Cavitation induced vibration and erosion of pipes are the potential damaging factor in a piping system. To prevent such trouble, it is necessary to develop the detection method of cavitation phenomena. Especially, in power plants, it is preferred to detect them from the outside of piping during operation. In this paper, detection of cavitation phenomena was experimentally investigated using accelerometers mounted on the outer surface of piping at upstream and downstream of an orifice. As the results : (1) According to the progress of cavitation, output voltage of the accelerometer varied, and the amplitude and number of the pulse-shaped signals increased. However, it might be difficult to distinguish them from noises in an operating plant. (2) It was difficult to recognize the characteristic frequency of cavitation, because the power spectrum density was broad up to the accelerometer limit of 45 kHz. (3) The flow directional distribution of RMS (root mean square) values of accelerometer outputs varied greatly according to the progress of cavitation. Therefore, comparison of RMS values at upstream and downstream of the orifice might be possible to detect cavitation phenomena in a piping system of operating plants.

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In the previous paper, the forced vibration in an unsymmetric piecewise-linear system excited by general periodic force functions is analyzed, and some resonance curves for the harmonic and the superharmonic resonances are shown by numerical calculation. This paper deals with the stability analysis of these forced vibrations for the harmonic and the superharmonic vibrations in piecewise-linear systems without damping, and gives a stability criterion for periodic solutions utilizing calculus of variations. The stability charts for response vibrations are constructed. The stability criterion for periodic solutions on steady vibration is discussed utilizing their charts. By using these charts, the stable branches for the resonance curves obtained in the previous papers are distinguished from the unstable ones. And comparing the theoretical results with the analog results obtained by an analog computer, it is shown that they show a fairly good agreement.

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Experimental results are presented on nonlinear vibrations of a cylindrical shallow shell-panel with a rectangular platform. Opposite cylindrical edges of the shell-panel are clamped and the other opposite straight edges are simply supported. One side of the clamped edges is connected with elastic springs and is movable to an in-plane direction. The simply supported edges are supported by adhesive elastic films. Under the in-plane compressive force over the buckling load, the post-buckled configuration is obtained. In the specific compressive force, the shell-panel has the conditions of internal resonances. By exciting the shell-panel with periodic lateral acceleration, nonlinear periodic and non-periodic responses are observed in specific regions of the excitation frequency. These responses are examined with the Fourier spectra and the principal component analysis. Non-periodic responses are evaluated by the maximum Lyapunov exponent. Under the smaller magnitude of the compressive force, the principal resonance and the sub-harmonic resonance of 1/2 order corresponding to the lowest mode are obtained. Furthermore, the combination resonance dominated by the higher modes of vibration is also obtained. Under the larger magnitude of the compressive force, the chaotic response is generated from internal resonances close to the lowest natural frequency. Applying the principal component analysis, dominant modes of vibration and their contributions are confirmed on the combination resonance and the chaotic response.

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This paper describes an investigation of equivalent stiffness of a joint layer of a spindle rotor. The test rotor is composed of a journal part and two thrust plates bound with bolts. The each thrust plate and the journal part are clamped with eight M 4 bolts which are arranged on the circle at 45 degrees intervals with a uniform clamping torque. The each surface of bolted joints is processed by two methods in order to change the roughness of surface. We propose the identify procedure of the equivalent stiffnesses of the joint layer in normal and tangential direction based on the modal analysis theory and we can identify the equivalent stiffness in two surface conditions of joint layer. By using the identified equivalent stiffnesses, we can calculate natural frequencies of higher order which are not used in the identified procedure and the calculated ones are fairly good well with the measured natural frequencies of higher order. In two surface conditions of the joint layer, the normal stiffness and the tangential stiffness increase as the clamping torque of each bolt increases. On the other hands, in all condition of clamping torque, the normal stiffness and the tangential stiffness increase as the roughness of surface decreases. Moreover, the ratio of the tangential stiffness to the normal stiffness decreases as the surface of roughness decreases.

