This paper describes a measurement method for surface profiles using shape from focus method by using the liquid crystal grating (LCG). The active controlled LCG is a key component in this method. The shape from focus method is used distance with variation by contrast. It is possible to measure contrast by using 4 steps phase shifting technique. A resolution of this method can be controlled by changing a spatial frequency of the liquid crystal grating. Surface profiles of some samples have been measured to show validity of this method. Moreover, it is possible to revision the liquid crystal grating for high accuracy.

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This paper describes a surface encoder for two-dimensional position measurement, which consist of a 2D sinusoidal grid (target grid) and a 2D slope sensor used to read the local slopes of the grid surface. The new type of 2D slope sensor employs a transparent sine-grid on a glass plate which is fabricated by UV replication with the same amplitude and wavelength as the target grid. Compared with conventional surface encoder, the improved sensor which has the transparent sine-grid has the advantage of high S/N ratio. The fabrication of the transparent sine-grid and some measurement results are presented.

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We propose phase-shifting speckle shearing interferometer to measure the strain distribution. In this method, using a TV camera and a computer to measure the distribution of the spatial differentiated data of the displacement. The distribution of the differentiated data is obtained without contact with the object. Moreover, the spatial differentiation to obtain the strain is achieved by using the diffraction gratings that placed at the image plane of the object and also by moving the grating by the amount of quarter of the grating pitch, the phase-shifting method is applied. Therefore, high accurate phase value can be obtained. The object surface is illuminated by laser beam from two symmetric directions. The results of the experiments that measure the strain distribution of a complicated form are presented. These results show that the strain distribution can be obtained with the accuracy about 9.0×10-6 strain by this method.

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We have proposed an application of amplitude-contrast computer generated Fresnel hologram. It can adjust to the position and tilt of setting objects. We designed a phase-contrast CGH and amplitude-contrast CGH for the alignment system. In case of the phase-contrast hologram with 10×10 mm2 square aperture. The resolution of distance and orientation were 0.1mm and 6 degree, respectively, for the position distance of 50 mm.

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We discussed on a computer-generated Fresnel hologram to be used for light patterning on a non-flat surface. Amplitude-contrast and phase-contrast type computer-generated Fresnel holograms were designed under the Fresnel diffraction regime. The designed CGH makes 100 images at different distances from the CGH plane. As the result of some simulation experiments using the designed computer-generated Fresnel hologram, some patterns were projected on a flat square plane surface whose side is 5 mm that has a bevel of 45 degrees to the horizontal plane and a hemispherical surface whose diameter is 5 mm. Moreover, the amplitude-contrast hologram has been fabricated and the diffraction image was observed.

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The high-precision ground motion measuring instrment has been developed, in order to measure the long term stabilization of the large size surface profile and electron beam position change due to nanometer level ground motion. Laser beam position monitor(BPM) can be extended for several meters in order to monitor movrment on the floor. The laser BPM can measure vertical movement and tilt angle at an instant. In this paper, laser BPM system and tentative results of the measuring resolution are described.

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Technical subjects in two fields: advanced image pattern measurement and cyber field sensing are addressed in the report. Robustness and theoretical models are assumed to be keywords in development of the first field of image pattern processing and measurement. In order to develop a cyber field in conjunction with real fields, scalability, real-time processing, and diversity of sensing are necessary.

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A binocular robot vision system having an autonomously moving active viewpoint is proposed. By using this active viewpoint, the system constructs a correspondence between the images of a feature point on the right and left retinas easily and calculates the spatial coordinates of the feature point. A following intelligent function is incorporated into the system to detect straight lines in the image. To detect lines the system uses Hough transform. The system searches a region surrounded by 4 straight lines. Then the system recognizes the region as a quadrangle. The system constructs a correspondence between the quadrangles in the right and left images. By the use of the result of the constructed correspondence, the system calculates the spatial coordinates of the object. An experiment shows the effect of the line detection using Hough transform, the recognition of the quadrangles of the object and the calculation of the spatial coordinates of the object.

