In the drastically changing business environments and high-paced evolution of information technologies, requirements for production become more complex and diversified around the world. Flexibility evaluation methods using life-cycle cost analysis have been developed for typical production volume fluctuations. In this paper, as a next step, the more general evaluation method is demonstrated taking a hint from the frequency characteristics of control systems; by using dynamic programming techniques the flexibility parameters are adjusted to quantitative fluctuation in order to maintain the efficiency in production system. The effect of the method is verified from the application in the production systems developed at DENSO CORPORATION.

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Under the volatile economic situation in recent years, manufacturers need to have a high level of flexibility to manage a wide variety of products in varying quantities within a short delivery lead time. But in dynamically changing manufacturing environment, it is quite difficult to optimize interdivisional scheduling which reduces total manufacturing cost of all divisions such as raw material procurement, machining, assembling and shipping following fluctuations in demand. To solve this problem, we propose a new interdivisional scheduling method which decomposes the whole problem into process-dependent problems using inter-process lead time and cooperates between processes by applying Lagrangian decomposition coordination method. Additionally we designed the method which can adjust inter-process lead time automatically in order to respond to the changing demand of each item. Then we examine the effectiveness of this method by numerical experiments.

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Recent semiconductor manufacturing feature is high-product-mix and small-lot-size production, and the productivity becomes much worse owing to the short life cycle of production goods and the frequent change in the specification and demand within a short time period. Therefore, a solution method to optimize the efficiency, cost, and TAT (Turn Around Time) in a comprehensive way is indispensable. In this paper we applied the Lagrangian Decomposition and Coordination Method, which is the well-known cooperative scheduling methods, into an abstracted model of the actual Semiconductor production line, which has a feature of a re-entrant flow model, and studied the characteristic concerning the utilization of the model.

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This research proposes a new model representing multi-layered dynamic supply chains and a new negotiation process among components. The proposed model consists of three components named clients, manufacturers, and suppliers. The manufacturers generate and send both the orders of the parts to the suppliers and the offers of the products to the clients. The manufacturers continue to modify their production schedules after sending their orders of the parts to the suppliers, in order to improve their schedules to manufacture the ordered products. Therefore, the manufacturers are able to satisfy the requirements on the delivery time of the ordered products, even if the possible delivery time from suppliers does not satisfy the required delivery time from the manufacturers. The effectiveness of the proposed model and negotiation processes is verified through some computational experiments from the viewpoint of profits.

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This paper discusses the vehicle routing problem with time windows and stochastic demands. All customers have the penalty functions of the time to arrive at them, respectively (the penalty for time windows). The customers' demands are characterized by a known probability distribution and a customer's actual demand is only revealed when the vehicle reaches the customer location. When the total demands of customers on a route exceed the capacity of the vehicle, extra path to depot for replenishment must occur. This problem can be described as the problem of designing least travel cost routes from one depot to a set of customers. We express the travel cost by the sum of the planned distance, the expected distance of extra path to the depot and the expected penalty for time windows. The planned distance and the expected distance of extra path to the depot can be obtained immediately when a route is given. However the expected penalty for time windows cannot be obtained even if a route is given. Because we must determine the time to arrive at each customer in order to obtain the expected penalty for time windows, that is, we must consider the problem of determining the time to arrive at each customer in a given route so that the expected penalty for time windows is minimized. Therefore we propose the method for solving the problem of determining the time to arrive at each customer. Then we formulate the vehicle routing problem as a set covering problem and we propose the solution method using column generation approach.

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Considering the environmental load of material and energy consumption, many approaches to product design and manufacturing have been discussed from an ecological viewpoint. In this paper, we propose the architecture that promotes module level reuse in order to reduce the environmental load in product manufacturing and use. The system architecture stands on an agent-based sensor network and a modular reusable desige. In this paper, an information system called eco-agent systems to promote reuse and recycling processes of product modules is proposed. This system uses a sensor system for diagnosing each product module and managing reuse plan. Since the system can always grasp conditions of modules, it can start reuse planning while users use the products and reduces the lead time to remanufacturing. As a simple realization model of the proposed architecture, a system for a motor-assisted bicycle is developed by using wireless small sensor network and network agent systems. The system monitors product conditions and searches the next owner of each module for promoting reuse and avoiding product waste as much as possible. Case studies show some practical use and merits of this architecture.