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This paper describes the simultaneous separation and transportation of works with various coefficients of friction by using elliptical vibration. In transportation by elliptical vibration, works move right or left, or stop, depending on the phase difference between horizontal and vertical vibration. As transportation characteristics are changed by the coefficients of friction, works with various coefficients of friction can be simultaneously separated and transported by adequately controlling the phase difference. Experimental results show that the works of same shapes and sizes can be separated according to the material of those, and plain washers and electronic parts also can be separated according to the different shape of face and reverse side. We also examined optimal driving condition for separation. Speed of separation and transportation was fastest on condition that vertical amplitude was the jump limit. The dispersions of transportation characteristics were reduced on condition that horizontal amplitude was large.

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This paper considers the swing-up control problem of a 2-link underactuated manipulator called the Pendubot. For the system, a large number of useful methods have been obtained, but they cannot be applied to the system with friction around the links due to the existence of singular points. In this paper, we extend the energy-based control method of the Pendubot, taking in account the effect of friction around the actuated link. Applying the proposed control method, we can obtain a sufficient condition for vanishing of the singular points. In addition, the convergence to the swing-up position is guaranteed by using the proposed Lyapunov function and the LaSalle's invariance principle. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by numerical simulations.

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In this paper, we consider tracking control problems in the presence of actuator saturation. We first snow a control law that internally stabilizes the closed-loop system and the tracking error converges to zero in the case where a reference signal is generated by a certain dynamics. The control law is based on the recently developed state dependent gain-scheduling algorithm and makes it possible to achieve large region of attraction and fast convergence of tracking error. Then. based on this result, we propose a control algorithm in the case where the reference signal is an arbitrary time-varying signal. In this case, it is difficult to guarantee strict asymptotic convergence of the tracking error. Hence, we show a control algorithm that makes the tracking error as small as possible at each time and guarantees asymptotic convergence in the case where the reference signal becomes constant after a finite time.

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A robust measurement method for vertex position of a small polyhedron using 3D image procession is proposed. Shape from focus method is applied for getting 3D positions on surfaces of the polyhedron. Averaging of in-focus function is usually applied for reducing noises, but it lacks sharp edge information of the target. The position of the vertex is indirectory calculated from the 3 D data using geometrical model of the polyhedron. In this paper, relations between measurement noise and appropriate number of data for averaging of focal measurement, and area of data for fitting of the Gaussian function were investigated. Then, Error propagation analysis is applied to the equations of the indirect measurement of the vertex position. By using the geometrical characteristic of the polyhedron, measurement of the vertex position became robust against the measurement errors. Effectiveness of the proposed method was confirmed by numerical simulation and experimental result for measurement of a vertex of a small polyhedron.

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For photolithography in semiconductor manufacturing, the precise temperature control of a wafer has been demanded to realize a more fine device and high yield in recent years. However, it is difficult to achieve the precise temperature control by current hot and cooling plates, because those plates cannot measure wafer temperature during actual processing, which will cause thermal budget error because of the warp of each wafer and the temperature change of those chambers. For that reason, we propose an in-situ measurement and control method of wafer temperature based on micro area contact to a processing wafer using some micro sensors. The micro sensor consists of the resistance temperature detector (RTD) of a platinum membrane type, a thermal insulation substrate with air cavity, and a micro-bellows. In this paper, the large model of the micro sensor was prototyped for an experimental study. Experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, in-situ measurement accuracy 0.1 degrees centigrade, and 25% reduction of settling time by in-situ feedback control.

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In this paper, a new lane keeping control scheme for combination vehicles using trailer wheel steering, front and rear wheel steering of tractor is proposed. At first, an estimator for unknown curvatures of target lanes is proposed. Then, using the estimate of curvatures, a method to estimate ideal combination angle is proposed. Using the estimate of road curvature and ideal combination angle, exact lane keeping can be achieved in steady state. Next, a method to design ideal transient responses for relative lateral distance, relative yaw angle and relative combination angle is proposed.Then, an adaptive steering controller to achieve ideal responses is developed. The proposed controller doesn't require any accurate knowledge of vehicle parameters, and can achieve good lane keeping performance with setting only one design parameter.

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Electronic Control Units (ECU) have been widely used in modern automobiles. Since ECU was developed to pass the severe emission control at first, many functions of automobile have been realized by ECU. Recently, new type of automobile, i.e. Hybrid or Fuel Cell which requires new ECU technology, has lately attracted considerable attention. In this paper, the history of automobile control is described from the viewpoint of “automobile control architecture”. It is clarified from the investigation of the history that two types of architecture innovations exist. One is the radical innovation, and another is the incremental innovation.