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In a master-slave system, the force feedback from the slave robot improves a dexterous motion of operator′s work. When the slave robot is not in touch with its surroundings, the operator cannot get force information and cannot realize the slave motion efficiently. However, sensitive information to know the slave motion under the non contact motion is needed in the case that it is dangerous to run into a target. To address this issue, this paper proposes a strategy to produce virtual force according to the slave motion and generated force is fed back to the master robot. The proposed approach utilizes visual information from the camera mounted on the end effecter of the slave robot, and creates virtual force on the image plane. The change of the virtual force makes it possible for operator to feel the slave motion as the end effecter is coming close to the target. This is one of the remarkable features of the proposed strategy.

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This paper deals with an automatic scraping machine with image recognition system for bearings of surface plate. The automatic scraping machine consists of a large size XYZ stage for machining, a scraper and a CCD camera. After manually painting the bearings with red rouge, the image processing system with a colored CCD camera recognizes the bearings from the surface image. By using the red and blue paint, the image contrast was given, and recognition for the bearing plane became easy. In the Discriminant criteria thresholding, in comparison with the P tile method, the binary image with lower noise was obtained. In the intensity correction method by gray level of the every block, there were though small noise, and It was easy to recognize the bearing plane.

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In the field of which highly precise processing of mold is required, change of the tool edge form accompanying abrasion or a defect greatly influences not only quality but also productivity. Therefore, it is important to establish the evaluation method of tool shape. In this study, The method of amount of change of the tool diameter and clearance angle of the tool edge by giving to the laser spot image change as the tool blinded laser beam and the reflected light from the tool tip using the focus laser beam image processing, is proposed. Next fact became clear by this study. It is estimable by calculating laser reflected light intensity, in respect of the tilting angle of the tool tip. The displacement of the tool radial direction can be measured by scanning the transmitted light volume of the laser spot linearly.

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Effectiveness of a patterned panel illumination in an inspection of a small defect of an industrial product has been indicated by some researches. This study deals with an image processing method to remove pattern on an image, which is barrier to extract information of a small defect. Hough transformation is used as the main method in the sequence of the proposed image processing because of the linearity that the edge of the pattern has. Moreover, a function to determine concavity and convexity of the defect are mentioned. The function is achieved with checking the shift value of the center of gravity obtained by using triangle check pattern.

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Nowadays, using computer to automate performance testing is much expected for certificate or license examinations. Some methods like simulations have been developed for this purpose. However, there are many skills that are not suitable to assess by means of these methods. We consider that one of the solution for this problem is to let examinees do their task in the real environment, and to observe their practice using sensors. In our previous reports, we developed a performance testing system using vison sensors. In this paper, we propose a system using IC tags and readers to develop a more concise and robust system.

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A head of the golf wood club is hollow, and its thickness at the contact point to a ball is very small as like 2mm in order to get a high repulsive power. Although the lost wax method, which is one of manufacturing methods, is easy to mold it, there is fear of producing micro shrinkages. The micro shrinkages can give rise to early fracture in service, depending on their sizes and locations. In this study, in order to investigate whether the infrared thermograpy with pulsed heating can be applicable to detect their micro shrinkages near the surface, some test pieces with a small hole were prepared, and some experiments and nonsteady heat conduction analysis were carried out. The results show that it is easy to detect for the defects whose diameter is 1mm when the defects exist very near the surface as like 0.2mm.

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Before diffraction data acquisition of protein crystals, we have to place the protein crystal on the X-ray beam axis. At present, we need to adjust the position of the crystal manually because loop holder has different shape and dimension. In order to decrease this setup time, we are developing an automatic sample centering system. As the 1st step, a loop centering system using image processing was developed. In this report, a recognition method of loop center is proposed and results of experiments using the proposed method are described.

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In robot vision, it is important to recognize a specific color region from a color image. However, color distribution by a camera changes according to the change of lighting. Therefore, robust color recognition is difficult. In this paper, Improvement Color recognition is improved by using a robust color space for the change of lighting and renewing the color recognition table. The evaluation of this method is performed by the color recognition experiments.