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In this report, an interoperable collaboration using standardized technologies for manufacturing systems is proposed. Today, many software products such as BOM, production schedulers, MES and controllers are available in the market. Integrating these products into a whole manufacturing system is difficult and expensive because of differences between architectures adopted. IEC 62264-1 had been published as a referencing architecture for a guideline of integration of manufacturing systems. The collaboration protocol between products or packages based on the IEC 62264-1 has been proposed from MESX joint project. The MESX protocol provides integration method using XML technologies. A demonstration system using the protocol had been developed by MESX joint project. We propose the knowledge representation of MESX, and describe collaboration between products of level 3 and 4 of IEC 62264-1 in the demonstration system.

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In this paper, we propose and implement a 3D measurement system by using defocus images obtained from a single camera. Depth from Defocus (DFD) is one of methods to estimate depth information from a pair of two defocus images. In former researches, target object to be measured must be inside between the two images. We propose an algorithm to overcome the limitation, and have implemented the system by a high-speed camera and telecentric lens. We verified the efficiency of the proposed system by some experiments.

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Air arc plasma cutting, which does not requires special orifice gas, is applicable to a wide range of small-to-medium-sized manufacturing industries because it is simple and economical. However, one of its limitations is that angular precision of the bevel produced by this method is inferior to other cutting methods, thereby preventing its widespread use by industries that require high cutting precision. The author investigated the specifications of a general-purpose arc plasma cutting machine of the swirling-flow type currently available in Japan, focusing on the plasma the parameters that can provide higher quality cutting and match the performance of oxygen arc plasma cutting. The investigation was performed under operating conditions that differ from those recommended by the manufacturer.

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In recent years, the demand for five-axis control machining centers is getting higher and higher to achieve process integration and high accuracy. On the other hand, it is generally difficult for five-axis control machining centers to realize the same motion accuracy as or higher motion accuracy than three-axis control ones due to the increase in two rotary feed axes in addition to three linear feed axes. Various five-axis control machining centers with suitable constructions have been developed for their effective purposes. At that time, it has been considered that Trunnion type five-axis control machining centers can realize the high motion accuracy relatively easily, based on actual evaluation data and experience. To make sure this fact, a five-axis control machining center which has Table-on-Table type construction, different from Trunnion type, was planned in terms of good operability. Its motion accuracy was measured and compared with the Trunnion type one by use of DBB 5 method. As a result, it is confirmed that Table-on-Table type five-axis control machining center has higher motion accuracy than Trunnion type one as well as good operability.

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Optimally designed surgical drills are necessary to avoid thermal damage to osseous tissues and to ensure rapid and accurate drilling during bone fracture surgery. Bony necrosis is believed to occur at temperatures of 50℃ or more and is strongly related to the length of exposure to high temperatures. A drill with a low thrust force that suppresses heat generation is thus necessary to avoid bone necrosis. This study quantitatively examined the effects of surgical drill geometry on heat generation and thrust force using experimental design, analysis of variances and statistical technique. The helix angle, web thickness, and point angle of the fundamental drill elements were evaluated to determine the optimal drill geometry at various cutting and feed speeds. Thrust force and drilling temperature were measured while drilling porcine femoral bone to examine the influence of drill geometry on these factors. A 40° helix angle, 23% web thickness, and 90° point angle were found to be the optimal choices for suppressing heat generation.

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A new framework of identifying the crack position in a structural member in terms of numerical simulation is presented. In this methodology, the extended finite element method (XFEM) is used to analyze the vibration problem of the structure which has a straight crack on its surface. To identify the position of a crack, the gradient of a evaluation function is used, and that function is calculated by using the eigen frequencies of the structural members both with real crack position and with estimated crack position. In the numerical examples, two dimensional cantilever beam members are used, and the identification of crack position has conducted. In some cases the evaluation function has several residual points, or has very flat distribution around the real crack tip. To identify the crack position certainly, setting up several starting points becomes reasonable approach.

