitting comfort. We focused on footrest, especially difference of footrest angle because footrest is an alternative method to decrease leg swelling and we studied of footrest angle on decrement of leg swelling by using both bioelectrical impedance method and near infrared spectroscopy. From the results we found that increase of deOXY-Hb for outflow influences a gain of leg swelling and increase of OXY-Hb for inflow influences reduction of leg swelling.

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This study discussed driver's sensitivity and adaptability to variation of horizontal vehicle dynamics characteristics. In order to seize characteristic of driver adaptation to variation of the yaw-rate or sideslip angle gain, we conducted some experiments using real small vehicle. The subjects had in common that it is difficult to distinguish lateral motion from yaw motion, when the vehicle dynamics characteristics changes. However, due to the difference of the attributes of the driver, there was a difference in the trend of the adaptive operation.

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We developed a novel axle box bearing endurance test equipment in 2010. It enables a test under a high speed condition of over 320km/h. In addition, it can provide an axial/radial load and vibration under actual conditions. With the aim of ensuring the quality assurance/control and the future development of the bearings, a long-term durability test of axle box bearings is currently in progress by using this equipment. The structure and the operation of the equipment and the progress of the test are reported in this paper.

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In this paper, it is introduced that the distance of high speed bogie development for through operation of Shinkansen and conventional line that began in Fastech360Z. In particular, it is focused that the design related to installing of anti-yaw damper. To restrain the environmental noise, bogie side cover must be equipped. So, mounting location of anti-yaw damper is limited and vertical body elastic vibration becomes easy to occur. We repeated trial and error, and developed bogie for series E6 on the basis of gained knowledge.

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In the design of railway bogies, the compatibility between curving performance and running stability is important. Especially, there are a lot of tight curved sections in LRTs. Bogie with independently rotating wheels (IRW) could be useful to realize both curving performance and running stability. For example, EEF bogie and IRW with inverse tread conicity have been proposed. In this paper, a new-type IRW with oblique axle is proposed and the equation of motion is derived. Characteristics of hunting motion for the new-type IRW are investigated with the eigenvalue analysis. Furthermore, full vehicle model simulation with the new-type IRWs is conducted to evaluate curving performance of the proposed IRW.

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In this paper, we investigated the effect of reduction of flexural vibration in a railway vehicle carbody by supporting underfloor equipment using high-damping elastic mounts. At first, a numerical model for finite element method (FEM) simulation was built to check the reduction capability of flexural vibration by this method. Then, we developed underfloor equipment units with elastic mounts and dummy weight, so as to be able to easily change the layout and the mass of underfloor equipment. And excitation tests of a Shinkansen-type test vehicle with the underfloor equipment units were conducted, and good vibration reduction performance was observed in the tests.

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One of factors that affect the riding comfort of railway vehicle is vibrational acceleration. We developed a simulator which can reproduce railway vehicle acceleration. The riding comfort is evaluated intuitively through a subject pushes manual button when he or she feels bad riding comfort. In this study, we prepared 3 patterns of acceleration data and conducted the riding comfort evaluation test with 2 subjects. As the result, we found that subjects feel bad riding comfort when acceleration and jerk are in a specific amount. In addition, we can know that most of the bad riding comfort is from the low-frequency acceleration.

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This paper studies the complex vibration characteristics of passengers taking the seat for high speed railway vehicles in order to design the comfortable seat from the viewpoint of dynamic vibration. The seat excitation experiments are carried out to measure the vibration characteristics of each part of the passenger body in the vertical and longitudinal directions. The experimental results reveal the fundamental vibration characteristics of each body part and individual characteristics of 9 subjects.

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This paper describes an active control system aimed at minimizing vertical vibrations from the seat to the human body in a vehicle. This system controls mechanical properties such as spring constants and damping coefficients on the basis of vibration analysis. This study aimed to estimate a prototypic vehicle seat with air cushions. The cushion properties and effectiveness of the vibration reduction were examined by using the analytical system of a seat-steering wheel-occupant system while controlling the seat. The pressure control device and control program for the controlling cushion properties were estimated. In summary, the validity of the prototypic vehicle seat with air cushions is indicated.

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In recent years, the technology development in high speed railway vehicle that aims for further service improvement, ride comfort improvement and reduction of energy consumption has been continued. Therefore, design of lightweight high speed railway vehicle seat that provides good ride comfort to passenger is needed. In previous studies, it is revealed that the high frequency vibrations around 30-40Hz are occurred due to the wheel imbalance and they have a harmful influence on ride comfort. For these reasons, the objective of this study is to analyze vibration mechanism of the seat to obtain the guideline to design the seat which can reduce the high frequency vibration. Therefore, this paper describes the results of vibration experiment using two-seater seat and shaking to clarify the vibration characteristics of the seat.