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In our previous paper, we argue the detailed algorithm of our proposed method which estimates the shift length of adjoining projection curves (including vertical and horizontal curves) in real time. Here we address the additional new cliking algorithm which is essential as a practical pointing system using the combination of hue and light information of facial area. And we conduct the experiments which can evaluate accuracy of the proposed pointing system based on ISO9241-9 “Requirements for non-keyboard input devices”. We obtained the throughputs of mouse and our system.

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Recently, increasing digital images requires image retrieval. Usually, one way of retrieval databases of digital images is by keyword based-retrieval. But this has problems, e.g. language difference, time for keyword extraction, discrepancy between keywords. Then content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is needed. We proposed a CBIR method in [1]. We coded difference of partial mean hierarchically. In calculation of partial mean, we had divided area of images into quarters by repetition. In this paper, we improve area dividing method. Our improved CBIR method will be low time complexity, multi-resolution retrieval, and insensitive to global or local difference of lightness between images and parallel translation and scaling of images.

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The influence of material anisotropy to cutting performance was reported from a view point of cutting waveform in the previous paper. It is possible that material hardness differs in bone, and it is nessary to predict that the hardness influences machinability and cutting temperature of bone. In this paper, first, it is discussed how the machinability depends on the hardness of a bone. Moreover, the temperature of a bone cutting is measured in terms of a human cadaver and a pig cortical bone, because it is said that necrosis will occur when the cutting temperature is beyond a certain degree and to control the cutting temperature is so important for the surgery.

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We previously reported a bone cutting device, which cut a bone with a spherical surface using a curved oscillating saw, for Rotational Acetabular Osteotomy(RAO). In this study, we have modified a saw blade to improve the cutting performance and have suggested the cooling method of a saw to keep a temperature within safe range. We performed in vitro experimental RAO on the porcine pelvis. A bone cutting device could form a spherical surface on the porcine pelvis. The temperature of a saw could lower than 50degrees using a watery irrigation of fluid at 10mL/min. We will investigate the cutting force and will apply a bone cutting device to robotic positioning system.

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This paper discusses the results of the progressive die forming of the jaw and fabrication of micro medical forceps by the assembly of multiple parts.

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This paper evaluates an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) compatibility of a high power electrostatic motor. In recent years, MRI has established itself as a standard imaging device in medical science and neuroscience. Robotics technologies for MRI, such as surgical robot or robotic interfaces for neuroscience studies, have become more and more important. However, the strong magnetic field in MRI prevents the use of conventional electromagnetic motors, and therefore, there is a strong needs for alternative actuators. In this paper, a high power electrostatic motor is evaluated in MRI environment to investigate its MR-compatibility. We evaluated its MR-compatibility through output performance of the motor and signal-to-noise ratios of MRI images. Experimental results show that thrust force of the motor in MRI was almost the same as that in normal space and that the motor does not affect the MRI images under certain conditions.

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The authors have been developing a robot assisted K-wire guiding system using in the operation of scaphoid fracture reduction. In this system, taking CT images beforehand, the operator plans the position and angle of K-wire. To compensate the postural change of scaphoid between in CT image and in the operation, a 2D/3D registration method using the images taken from the CT and C-arm devices was adopted to distinguish the posture of scaphoid. As an image-comparison method, a template matching with a normal correlation function was used. And the authors evaluate this method with some model bone x-ray images.

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Authors have been developed a master-slave type remote medical system for the diagnosis of the shoulder disease such as dialysis related amyloid arthropathy (DRAA) by ultrasonographic images. Proper position, orientation, and contact force between an ultrasound probe and the affected part of the patient should be made clear to acquire proper diagnostic images in the diagnosis. In this paper, we report experimental results to clarify the required contact force and precision of the orientation to acquire the proper diagnostic images aiming at technologizing of a skill in the ultrasound diagnosis.

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According to the previous report, the developed simulator was effective in skill training of dental calculus removal. In the training field of dental hygienists, the skill level of dental calculus removal task is subjectively evaluated by instructors who have plenty of clinical experiences, and the development of quantitative and objective evaluation method is eagerly desired. In the research, a 3-axis force measuring instrument with model teeth has been developed and the evaluation from the wave shape of force reacted to the supporting finger has been examined. As the first step, this report describes the comparison of the force shapes between skilled and unskilled hygienists.