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Quasi-Modal technique is used for rotor-blade coupled torsional vibration analysis, because of its unique characteristics to provide a visual reduced model. In this paper we propose the hybrid method to calculate rotor-blade coupled torsional vibration of the model rotor of two disks with continuously coupled blades using FEM based quasi-modal parameters of blade-disk system. The result of hybrid method is compared with the full FEM analysis of the model rotor. The hybrid method shows the good accord with the full FEM analysis. This hybrid method has the advantage for faster design calculation repetition. The rotation test of model rotor is executed and measured results are compared with the calculated results to show the good accordance. The calibration procedure of modal parameters based on the measured blade-disk frequencies is also presented in order to show that the quasi-modal modeling is practicable method to feed back test results to analytical model for better accuracy.

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The magnetic gradient levitation is also called as a mixed-μ levitation and composed of at least three materials with different magnetic permeability, namely iron, air and superconductor. This levitation method enables to levitate the iron rotor keeping no contact with any parts. Utilization to flywheel is expected considering of the reduction of rotational loss and cost-down of rotor. We constructed the levitation experimental device which arranged the circular superconducting coils, the cylindrical magnetic shielding plate made of NbTi superconductor, and the cylindrical iron rotor farther inside in series. We tried the rotational tests of the iron rotor. As a result, the non-contact levitation keeping rotation was realized, but the unstable whirling phenomena appeared at the high rotational speed over 2100min^<-1>. We analyzed this behavior by the aid of finite element magnetic analysis and revealed the mechanism of this instability.

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Transfer Path Analysis (TPA) is a useful tool for the reduction of automotive noise and vibration. TPA offers the information about the contribution of the transfer paths and analysts would take effective measures with this information. However it could not seem easy to apply to the automotive body structure itself. One of the reasons is complexity of the vibration transmission in the body structure that is assembled by many members and that should be analyzed by manifold vibration transfer paths. This means there are a lot of transmitted forces an transfer functions defined in the assembled structure. This paper presents two proposals in TPA using finite element model: 1) technique in contribution analysis to the structure with manifold and continuous transfer paths, 2) visualization technique of the influence degree for the reduction of the response of the structure. In the contribution analysis, the transmitted force at every node is accurately calculated with the proposed element force calculation, and the element plays a part of a transfer path. The influence degree is newly defined by the result of the contribution analysis and assists analysts to obtain measures more efficiently. These two techniques let the analysts easy to understand the vibration transfer characteristics by the visualization. The application to an automotive body structure validates the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed approach.

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A multi-axis force/moment sensor, which can measure force and moment, is useful for robotic force control. However, the smallest multi-axis force/moment sensor has excess height, which restricts postures in tasks by a robot hand. In this paper, we aim to develop the thin-type four-axis force/moment sensor that can measure the twisting moment on the finger cushion of a robot hand and improve performance of this sensor by structural optimization, including strain gauge. As a result of applying structural optimization techniques using response surface method and desirability function on the four-axis force/moment sensor by finite element analysis, we obtained optimum design variables and validated the effectiveness of the proposed techniques. Finally, we made the production model of this sensor and performed characteristics test by applying optimum design variables. We obtained sufficient sensitivities concerning each axial load component by sensitivity evaluation of experimental results and showed the effectiveness of the developed sensor.

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In order to utilize the vibration intensity (VI or structure intensity), it is necessary to clarify characteristics and usability of VI under conditions close to practical situations. The superposition of standing wave and traveling wave often occurs in actual structures. In the vibration field with a standing wave and a traveling wave, it has been reported that a curved energy flow is detected by VI unlike the case without the standing wave. It has not been validated whether the energy flow detected by VI in the case with standing wave is equal to the real energy flow. VI detects the transmission component of vibration energy. However, the standing wave is non transmission component. The influence of the standing wave on VI is still unclear. In this study, a thin plate model with a standing wave and a traveling wave was employed, and we investigated the influence of superposition of these waves on VI using finite element method (FEM) analysis. The usability of VI under this condition was evaluated. Main findings are as follows: The extra terms appear in the VI formula when the superposition of multiple waves occurs. The difference between VI with standing wave and that without it is generated by these terms. VI approximately detects real energy flows when amplitude ratio of traveling wave to standing wave is greater than five.