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An investigation quantifying the fluctuation of finger pulse and detecting the situation that driver's mental workload is extremely high was carried out in a driving simulator. The Lyapnov exponent, which is one of the state variables quantifying the fluctuation of finger pulse, was evaluated in terms of the accuracy to detect the hazardous driving situation. The Lyapnov exponent will fluctuate according to the measuring condition or physical condition of driver. But, the normalized Lyapnov exponent, meaning the ratio of the Lyapnov exponent relative to that during the ordinary driving situation, fluctuate in the same range between 120 [%] and 180 [%], when the driver's mental workload is high. The threshold of the normalized Lyapnov exponent dividing the hazardous situation with ordinary driving situation is approximately 120 [%]. It is possible to estimate that the driver is facing the hazardous driving situation if the normalized Lyapnov exponent of the driver's finger pulse is higher than 120 [%].

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This paper aims to analyze fundamental dynamic characteristics of tilting railway vehicle using variable link mechanism for compensating both lateral acceleration that passengers feel and wheel load imbalance between inner and outer rails. Theoretical analysis is conducted to find “Perfect Tilting Condition” that is a geometric parameter set of link mechanism that can provide both zero lateral acceleration and zero wheel load imbalance simultaneously. This perfect tilting condition can be realized by changing the variable length of link mechanism so that this tilting control system is a kind of semi-active control. To change the length of link mechanism on curved section, feedforward + feedback optimal control theory is applied to the vehicle body tilting system with a developed variable link mechanism presented in 1st report. From computer simulation and experiment using a scale model, it is clarified that the proposed tilting control is effective to suppress both over-centrifugal acceleration and wheel load imbalance.

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This paper presents a practical control methodology of vibration testing system to evaluate acceleration responses for building/mechanical structures. The reaction force generated by a specimen generally deteriorates motion performance of the system, resulting in the lower control accuracy of vibration tests. In order to provide the precise motion, therefore, a 2-degrees-of-freedom control structure is adopted, where both the reaction force generated by the specimen and the tracking performance can be compensated. The feedback compensator is designed to shape the characteristic of disturbance suppression, and the feedforward compensator based on the coprime factorization expression is designed to improve the servo characteristic. The proposed compensation algorithm has been verified by experiments using a prototype of shaking table system.

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This paper presents an adaptive control methodology of a vibration testing system for earthquake simulators. In the system, reaction forces generated by a specimen deteriorate the motion performance, resulting in the lower control accuracy in seismic test. Especially, in cases of excitation tests for structures (power facilities, large vehicles, etc.) including motors, the reaction force as a disturbance is excited with a specific frequency during their actual operations. In addition, the variation of the rotational frequency in the motor cause the variation of frequency in the disturbance. In order to compensate for the disturbance, therefore, an adaptive feedback compensator is designed to improve the disturbance suppression capability, by applying an adaptive notch filter to identify the frequency in real time manner. The proposed control approach has been verified by experiments using a prototype of shaking table system.

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A cerebral thrombus or blood clot might cause cerebral stroke and even decease if the clot could not be dissolved within several hours after it was formed. This paper presents a fundamental study on the development of a new type of mechanical micro stirrer for assisting the dissolution of the thrombus with a few amount of thrombolytic agent. The micro stirrer is made of a slight beam embedded with a piezocell. To evaluate the dissolution state in vivo, the method using the piezo-stirrer as the probe to evaluate its solubility is proposed. An efficient excitation method for stirring up the thrombus to get a quick dissolution was investigated. The potential of the piezo-stirrer has been validated experimentally.

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We examine a relationship between tendon arrangement of a tendon driven system using pneumatic balloon and the output. There are two kinds of tendon driven systems are offered for this study. These systems have differential tendon arrangement. One of the system is generated high power, and other system is generated long displacement. The model of fall block can show these desired output characteristics. Displacement and force which are generated by these tendon driven systems are experimentally confirmed. Moreover, outputs of these tendon driven systems are compared, and the validity of the model of fall block is evaluated.