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Care for the elderly persons lay a lot of physical load to care workers and sometimes causes the affection of lumbago. The study aims to develop the instruments for care operation of transferring an elderly person from wheelchair to bed or vice versa. In this report we proposed the wheelchair with the seat of which the level is made up and down, and made investigation how the level of the seat effects on the physical load during care operation. We found that in some cases the higher seat level makes care operation easier and therefore causes less lumbago.

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We are researching on the development of a Power Assistance Suit System (PAS), to help older and injured people to perform several physical operations such as walking, object rising among other activities. PAS is equipped with Ultrasonic motors to develop controlled forces to support the motion of arms and legs of injured people so that they can do their activities. We are proposing a new structure of PAS using ultrasonic motors as the only actuators of the system.

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This paper presents a new power assisted suit for nursing work by using ultrasonic motors as actuators of the suit. Actuators of power assisted suit require a small and lightweight structure as well as high output torque performance. The ultrasonic motor has high performance such as it has high output toque at low speeds, high holding torque, no braking mechanism, no magnetic noise, a gear mechanism is unnecessary and the motor can be driven silently. This paper reports a method for increasing the output torque and durability of the motor. In order to suppress wear of the ultrasonic motor, the optimal wear material was selected and the mode of vibration was examined for improving the output.

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We study on spectroscopy-tomography of living single cell to measure slight changes in its protein. This technology can get the 3-Dimentional distribution of protein in high spatial resolution in real time. And this technology is composed of two elemental technologies. One of them is the high spatial resolution spectrometry. Another one is the precise rotating single-cell method. In this report, we mention the optical spatial filtering method as the rotational velocity measurement of the low-contrast object. We focus attention on the diffracted light that is generated from the cell. By this method, the periodic intensity distribution is derided from the random refraction index distribution.

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Currently, we study about spectroscopy-tomography of living single-cells which diameter is about 10 μm to assist the quantitative diagnosis of early cancer. By this method, we can obtain a 3-dimensional distribution of the cell components to a high spatial resolution. This technology is composed of two elemental technologies, a high spatial resolution spectrometry and a precise single cell rotating method. In this paper, we mention proximal two-beam optical tweezers as the precise rotating method. In this method, we can control the rotational velocity of microsphere regardless of refractive index distribution by non-contact operation. In this report, we experimented in rotation of a single cell and discuss rotation direction and rotation torque.

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We propose the spectroscopy-tomography of single cells to improve the early detection and treatment of cancer. This technology can obtain the three dimensional distribution of components at a high spatial resolution. In this paper, we mention the analysis result of the cross-sectional images of the microsphere which diameter is 10 μm. We confirmed that the distribution of the internal defect in the microsphere can be analyzed. And we mention the proposed variable phase-contrast spectrometry as the two dimensional high spatial resolution spectrometry. This proposed method is a phase-shift interferometry between the 0th order diffracted light and higher order diffracted light. We discuss the experimental result of the spectral characteristics using the proposed variable phase-contrast spectrometry.

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Oxidative degradation of UHMWPE caused by aging and internal defects has been cited as one of major factors affecting the wear in vivo. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of adding vitamin E as the antioxidation additives on the wear. The wear tests have been conducted on a pin-on-disk machine. Specimens added vitamin E showed small wear factors by reducing of delamination on the wear surface and transferring thick films on the counter face. Vitamin E could suppress oxidization of UHMWPE, which lead to lower wear factor.

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The aim of this research was to fundamentally determine the effects of temperature for lubrication containing hyaluronic acid (HA) on artificial hip joints. Therefore evaluation of lubricant temperature differences between 25-C and 36-C was investigated using testing equipment equipped with a reciprocating stage for an artificial hip joint. The lubricants consisted of HA and isotonic sodium chloride solution (I.S.C.S.). It was confirmed that the average rate of wear for lubricant temperature of 36-C was larger than that of 25-C when the lubricants were 0.3wt%HA or less.