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Vibration test is a method to verify the design of space hardware, which will endure the flight vibration environment. The problem of vibration test is over testing in comparison to the flight environment due to the mounting impedance differences in flight versus test. Force limited vibration test is the one of the popular approach to prevent the unnecessary over testing of space hardware. In this study, we propose a method to estimate the maximum interface force, which is the limit value of vibration test, of flight configuration based on the measurement FRF (Frequency Response Function) of the test hardware by simple experiment, such as impact hammer excitation. The theoretical background is described as well as discussion of experimental process, deviation sources depending on excitation location, are stated in this report.

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In this paper, we considered a new tensioning method by the temperature distribution on the base metal of tipped saw. First, the relationship of the temperature distribution on the base metal and the tensioning effect (i.e. transitions of natural frequency) was examined by calculation using a disk model. As the results, when the temperature Θ_c at inner circumference of the disk was higher than the temperature Θ_a at outer circumference, the natural frequency of the two or higher nodal diameters mode increased. And the increments of the natural frequencies were proportional to the temperature deference Θ_c-Θ_a. Furthermore, the tangential residual stress σ_θ at outer of disk had positive value denoted as tensile stress. These results coincided with the effects of the traditional tensioning method so called 'Roll Tensioning'. Then, the validity of the calculation results by experiment using disk was verified. The transition of the natural frequency by the experiments indicated similar tendency to the calculation results.

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Measurement of service strains of the blade of Wind-lens turbine was conducted by using wireless strain measurement system in a wind tunnel apparatus. Wind-lens turbine has demonsrated power augmentation by a factor about 2-5 compared with a bare wind turbine, for a given turbine diameter and wind speed. Mean strain and vibrational strain variation range at the root of the blade was increased with the increase of uniform flow velocity of the wind tunnel. The phenomenon of vibration of the blades of Wind-lens turbine was due to a flutter or flow-induced vibration, self-excited oscillation induced by vortices around the blades, in a certain range of flow velocity. The increase of strain variation range at the root of the blades in the case of intense variation of wind direction was caused by a gyro-moment due to a yawing movement of the Wind-lens turbine. The intense variation of wind velocity, in addition to that of wind direction, caused extreme large vibration amplitude, or strain variation.

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The objective of this study was to grasp the relationship between golf club conditions and the rebound of a ball, and to investigate the factor of the relationship using a finite element (FE) analysis on a ball colliding with a simplified club. The clubs were constructed by holding simplified clubheads in a locking ring fitted onto a steel shaft. The clubheads were designed with reference to the mass, volume and position of centre of gravity of commercially available clubheads. FE models with linear elasticity of the clubs were constructed. The FE model of the ball consisted of 8-node solid elements, and the material model was expressed as a hyperelastic/viscoelastic model. Impact experiments were also conducted for comparison to confirm the accuracy of the FE models. The results of impact simulations closely matched the experimental results. The ball rebound was analysed using the constructed models by varying Young's modulus of the shaft and an added mass attached to the shaft. The effect for the rebound velocity tended to be small, and the rebound angle and spin rate were affected by the impact force of direction parallel to the axis of shaft which depended upon Young's modulus and the weight and position of the added mass.

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In the field of ultra precise positioning, such as semiconductor lithograph machine, an active isolation system is generally installed. In a present lithograph manufacturing machine, the scanning type is a main current, furthermore the main structure supported projection lens is separated from wafer stage which can be freely moved in the stage stroke, and the stage is supported by independent isolation system on the base. When wafer stage move, its reaction force is caught by mechanical supported structure (reaction frame) to avoid exciting the surface plate of the wafer stage. At this time, reaction frame is vibrating due to its natural frequency, and this remaining vibration transfer to surface plate directly or through floor. Still more the accuracy of the machine get worse. In this paper, when wafer stage moved and its reaction force excite the reaction frame, it is introduced that the improvement of vibration reduction method by using active mass damper. Eventually it is able to improve the enough performance for vibration disturbance.

