Based on the equivalence between the robust stability of a class of time-varying systems and the existence of a common infinity-norm Lyapunov function for the corresponding set of linear time-invariant systems, the relation between common quadratic and infinity-norm Lyapunov functions is studied. It is shown that although the relation is equivalent for a single stable system, the existence condition of common quadratic type is included by that of common infinity-norm type for a set of systems. Several existence conditions of a common infinity-norm Lyapunov function are also presented.

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Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. has developed "Open Architecture" PC based controller. The openness and flexibility of the PC based controller enable us to integrate the robot control with various sensors, network, and other peripherals, and to build robot systems in various fields. In this report, the features of the PC based controller are introduced, and several robot systems are presented.

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Applicability of a linear optical amplifier (LOA) to low frequency optical signal amplification is experimentally investigated. In case of 60-Hz sinusoidal optical signal amplification by an Erbium doped fiber amplifier or a semiconductor optical amplifier, waveform distortion becomes obvious when large optical signals such as -10 dBm are input to the amplifier. In contrast, it is clarified that waveform distortion and interference between waves are uppressed by using an LOA. In the LOA case, fine waveforms are observed for the LOA input power from -35 dBm to -10 dBm, which seems to be sufficient performance as a pre-amplifier of optical sensing systems.

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The paper explores database replication in the electronic commerce. We present new asynchronous replication method of the database, which is accessed from outside the company. The computer configuration of the company is composed of the one primary copy and several secondary copies. Our asynchronous replication method is different from traditional one in a sense that our method exploits the log of the transaction processing at replica site. Our method is appropriate for the situation where the database is shared between primary copies of the company and outside the company. We also extend our asynchronous replication method to the supply chain management with good processing efficiency.

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We present architecture of the client environment management system, and propose implementation of ourarchitecture. Our proposed system enables the administrator to manage client environment in simple manner. Ourarchitecture is designed for representing client environment by XML document, and storing the document to the clientmanager server in order to maintain client status. The client can search applications required by each client fromapplication service server. The information for updating and installing software are notified to the client. Ourimplemented system exploits WSDL, SOAP/UDDI of web service architectures, and Java/XML by which the system can bebuilt, independent of the platform.

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In this paper, a method for mutual retrieval between images and tunes is proposed. We use color and composition of images as keys of image retrieval, and use rhythm and chord melody of tune as keys of tune retrieval. The relation between the keys for image and the keys for tune was investigated by a visual experiment on 14 subjects. According to the relation , the tune is retrieved by color distribution in an image was constructed.

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In recent years, the technology of virtual reality has spread widely, and recearch of Mixed Reality technology which involves the overlay of a computer-generated virtual world over a real world base has been developing briskly. However the research on the force display which bears an important role for bringing an actual feeling to a virtual object has just been attached to the start. The authors propose the device which generates reactive force of the direction of a certain axis, and describe a construction of the virtual billiards as application example.

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In this study, the cerebral activation parts of the tactile sense cognitive characteristic of the object length through the three-kinds experiment of different length change are measured using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). By this experiment, the brain information process mechanism in tactile sense object length recognition is clarified.

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I proposed a high temperature sensing system with small thermal insulating chamber using the evaporation heat of water. For this system all devices must be operated at 100 degrees Celsius. Some devices such as a laser diode, a CCD image sensor can not be operated at 100 degrees Celsius. I propose the system of which these devices can be operated by using a heat pipe with fine diameter. Characteristics of the heat pipe will be discussed.

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If we can measure 3D shape of objects in the every place, it is very convenient to record the objects for virtual space. Recently, some 3D rangefinders are developed, but there are few compact rangefinders such as hand-held type. This paper proposes a self referenced wearable range sensor to scan the hand-held size objects. The wearable range sensor consists on a laser slit light and two CCD cameras. To integrate measured 3D data, the proposed system uses a marker that is a triangle on the hand, and track the marker. The proposed method can integrate the shape in video frame.

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Texture analysis is popular for face recognition, but it is not robust.This paper presents a system for automatic face identification by using 3-D face shape data.It is capable to deal with the change of position and lightning condition.The present system utilizes 3-D moment invariants to classify individuals.The estimation features makes the system robust and fast at once.

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In this paper, we propose an active method for stereo-scopic imaging. Our method is more useful than conventional methods for the stereo-matching. Structured light is continuously projected on objects, and two cameras grab the object illuminated by the light, then we obtain spatiotemporal images. Furthermore, we propose a robust method of stereo-matching with the images. There are advantages of easy stereo-matching with projecting light in our method. In conventional method, we analyze the data with spatial processing or temporal one. In our method, however, we do it with both, that's the spatiotemporal processing.

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Recently, derivation of the recursive algorithms for subspace identification has attracted a great deal attention. The most of researchers have studied about the time-invariant discrete-time linear systems. Contrary to such systems, research taken into consideration for time-varying continuous-time systems is very few. In this paper, we propose a recursive subspace identification algorithm for the continuous-/discrete-time, time-invariant/varying stochastic systems. The principal attack to derive algorithm are based on updating the L-factor matrix of the LQ-factorization.