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When man received dull external injury on a head and died, generally a skull fracture, Intracranial hemorrhage, Brain subarachnoid hemorrhage, brain damage, etc. is the cause of death. Particularly, we call the local brain damage produced on the brain surface of the side which received the blow coup contusion, and without knowing why some which damage produces are in the opposite side of the shock part which has not received the direct blow. It calls contrecoup contusion. But, these are very difficult to judge what kind of shock received from the dissection view from the head. Then, it refers to the data of the easy shock experiment and past this time, and elucidation of head injury is advanced.

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It is well known that some of ocular reflex linked surrounding recognition affect human′s posture control. In this study, the effects of ocular reflex on posture control are measured to give an analysis on the visual part roll from the aspect of personal factor and aging. This paper reports the phase difference at impulsive force loading, which related personal factor and results on posture recover readiness characteristcs in visual signal tracking experiment.

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Recently, development of MEMS technology is noteworthy. In this research, we aimed the fabrication of the tool for micro punching by UV-LIGA process. It is thought that the punching tools by the UV-LIGA process can produce a lot of micro parts compared with electric discharge machining and cutting. In this lecture are evaluated the method and the characteristic for fabricating the tool with a lot of micro punching device.

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There is constant demand of high aspect ratio and fine patterning in the field of micro-fabrication. A conventional method in this field is screen printing. However it is difficult by screen printing to obtain rectangular cross section, because printed paste has a high fluidity and then easily deforms. The author successfully obtained high aspect and rectangular cross section by using photo patternable green sheets. The green sheet is mixture of fine sinterable powder and photo sensitive resin binder. On this green sheet, exposure of fine pattern and develop treatment was performed, and then high aspect ratio and rectangular cross section was realized. In this paper, process of sheet fabrication, effect of exposure and evaluation of the structure are explained.

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By establishing the easy method for forming micro emboss structure on some surface, the application expands broad field. Particularly, the demand for substrate and package of electronics field is strong. The author makes use of so called dry film that is easily pattered in micro meter size, and by filling the mixture of sinterable fine particle and organic vehicle on the film, after drying, and then the embossed pattern on the composite sheet was obtained. This sheet can become sintered body after some heat treatment. The finest pattern was 30um / 50um line/space and the height was 25um. The structure of the cross section was almost rectangular.

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A new 3D process for micro hollow structure which is made of thin film metallic glass (TFMG) is successfully demonstrated. The process principle is based on that TFMG soften in the supercooled liquid region and nitrogen gas generates from Cu₃N with heat in a vacuum. 10×10 integrated micro hollow structure that a diameter of 100μm and pitch of 120μm had formed at that process yield is 75% based TFMG (Cu₅₀Zr₅₀, atomic %) thickness of 2μm and Cu₃N thickness of 0.1μm at a heating temperature of 672K.

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The transfer characteristics of sol-gel photocurable polymer were investigated using imprinting method. This polymer is a kind of thermoplastic resin which was hardened by exposure of ultraviolet (UV) light. Micro-order pattern and 500 nm line & space pattern, and nano-order honeycomb pattern were used as transfer mold. Micro-order patterns were fabricated by thermal cycle imprint, but sub-micron patterns did not transfer completely. However, sub-micron patterns were fabricated by thermal cycle imprint and succeeding UV hardening.

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Nano structured surface was fabricated on a glass plate by the nano forming. Frinction coefficient of the structured surface was measured, and effect of structure on the friction was studies.

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This paper deals with the self-assembly process of fine particles in the dip-coating on patterned-wettaility, where the particles are selectively assembled on hydrophilic part. The process was observed with a video microscope and analyzed with PIV method. It was found that motion of the particles varies depending on the draw-up speed. If the speed is low, the particles stagnate and make the bi-layer stack. On the other hand, when the speed is high, the particle moves quickly and results in reduction of the width because of insufficient supply. Finally, the proper draw-up speed was discussed to obtain mono-layered particles array in large area.