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Acceleration signal from an accelerometer is widely used in the field of vibration control. Since it is preferable that velocity and displacement signals can be additionally applied to the control system, an absolute displacement sensor, which can simultaneously detect the 3 kinds of signals from its stable control loops, has been proposed. In this paper, two of the absolute displacement sensors expanded their bandwidth are firstly applied to the air type anti-vibration apparatus with two degrees-of-freedom, because the bandwidth in their phase characteristics was deficient to control the apparatus. Next, Phase-lag filters and differentiators for displacement signals are utilized to the proposed sensor. Finally, the control effects are compared with the case of feedback to VCM and it to air spring. Then, the acceleration, velocity, and displacement feedback called DAVDFB are applied to multi-degrees-of-freedom system.

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This paper describes an experimental study on self-excited vibration of a vibrating screen. In the vibrating screen excited by an unbalanced rotor, self-excited vibration occurs depending on operating condition. According to experimental results, the frequency of the self-excited vibration is almost the same as natural frequency of the vibrating screen. We investigate the motions of granular material and the effects of acceleration of vibration on outflow of granular material from the vibrating screen. Consequently, it clarified that downward force by mass of the granular material becomes large when a vibrating screen goes down and downward force by mass of them becomes small when the vibrating screen goes up.

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This paper describes dynamic responses of a human arm when impact forces are acted on it. In our previous paper, Fujii and Yamaguchi measured transient responses of the human arm using Levitation Mass Method (LMM), which was proposed by Fujii. In this experiment, a rigid block was levitated due to thin air film. The block could travel with low friction in only one direction. The block with an initial velocity collided with the human arm. The responses of the block were measured using the interferometer. They clarified the responses when the muscle of the arm was contracted and relaxed. In this paper, we carry out numerical analysis of the dynamic responses for the human arm under the same conditions with the experiment using LMM. The human arm is modeled using a nonlinear concentrated spring having nonlinear hysteresis. This nonlinear spring is connected to the levitated block, which is modeled by three-dimensional finite elements. The calculated results are verified by the experimental results.

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This paper describes about a proposal of an identification method of internal loss factors (ILF) for Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) by using FEM and Modal Strain Energy Method (MSE). It is known that modal damping of structure is influenced by the shape and connection of the structures. We proposed a new identification method of ILF using the FEM considered in damping coupling between SEA elements. We verified the identification method using the model consisted of two flat plates connected in L-type shape with viscoelastic damping layers. By SEA using the identified ILF, vibration level differences between the flat plates could be predicted practically.

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To improve the applicability of the side branch silencer, the acoustic characteristics of the side branch with finite impedance at the end were obtained by the experiment. As a result, the peak frequency of noise reduction (NR) was decided from the side branch length and the natural frequency of the end of side branch. Moreover, the experimental result was able to be caught by FEM analysis that considered the theoretical impedance of the circular membrane and the theoretical calculation by the transfer matrix method. In addition, it has been understood that the peak frequency of NR in this side branch corresponds to the natural frequency of a simple tube with one end open and the other end with impedance. Additionally, it has been understood that this is effective for the predictive calculation of the frequency at which NR is maximized.

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Numerical analysis technique for three dimensional sound fields including perforated plates, by boundary element method is proposed. This technique is useful to design sound absorption structure of perforated plate efficiently. To verify validity of the numerical analysis method, the sound field in the acoustic tube in which perforated plate was installed to be slanted was predicted, and the result was compared with experiment. The sound absorption coefficient and the sound pressure distribution on the perforated plate by this numerical analysis agreed with experiment result. In conclusion, the accuracy of the proposed method is high enough and the method is useful for designing sound absorption structure using perforated plate.

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In this paper, we introduce a new idea for high-speed and high-resolution three dimensional shape measurement based on light-section method by setting a multi-sided mirror between an image sensor and a measured object. Actually, we develop a prototype system for three dimensional measurement based on a high speed vision hardware, which can process a 1024×1024 pixels image simultaneously at 1000fps, and evaluate its effectiveness by showing experimental results for small solders on a printed circuit board.