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This paper proposes a new mass measurement method in microgravity environment. System consists of a prismatic variable stiffness mechanism, and an actuator. An object is attached at the tip of the prismatic variable stiffness mechanism that can adjust the stiffness to the external force that acts on the rectilinear. The actuator oscillates the mechanism with a desired period, and the stiffness of the mechanism is controlled to satisfy the anti-resonance mode. The mass of the object is measured with the desired period of the oscillation and the stiffness in the anti-resonance mode. This method does not require any geometric parameters of the object so that mass can be measured without depending on its shape. Some experiments are executed to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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A Magnetic Bearing Wheel (MBW) with inclined magnetic poles has been developed. This paper deals with dynamics interaction between a satellite and the MBW. In the MBW-satellite system, the MBW rotor is coupled with the satellite by magnetic bearing forces and torques and there is some possibility that the magnetic bearing controller makes the satellite nutation unstable. In this paper, equations of motion of the MBW-satellite system are formulated by Kane's method and based on the stability analysis of this system, it is shown that both cross feedback control of rotor gimbal angle and integrator in the ordinary magnetic bearing controller are instability factors of the satellite nutation. However, this nutation is stabilized with cross feedback control of the satellite angular rate estimated by a minimal order observer from the magnetic bearing control torques. The effects of the disturbance feedback controller in our 3rd report on the system stability are also considered, and the results show that the system stability is not affected by the disturbance feedback controller.

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This paper discusses a dynamic manipulation of an object on a plate attached at the tip of manipulator, where the basic concept is inspired by a handling mechanism of pizza master. Both the position and the orientation of object are dynamically controlled by the plate. The main driving force for manipulating the object is produced by the combination of inertial and frictional forces generated by one rotational and one translational motion of the plate. We first discuss how to make motions of object for three degrees of freedom on the plate. We then show that it is guaranteed to achieve an arbitrary set of desired position and orientation of object by the proposed manipulation scheme. Finally, we show a couple of experiments for confirming the basic idea by using a high-speed manipulator with an assistance of vision.

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The control of joint stiffness of a robot is extremely important to guarantee safe and dexterous motion, especially for the collaborative operation between a human and a robot. Some devices to vary the joint stiffness have been proposed for a tendon-manipulator so far. However, the previous devices have problems such as a complex structure, increase of friction, increase of inertia and so on. In order to overcome these problems, we proposed a belt-formed pulley to vary the joint stiffness. Inserting the belt-formed pulleys into routes of wires, the joint stiffness of a tendon-driven robot can be varied depending on internal force among wires. The system using belt-formed pulleys has many advantages such as a simple structure, low friction, lightness in weight and low cost. However, little is known about kinematic issues of the tendon-manipulator using belt-formed pulleys. In this paper, we propose a numerical solving method of forward kinematics (to obtain joint angles from wire length) using approximate models of a belt-formed pulley. First, we propose three approximate models of a belt-formed pulley, and investigate usefulness of each model. Secondly, we present the numerical solving method of forward kinematics for a 1-DOF manipulator. Lastly, the usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated through experimental result.

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In long jump, it is possible to estimate a distance between takeoff and landing by assuming that the center of mass of a long jumper in aerial phase moves along a trajectory of projectile. Based on the assumption, we obtain an approximate trajectory of the jumper as a perturbed solution of flat aerial path, in which the effect of air drag is included as the linear form. Also, a maximization problem is formulated from the trajectory and the optimum angle of takeoff is theoretically derived. Then, we introduce two parameters, the horizontal velocity of the center of mass and the takeoff velocity into the present model of takeoff. In particular, the solution of the optimum angle includes the effect of vertical displacement at landing which affects significantly a distance of the aerial phase. The distance of the aerial phase and the takeoff angle are estimated in several cases of measured data. The results of the estimation show the effectiveness of the present solutions.

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Arteriosclerosis is such a phenomena hardening of arteries, with thickening and loss of elasticity. Previous indexes are included both geometric factor and mechanical factor as the radius, the wall thickness and mechanical properties of blood vessel. Furthermore, those indexes are formulated based on the static relationship between a pressure and a radial change. In this study, we suggested an evaluation index formulated by thin cylindrical shell theory estimated dynamic strain, and this index was independent of wall thickness and radius of arterial vessel. To confirm the validity of the evaluation index, we evaluated the parameters of viscosity and elasticity using the latex tube with different wall thickness of blood vessel model. We measured a radius of the latex tube and an inner pressure maintained a pulsatile pump in a mock circuit filled with the water. Estimating the parameters of viscosity and elasticity using these measurement values, we concluded that a proposal index was independent of the wall thickness and the radius of the arterial vessel.