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A performance estimation of isolation vibration for a container crane is important at initial study stage. We are able to estimate it by the acceleration response spectrum for rocking mode of a container crane direction of trolley drive. However it is important to estimate a response of gantry drive direction. A performance of vibration isolation of gantry dive direction are by a friction response of wheel and rail. This mechanism is non liner system, we can not estimate response easily. In this study, we show the simple estimation method by calculating friction response spectrum.

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Escalator is one of important facilities as a vertical line of connecting the floors in the building. It is a system of continuous transport in one direction. In addition, it is often used in a facility with many elderly and commercial facilities occupied by many people. However, during the great east japan earthquake of 2011, escalator body accidents by falling from the fixation part may have occurred. Commercial facilities are generally built with steel construction, during an earthquake, they have a structure which dissipates the energy of the shaking building structures. Therefore, there is a possibility that the deformation of the building is increased when the massive earthquake motion occurs. Escalators are the bottom fixed of the structure and the upper non-fixed style usually set up. Moreover, the escalator installed in the building is greatly shaken by a relative displacement of the upper story and the lower story of the building. Accordingly, it is considered that escalator have dropped because the overlap allowance position is shortened by the increase of the slide displacement. In addition, it might drop because an escalator is compressed by the relative displacement between stories or the fixation part has been damaged. Besides, it is possible that the fixation part no longer supports the escalator weight. Consequently, in this study, the development of an analysis model grasping the behavior of the escalator during an earthquake is carried out. In this paper, an analysis of a simple model of the building and the escalator is conducted in order to assess their behavior by inputting earthquake vibration.

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Trains, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, etc. are mentioned as the main transportation devices in everyday life. However, we are obliged to walk when we move through places such as a retail power center and an airport. For this background, personal mobility vehicles (PMVs) which are the vehicles for individual usage are expected to be used in pedestrian spaces. A PMV is compact and can move through narrrow spaces. In this study, we aim to develop a four-wheel stand-up type vehicle for people who cannnot walk longer because of the pain of foot or waist although they are able to walk for a short distance. By using Multibody Dynamics, the coupled model of human and vehicle is constructed. The vehicle is expressed by 3 rigid bodies (front tire, rear tire and body) and a human is expressed by 8 rigid bodies (foot, lower leg, femoral, body, head, upper arm, lower arm, and hand). The vehicle of coupled model is accelerated and decelerated. By the numerical simulation, the behavior of the center of gravity of a human and fall of a vehicle are simulated. As a result, the threshold of acceleration which human can keep standing posture and the threshold of wheelbase which a vehicle doesn't fall during acceleration and braking operation were shown.

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We focused on the fact that the ease of driving is enhanced by EPS stiffness, theoretically considered the influence by torsional rigidity from a steering angle(steering wheel) to front wheel angle(front tires). As a result, it turned out that a front wheel angle was determined by not only to a steering angle but also the influence of the dynamic state of vehicles, and it was intercepted the influence of the dynamic state of vehicle by making steering torsional rigidity into high torsional rigidity. Next, the simulation was performed about the control performance of vehicle at the time of a disturbance input, and the validity of the theoretical verification was confirmed. Finally, the torsional rigidity range for high torsional rigidity steering utilization was defined.

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In Japan, construction equipment are used for building construction. In a year, more than 2,000 complain have registered because of the vibration of this construction machinery. In addition, those complain are related to building construction in approximately 60% of the cases, which are often demolition work. Indeed, the construction equipment generates uncomfortable vibration to neighbors. Therefore, the purpose of this research is the development of a vibration control device for excavators. A Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) is most commonly used for vibration control. Usually, the TMD is tuned by using optimal design formula depending on the weight and the stiffness of the control target. However, the tuning violated if the parameters of the control target are changed. In order to solve this problem, a Multiple Tuned Mass Damper (MTMD) is applied in this study. This paper compares the performance of MTMD and TMD by numerical simulation. Then, a prototype of MTMD has been fabricated and its performance checked experimentally. As a result, it is confirmed that the prototype of MTMD has good performance in vibration control for excavator.

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In this study, the effects of the roll vibration of the track on the running safety of railway vehicles are investigated. The roll vibrations of the top of the viaducts are caused by earthquakes. The vehicle dynamics simulator (VDS) is modified to be able to input roll vibration of the track. According to the sinusoidal oscillation analysis, the running safety of railway vehicle is decreased by approximately 10% when the ratio between the roll amplitude and the lateral amplitude of the track vibration is 0.02 rad/m. In addition, it is verified that the decreasing of the running safety due to roll vibration of the track in case of the rigid-frame structure is smaller than that in case of the pier structure. This is because that the roll vibration of the rigid-frame structure is smaller than that of the pier structure.