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This paper deals with active noise control (ANC) using phased array loudspeakers as a control source, the attributes of which are sharp directivity and steering capability of the sound beam. Therefore, even when a targeted control point moves around in the sound field of interest, the phased array loudspeaker may track the target without mechanically rotating the face of the array loud-speakers, thereby achieving pinpoint control of noise without causing spillover phenomenon. The objective of the article is to enhance the steering capability of the sound beam: from two dimensional steering to three dimensional steering using a matrix phased array system presented. To verify the validity of the proposed method, a numerical analysis as well as an experiment is conducted.

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This paper proposes markerless human motion capture using a 3D articulated CG model of the human body. The method of estimating human body posture is based on 2D matching between human silhouettes extracted from camera images and model silhouettes projected onto the corresponding camera planes in virtual space. Candidates for human model silhouette are generated using a Monte Carlo filter-based algorithm, and the normalised core-weighted XOR distance is introduced to calculate the likelihood rate between silhouettes. Experimental results show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method for achieving markerless human motion capture.

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In this paper, we deal with a stereo matching problem. It is well known that finding the corresponding points in stereo image data is one of the major issues in the field of robot vision system. We propose a new algorithm for stereo matching using optimal control technique. Our contribution is proposing the virtual control model to process image information. By introduction of the virtual control model, image information is embedded into a performance index. Therefore, the stereo matching problem can be solved as an optimal control problem. Finally, we confirm effectiveness of our approach through some experimental results.

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Among the various types of human eye movements, one that is strongly related to degrees of concentration and wakefulness is the saccade, which is a type of high-speed eye movement. In order to measure the saccade, a contact method called EOG (electrooculogram) is generally used. In this study, a non-contact image measurement system for saccades has been successfully developed by measuring and analyzing facial images. By comparing the analysis results obtained from the EOG to those of the proposed method, it was found that our method could detect saccades by measuring the eye velocity of the subject and the correlation between the EOG and the eye velocity of the saccade was 0.94. Therefore, our method has a measurement precision that is approximately the same as that of the EOG.

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There are mainly two kinds of diseases in intermittent claudication. One is lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSS) and the other is peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Differentiating LSS and PAD is a critical issue. Wrong differentiation might cause patient death. At small clinics and hospitals, simple and cheap differentiation system is required. Concerning this, this paper investigates walking motions of the patients. The subject with LED markers walks on the treadmill until she or he feels pain. We measure the walking motion by camera and track the LED markers. Treadmill enables to measure walking motion for a long time in a small space, and LED marker provides precious position of every joint in the walking. Then, we can get the information such as joint angle trajectory, hemi-foot step, stance and swing phases without any other sensors like foot switch or force plate. We compare walking motions of healthy person, LSS patients and PAD patients, find their features and 3 factors for disease differentiation; average bending angle of knee joint at the start of stance phase, average dorsiflexion angle of ankle joint, and average hemi-foot step length. From the results, we also show that 2 dimensional images of walking motion for several seconds are enough for deriving the factors. Then, we can construct the simple examination system for the disease differentiation.

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Most of previous studies about joint kinematic analysis using X-ray image needed totally clear outline bones. However, to obtain the clear outline is not easy in clinical because X-ray image of knee often overlaps with bones. In this study, the method of kinetic analysis that uses the outline, which was not totally clear, was proposed. In order to achieve the aim, P type Fourier Descriptor that can be used in an open curve was applied. And, the library database was preliminary selected using feature vectors which were based on shape feature, initial point and terminal point of the outline. After an outline of the object was divided in three parts, template pattern matching was performed. In results, the standard deviation of errors of patella were θ_x=1.00±0.84 deg, θ_y=0.55±0.65 deg and θ_z=0.62±0.12 deg. As to femur, tibia and patella, a part of divided outlines influenced the accuracy of our proposal method. This result shows that, even if all outline of bone is not clear on X-ray image, 3D kinematic analysis can be carried out.