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An individual evaluation of mechanical characteristics of a bone provides useful information for diagnoses and treatments of each patient. This paper proposes an estimation method of the masticatory forces using an objective function composed of three criteria : efficiency of muscular activities, moment balance between muscular and biting forces, and reaction forces at condyles. The method is firstly applied to a patient whose jaw has a severe deformity. After examination of effects of the criteria, patient-specific stress analyses are performed using the estimated muscular forces. The analytical result shows no stress concentration and little difference in stress distribution on both left and right sides in spite of the asymmetrical mandibular shape and masticatory condition. Then, the method is applied to another two patients with different mandibular morphologies. The estimated forces of the two patients well agree to the empirical knowledge of the relationship between mandibular shape and muscular forces.

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We conducted one experiment for evaluating usability of touch panel by use of arm manipulability. Ten healthy male subjects participated in the experiment. They were asked to operate on touch panel in the following conditions : four operational directions (vertical, horizontal and obliquely directions), three screen tilt angles (0, 45 and 90 degrees), and three directions of the touch panel (left 45 degrees from front, front and right 45 degrees from front). Each work time was ten seconds. As evaluation index, we used switch operational frequency, subjective operational efficiency and total moment value of the arms to compare results of arm manipulability. The results showed that good operational direction of arm manipulability accorded with those of subjective operational frequency and operational efficiency. From this study, it was found that we are capable of applying to use arm manipulability as one of touch panel evaluation index.

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Recent years, there are researches to operate vehicles by the voice instruction. It is important for these researches to recognize a peripheral environment. There are internal sensor and external sensor used to recognize a peripheral environment. Internal sensor is often used together with external sensor because the error with driving system is caused. Imaging sensor can especially measure the plane compared with other external sensors, the research combined with internal sensor is abundant. The delay is caused because it takes the processing time when imaging sensor is used. In this research, imaging sensor is installed on the vehicle, so the system is visual feedback control. State-space database is used to control the vehicle in this study. The vehicle can run on the straight corridor without the patterns like joint of the building. The vehicle cannot distinguish the patterns like joint of building on straight corridor and wall because same kind of feature appears to the objects. As result, the vehicle can be controlled regardless of the patterns like joint of the building on straight corridor. The state quantity of state-space database that solves this problem is found.

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We demonstrate visualization of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in water with fluorescent microscopy by using fluorescent dye background conditions that display a reversal contrast.We could observe CNTs under a constant excitation light for more than ten minutes. We have developed novel chip system to supply fluorescence dye with appropriate concentration. The salt reaching method has been applied to PDMS (poly-dimethyl siloxane) in order to obtain porous structures. We have found that this porous structure provides homogeneous concentration of fluorescence dye by putting it in water and found out porous-PDMS support with larger porous gives a higher and steady concentration. The fine control of the concentration of the fluorescence dye in the microchannel has been achieved with a controlled speed of flow and mixture by means of a micro magnetic stirrer. Dielectrophoretic force was used for CNTs deposition onto electrodes that consist of transparent conductive film. It was confirmed that the proposed microfluidic system controls the concentration of fluorescent dye for a long term observation in water and is useful to apply CNTs to several biological application fields.

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Aerodynamic journal bearings have been successfully applied to high speed laser scanner motors. In these devices, herringbone grooved aerodynamic bearings have been usually used due to their high stiffness and excellent stability at high speeds. However, there is a disadvantage that it is slightly difficult to make herringbone grooves on the shaft surface, which raises manufacturing cost. In this paper, a newly designed three herringbone-groove aerodynamic journal bearing is proposed which is much easier to make than conventional herringbone groove bearings. The static and dynamic characteristics of the proposed bearing are investigated theoretically and experimentally. It was found that the proposed bearing has sufficient stiffness and stability at high speeds for a laser scanner motor.