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One of methods to evaluate running stability of railway vehicles is running test on roller rigs. In this paper, in order to investigate an influence of vehicle models on dynamic behaviors of the vehicle, we carried out the running test by a frequency response with lateral forced excitations. As a result, it is verified that, there is a characteristic vibration mode in a half vehicle model, but there is not in one vehicle model.

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The bogie rotational resistance test machine has been developed. By this machine, rotational resistance can be measured directly. The characteristics of bogie rotational resistance of several types of railway vehicles were measured using this machine. To investigate them precisely, the evaluation method of the rotational resistance was developed, and applied it to these measurement results. A new simulation model of the bogie rotational resistance was produced using one of the evaluation results. The detail of the evaluation method and some examples of the simulation results using the new simulation model of bogie rotational resistance are described in this paper.

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Aiming at the flight control design of small helicopters for large flight envelopes, a comprehensive modeling of small electric helicopters, utilizing first principles based on the analyses of main blades divided into elements on which air speeds and aerodynamic forces are calculated, is performed. The precision of dynamics is verified by flight test data. The developed model also makes flight performances and dynamics of the small helicopter clear by using trim calculations and analyses of eigenvalues and the stabilizer motion.

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Recently, researches on cruising range extension for electric vehicles (EVs) have been conducted in the world. In this paper, proposal and evaluation of a range extension control system (RECS) are demonstrated. The proposed method optimizes front and rear driving-braking force distribution ratio. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by field and bench test.

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In recent years, narrow vehicles have attracted considerable interest because of its convenience. The narrow body provides the possibility to pass narrow path, but also without the needs of large parking space. However, narrow vehicles are likely to have reduced stability against overturning during hard cornering. Although tilter is often applied to improve the shortages of narrow vehicles, based on the tilt controlled vehicle developed by the authors, the unbalance during sharp curves was proved. When the tilt actuator actives during sharp curves or a handling operation performed suddenly, the inverse torque of tilt actuator lift up the inside wheels temporarily during the turn. Thus, this paper provides gyro moment to keep wheels touching the ground. To confirm the theory, a computational model was constructed and a three-wheel vehicle with a gyroscope was built.

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To improve steering feeling, we propose friction control method on EPS (Electric Power Steering) in this paper. To control friction stably, the proposed method uses not mechanical elements but a motor torque. Firstly, an effect of friction on steering system was shown and a target friction was determined. Secondly, an approximate computation method of friction was described and its validity was confirmed. Thirdly, it was shown that a high stiffness of a steering torque sensor was required on the friction control. Finally, an effectiveness of the proposed method was verified by using simulations. In addition, the proposed method was applied to an actual vehicle and it was confirmed that the proposed method improved steering feeling by giving a steering friction torque to a driver before generating a steering angle at steering wheel.

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Recently, for the long-period ground motions by the Tokai earthquake, the Tonankai earthquake, et al., the safety of Tokaido-Shinkansen becomes a problem. In this paper, using the analytical model of high-speed moving railway vehicles proposed by Shintani, et al., its dynamic behavior is studied by use of the artificial long-period ground motions in lateral and vertical directions simultaneously. From the analytical results, some relationships between the lateral ground motion and collision of some stoppers on the possibility of rollover of the vehicle are shown. Also, it is clear that the possibility of rollover of the vehicle is large for the long-period ground motions used in this study.

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Accurate parameters for vehicle control can guarantee high performance of vehicle control. Identification of parameters of vehicle is important to achieve high performance of control because the performance of vehicle control depends on changing of parameters of vehicle. Identification of the yaw moment of inertia is required to accomplish high performance of steering control because the steering control takes much influence by the value of yaw moment of inertia. In this paper, a method to identify the yaw moment of inertia is proposed using GPS sensor and Dual kalman filter that can estimate both the state and the parameter in real-time. Reliability is confirmed for the proposed identification method is examined through experiment.

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In this paper, a method of designing front and rear steering pattern is proposed. Front and Rear active steering enable vehicle to be controlled by lateral force and side slip angle independently. Thus, researches have been done to decrease cornering resistance for each seconds. However, those methods can not completely realise the minimum energ consumption y in total. Therefore, a method of designing the optimal heading angle pattern under trajectory patterns and a control to realise the optimal heading pattern sre proposed. The effectiveness of proposed method is verified by simulations and experiments.

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This paper investigates the application of optimal control results to a rotary pendulum. The optimal control problem is prescribed as a minimum-time maneuver of the rotary pendulum, and it is solved using pseudospectral (PS) optimal control theory. The computed optimal results including a constraint of pendulum angle are applied as open-loop commands to the real system. Preliminary experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of commanding the rotary pendulum with open-loop optimal solutions generated offline.

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