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Vehicle technology of the better interaction between human and machine has been called human-electronics in Japan. It is necessary to obtain the better relationship between human and vehicle. A driver's information, which can be obtained from steering operation, pedal operation, camera images and biological information, particularly is important to find a method to determine a driver's operational intention. In terms of using this biological information, one area of focus is on using brain activity. Recently, some of the research has been reported that investigate the brain activity of the driver. In the multiple electrode analysis of the electroencephalograph (EEG), the frequency-spatial domain and the time-spatial domain have been used. However, these conventional methods can only use two-dimensional data. As a multi-channel EEG analysis using multi dimensional data, parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) method is based on the report. In this paper, we described that the driver's EEG during lane change was decomposed by PARAFAC and we investigated the factor of recognize and judgment from that decomposition result. Consequently, Common to the all subjects has 2 factors which were in the 5-8Hz and 8-13Hz. Those factors considered that they were changed by the driver's mental state, during recognition for alpha wave and during judgment for theta wave.

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A tactile sensor is important for robotics and handling to measure applying forces and detect contact condition between grippers and objects. This paper presents the detection of sliding direction and incipient slipping with single piezoelectric vibration tactile sensors for hand-robotic-gripper. The piezoelectric vibration-type tactile sensors have a high sensitivity and a wide measurement range. The proposed tactile sensor is designed by embedding the piezoelectric vibration sensors in a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) basis for stable responses. The basic experiment of sliding detection and application for hand-gripper are demonstrated by the proposed tactile sensor between an aluminum plate and a sensor surface covered by soft-material to detect the sliding direction and the incipient slipping.

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In this paper, a sequential approximate multi-objective optimization procedure by the Radial Basis Function (RBF) network with the Satisficing Trade-Off Method (STOM) is proposed. The sampling strategy is an important issue in the sequential approximate optimization. In this paper, the density function and the pareto fitness function are proposed. The objective of the density function is to find the sparse region in the design variable space. New samplings point are obtained by optimizing the density function. The objective of the pareto fitness function is to find the approximate set of pareto optimal solutions from the given data. New sampling point is obtained by optimizing the pareto fitness function. Both functions are constructed by the RBF network. By using both functions, the approximate set of pareto optimal solutions can be found effectively even when the set of pareto optimal solutions are separeted. Through simple numerical examples, the validity of proposed sampling strategy is examined.

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It is known that the hand-arm vibration syndrome characterized by Raynaud's disease is caused by long-term use of hand-held vibrating tools. The purpose of this research is to newly develop vibrating tools utilizing self-synchronized phenomena in order to reduce the hand-arm vibration. In this paper, an elementary model having the generation mechanism of synchronous vibration suitable for a tamping rammer used to compact cohesive soils on the ground is contrived. This model consists of upper and lower blocks coupled by coil-springs, and two rotor-type oscillators are mounted individually on the lower blocks. The nonlinearity due to the impact behavior between the lower block and the ground is approximated by piecewise linear characteristics. The self-synchronized solutions and the stability are analyzed by applying the improved shooting method for impact vibration analysis. The analytical and experimental results confirm that the stable self-synchronized solutions which are able to achieve a good balance between vibration control and excitation exist. It is also proven that the existence region of the stable solutions can be expanded by setting the system parameters appropriately.

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This paper discusses a parameter estimation method of piezoelectric elements aiming at piezoelectric shunt damping. The proposed method only requires electrical impedance measurements. The introduced impedance model, which consists of multiple vibration modes, indicates that the capacitance varies depending on the choice of the target mode. Two kinds of frequency-domain estimation methods, linear and nonlinear least squares methods, are proposed. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method and the validity of the estimated parameters.

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In this paper, the estimation of an object's horizontal and vertical position while it is being levitated and conveyed by an active electromagnetic system is proposed. Position estimation is necessary to implement an anti-sway control on the object. An observer performs the estimation based on magnet current and voltage output from two Hall elements. The validity of the proposed method is confirmed by experiment with an actual conveyance system.

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This paper describes transporting characteristics of rubber roller feeding a sheet on plain plate for a wide range of velocity (0.5m/s-10m/s). At low velocity, sheet speed (=V_p) exceeds roller speed (=V_r), velocity ratio (=V_p/V_r) is over 1.0, and velocity ratio gradually falls down as roller speed increases. Roller width and rubber hardness degrees increase velocity ratio, and rubber thickness decreased velocity ratio. Also, the magnitude relation of the velocity ratio differed between roller types (united or divided) for urethane roller and polynorbornane roller. When load applied on roller was increased, velocity ratio fell down. The reason for this can be explained by recent researches and it was estimated that the frictional force between sheet and plain plate was large. The reason for the decrease of velocity ratio as the speed increase was discussed. The increase of the speed increases the vertical load and the increase of vertical load leads to decrease of velocity ratio. So, this could be one of the reasons for the decrease of velocity ratio with the speed increase.