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Recently, electronic equipments are rapidly widespread. They have been miniaturizing and become multifunctional equipments by the development of IT. Therefore, drilling smaller diameter through holes is needed to manufacture the high density printed wiring boards. On the other hand, a new drilling technology has been attracted attention to use the super-high-speed spindle and the micro diameter drills (less than 0.2mm). In these drilling conditions, B-RING damage extends more than internal damage around the drilled holes. Then, we investigated the best processing condition of the control of B-RING, considering productivity. Following conclusions were obtained. (1) The temperature of drill tool is raised by decreasing the heat capacity of the drill. B-RING damage around the drilled hole is especially generated under drilling conditions using the super-high speed spindle and the micro diameter drill. (2) B-RING is mainly caused by the heat conducts to the whole wall of the PWB. (3) To raise the R point height is effective method to prevent the B-RING. (4) We confirm to obtain the best drilling condition by considering B-RING and productivity.

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In order to shorten production lead-time, it is needed to eliminate time and efforts for process planning after product design. However, as far as a conventional NC machine tool is utilized, a reliable NC part program has to be prepared to achieve high cutting productivity and accuracy. It is a time consumed operation according to the fact that all cutting parameters are predetermined and coded as NC programs before the cutting operation to maintain the stable cutting operation and to avoid the cutting trouble for the whole cutting operation. The digital copy milling system which generates tool paths in real time has been developed to solve the problem mentioned above. In this study, a commercial process planning software is customized to integrate with the digital copy milling system for realizing an autonomous NC machine tool. The cutting operation performed by the digital copy milling system integrated with the commercial process planning software is compared to a conventional cutting operation performed by manual process planning using CAM software. The direct machining operation, which does not require any effort to prepare an NC part program, is performed successfully using a conventional NC machine tool associated with the digital copy milling system.

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Toolpath generation and optimization are considered to be challenging problems in minimally invasive orthopedic surgery with a milling robot. The objective of this study is to minimize the collision of cutting tool with soft tissue, and a novel approach of toolpath generation and optimization is proposed. A redundant axis is implemented to avoid collision with the robot. Some important components are modeled based on the physical requirements, and a geometric optimization approach based on the model is proposed to improve the toolpath. Case studies show the validity of this approach. Software is developed for the application and the effectiveness is evaluated with a cadaveric bone.

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In this paper, we propose a novel method to product biological models using polyurethane elastomer, which has high photoelastic coefficient and a method to analyze stress states on the model by photoelastic method. With this method, stress condition on vascular wall represented by two principal stresses is clearly visualized on vascular fringe as rainbow-colored photoelastic stress pattern, and the quantitative stress is analyzed from that pattern. For analysis of stress states by photoelastic method, retardation and path length of penetration light through the model must be observed. Proposed method is possible to observe these two parameters simultaneously. Retardation is decided from RGB value of rainbow-colored photoelastic stress pattern and path length is decided from permeability of light. The accuracy of stress analysis is evaluated by tensile test using artery-like cylindrical model. Lastly using the model produced by new method, we analyze stress states quantitatively on the model of cerebral artery. Consequently, it should be valuable for various applications not only surgical simulations but also hemodynamic studies and pathological studies.

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In a bag-packing problem, several products are picked out so that the sum weight should be closest to a given target weight. The main purpose is to reduce such cases as much as possible where the sum weight is far from the target one. Therefore, in this paper, the number of products in each scale hopper are varied and the optimal number is determined. As a result, the following case is found to be optimal; at first single item is held in each hopper and if there is no solution then single item is added to one hopper. Even if a simulation condition is changed, the general policy is proposed that each hopper holds the optimal number of products by tuning input amount.

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The lay-up optimization problem of laminated composite structures is solved by using a general-purpose finite element method software ANSYS to confirm the availability of the layerwise optimization (LO) method. In the LO method that the authors proposed, all layers are assumed first to have zero stiffness but mass and then one dimensional search is applied in each layer starting from the outermost layer to the innermost layer sequentially. After the first cycle solution is found for all the layers, the process is repeated with keeping the angles found in the previous process till the lay-up design is converged. The results showed that the LO method using the ANSYS as a tool for calculating the object function gave valid solutions, when they were compared with those from other methods, for both plate and more complex three-dimensional structure.

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