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Drawing the geometrically grooved stripe patterns from the suspension enables self-assembly of fine particles(1μm diameter) along the grooves. Three factors were presented, which affect the assembling accuracy and filling ratio of particles. Firstly, particles tend to be assembled better on patterned substrate of larger contact angle(62.1°) than on smaller(5.4°). Secondary, the larger the draw-up speed is, the smaller filling ratio become. Finally, it was shown that shallow-and-wide or deep-and-narrow pattern realized higher filling ratio, which is an appropriate pattern design.

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This paper deals with a new method for positioning of micro parts by self-assembling. Since an object naturally moves to a stable position by itself, the position of micro parts can be controlled by changing both the field conditions and supplying energy. In this paper, two factors, adhesion force between objects and directional friction force on textured surface, were utilized for controlling moving objects with externally applied vibration. First, the effect of the two factors on a practically used part was examined. Then, a method was considered to move only one part chosen from plural parts on the same stage. A case study proved the ability of relative position arraignment of two micro parts.

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It was found out that gold nano particles could be formed by laser beam, when the laser beam was irradiated on spatter gold film. Therefore, the generative property of the nano particles in this report. As the result, When spatter and irradiation of pulse laser were repeated mutually, size of nano particle increased gradually. On the other hand, It found out that size of nano particle could be controlled by laser power easily, when continue waved laser was irradiated on spatter gold film. Next, we tried to realize a laser color marking by using the forming method of nano particle and succeeded to mark blue line on a glass.

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It is problem that a bit of metal as impurities get mixed with powder during manufacture of the powder. Therefore, a new method to remove the impurities was proposed in this paper. When a laser beam is irradiated on a reflective surface, repulsive force is generated on the surface. The force is a radiation force. It means that a piece of metal can be flicked out of powder by a laser beam. It was tried to remove a bit ofmetal out of powder using the new segregated disposal method. As the result, we found out the method was effective.

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When a low power laser beam was irradiated on SUS304 or iron, a rising phenomenon was found out in 1st report. Therefore, it was investigated that an influence of an atmosphere on the phenomenon at first in this report. As the result, it was found out that the rising phenomenon did not occur in a vacuum and was facilitated in oxygen. Secondly, the rising aria was analyzed by EPMA. As the result, it was found out that the aria was mainly composed of iron oxide and Cr oxide and pure Ni. Finally, this report give a full account of some 3D micro structures formed applying the rising phenomenon.

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We made a micro thermocouple for measuring resin temperature and heat flux through resin in an injection mold. We welded f25mm Alumel/Chromel wires with YAG laser and fabricated the tip end as a pyramid-like shape with femtosecond laser. We set the micro thermocouple sticking into the cavity of an injection mold, and directly measured resin temperature. The measurement result showed the resin temperature transition stabilized by the 25th shot. Then we calculated heat flux between each measurement points from resin temperatures measured at the two measurement points, and found that the maximum heat flux was about 5.2W/cm2.

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A bending test method was examined to evaluate mechanical properties of diamond-like carbon (DLC) micro-cantilever made by the focused ion beam-chemical vapor deposition (FIB-CVD). DLC was deposited on a Si substrate by the FIB-CVD at first, and was machined its surface by the FIB into the micro-cantilever. A tip of the micro-cantilever was successfully loaded by a dynamic ultra micro hardness tester with a berkovich type diamond indenter. The loading point was determined by scanning ion microscope observation after unloading. Young′s modulus was calculated from an unloading slope. It was determined as 65.5GPa, which almost agree with that obtained by the compression test.

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Micro-compression tests were carried out to investigate mechanical properties of Diamond-like carbon (DLC) deposited by Focused ion beam-Chemical vapor deposition (FIB-CVD). Compressive stress–strain relations showed a significant nonlinear behavior following the linear relation up to around 6GPa. Influence of WC substrate on measured mechanical properties was evaluated by finite element method (FEM). It was shown that Young′s modulus obtained by the experiments were smaller than the actual one. The difference between observed and actual Young′s modulus, however, was also shown to be relatively small.

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