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This paper proposes a control system for action support manipulators. A 6-degree-of-freedom manipulator is controlled with an impedance control. Impedance parameters are tuned by on-line learning with a force sensor. The learning rule is convenient and considers forgetfulness on handling. The proposed method is applied to a meal support manipulator as one application example. A weight between position control and force control is used to carry the hand to the mouth surely. Usefulness of this method is verified through experiments.

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Magnetic bearings have advantages such as no friction loss, no abrasion, lubrication free operation and so on. However it is not used widely due to its high cost and big size. In order to solve these problems, active magnetic bearing with a distributed winding was proposed. But sinusoidal variation of bearing force in angle variation of rotor is confirmed and its impacts on bearing loss. In this paper, causality of the bearing force characteristic variation is analyzed from two viewpoints of magnetic flux density and winding-accuracy changes. And aim at decreasing the sinusoidally-bearing force characteristic variation.

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For the spread of small fuel cells, it is important to improve the performance of peripheral devices including fuel supply pumps, and to lower a price of them. A miniature diaphragm pump can utilize as a fuel supply pump, however it has many problems. Therefore, we propose small regenerative pump using axial self-bearing motor. The unidirectional type Axial Self-Bearing Motor that has a function of producing motor torque and controlling axial position of the rotor enables miniaturization and reducing cost. In this paper, a structure of the pump and control system are introduced, and results of pump efficiency are shown.

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This paper presents a parallel jaw gripper with a force magnification mechanism that can exert a large grasping force of 200N in both the opening and closing directions. We have proposed a combination mechanism of a high-speed driving and force-magnification mechanisms, and developed multifingered hands. The force-magnification mechanisms can maintain a large grasping force wihtout energy consumption. Many parallel jaw grippers are used in factories and they should be energy-saving, which motivated us to develop a parallel jaw gripper with a force magnification mechanism. However, they must exert a grasping force in both the opening and closing directions, whereas the previous force magnification mechanisms can exert a large grasping force only in the closing direction. Therefore we propose a new bidirectional force magnification mechanism. The developed parallel jaw gripper weighs 2kg, and the motion range and speed of its jaws are 100mm and 66mm/s, respectively. The grasping procedure that can exert the maximum grasping force is also discussed. We apply the proposed procedure to the developed gripper and experimentally verify its performances.

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In this study an Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system is designed to not only improve capability of following a leading vehicle but also suppress fuel consumption. There is a trade-off relation between the following capability and fuel consumption because low acceleration drive may contribute suppression of fuel consumption. In order to suppress the sharp fluctuation of vehicle acceleration, Linear Quadratic Integral control is applied. By carrying out simulations, the control system performance is evaluated on fuel consumption, risk to the driver, ride comfort or effect to the following vehicles after the vehicle with ACC. It is demonstrated from the simulation results that the control system designed is effective for suppression of fuel consumption in comparison with a two-degree-of-freedom control system that has been already used.

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In recent year, it is reported that roll and lateral vehicle motions are affected by the road input. However, there are few researches about a suspension control method which takes into consideration with the suspension characteristic that is change of tire side-force caused by suspension stroke and tire side-force. In this paper, new active suspension control method is proposed to reduce the vehicle vibration and vehicle lateral motion due to the road input. Firstly, a vehicle model including the suspension characteristic is constructed. Next, the time delay of the road input from the front wheel to the rear wheel is modeled with Pade approximation. The robust control system design which sets the lateral acceleration of the vehicle to one of controlled outputs is proposed. Finally, in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method, the simulation is carried out by using the full vehicle model. From the result, it was confirmed that the proposed control system is effective for reducing the lateral behavior of the vehicle due to antiphase road disturbance better than control method without the suspension characteristic.

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