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We study order determination problems in system identification. Here we present a method of applying the LDL^T decomposition and information criterion. A statistical test is available for the system order determination and is based on the relation between the system order and the rank of the correlation matrix of the Hankel matrix consists of input-output data. We apply LDL^T decomposition and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) to determine the rank, so that we can determine the system order. AIC requires the heavy computation because the maximum likelihood estimates should be obtained by solving the nonlinear optimization problem. Thus we apply a subspace method to simplify the computation of the log-likelihood functions.

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In this paper, an application of genetic algorithm for generation of evolutionary starting pose of a quadrupedal robot which reduced degrees of freedom is described. Each leg of the quadrupedal robot has a slider-crank mechanism and is driven by an actuator. Furthemore we introduced the forward movement mode and the rotating mode because the all direction movement should be made possible.To generate the suitable starting pose, the inital angle of four legs are coded under real-coded amd tuned by an estimation function in each mode with the real-coded genetic algorithm.as a result of generation, the cooperation of the legs are realized to move toward the all direction. And the robot can walk with the generated starting poses avoided obstacles.

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A simple adaptive control method is presented using a neural network and a simple predictive control.

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In this paper we consider a design technique of an Augmented Automatic Choosing Control (AACC) for nonlinear systems. A constant term of the system by Taylor expansion is treated as a coefficient of a stable zero dynamics. Parameters of the control are suboptimally selected by minimizing the Hamiltonian with the aid of a genetic algorithm.

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This paper proposes a method which extends strongly stable generazlied minimum variance control (GMVC). By using a pre-compensator the proposed method redesigns a reference response independently of both of a disturbance response and a stability of the GMVC law.

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For set point control, a procedure similar to backstepping, called adaptive dynamic surface control (ADSC) was developed to simplify the controller design. This procedure does not require the repeated differentiation of output. In this paper, we extend this technique to the adaptive tracking control problem by assuming that the higher order derivatives of reference input are bounded. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by an example of three-dimensional nonlinear system.

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Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a new technique for signal analysis. It aims at separating signals mixed linearly from source signals with unknown coefficients, using only statistical independence of the source signals. This goal can be achieved by means of higher order statistics and a certain learning law. This is in marked contrast to the fact that the well-known Principle Component Analysis (PCA) makes use of covariance of the signals. In this sense, ICA does not carry over the conventional linear quadratic methodology. This paper outlines the concept of ICA techniques and discusses its application to systems control engineering.

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Recently computer algebra methods are frequently utilized to solve engineering and industrial problems. In control community computer algebra methods such as {Gr\"obner basis} and {quantifier elimination} are widely used to resolve many unsolved important control problems. In this talk we show how we can solve some difficult problems in control by using such symbolic methods with concrete control examples.

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When a great earthquake occurs in urban areas, it is important to gather information of disaster area as soon as possible. An aerorobot is effective in gathering information because it can fly over the dameged area quickly and collect wide area information efficiently. With autonomous flight control and stereo camera, the system which collects 3-dimentional geographical feature information automatically is developed and illustrative experimental results are shown in this paper.

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In this study, development of the information collecting rescue robot called "Baby I" is addressed. This robot objectives are immediatery helpful capability to overcome and to broadcast images in the disaster area. The robot has flexibility and ability to stroke smoothly by using proposed mechanism. Self-recovery mechanism is a function to return to the original position by manupulating arms, when the robot has been tumbling or hang up. The broadcast system by adopting the live streaming technique can achieve to distribute images of the disaster area in order to judge the distributed image by the specialist. The detail of the designed robot and a verification results are described in this paper.

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Communication channels are, in general, not deterministic but stochastic.Hence, modeling the stochastic channels explicitly could make equalization more efficient.We regard the channel parameters and the transmitted data in an equalization problem with stochastic channels as unknown parameters and missing data, respectively.The EM algorithm gives an estimate of the posterior distribution of the missing data in such a problem,that enables the Bayes estimation.The proposed equalizer shows a better performance than the conventional one in computer simulations.

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This paper presents the scheduling protocol for the object-oriented transaction processing in the workflow management system of three tier architecture with message queue. Especially, we propose parallel transaction processing with the aid of the load balancing at another server in the network. We utilize the database replication, the cluster and the grouping-queue for the load balancing. Our approach to the transaction processing of the object-oriented database is characterized by the scheduling of the queue storing divided subtransactions in the three tier architecture. Our protocol of the scheduling for the object-oriented transaction processing is proposed considering these three concepts.

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At concurrency control of transactions in the workflow, the transactions accessing the same object may conflict. To overcome this problem, this paper will present an algorithm of the concurrency control scheduling using lock of page unit.

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In parallel computing, the load balancing is very important to do efficient parallel computation. When the load balancing is done dynamically, we need to pay attention to how the information is gathered from each processor. In this paper, we consider two autonomous load-balancing methods when one processor can gather the information from only a few processors in a parallel computer.

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In this paper, we extract the road from color aerial images using active contour model based on region features, and propose the method of automatic generation of the initial contour.To correct the road, we apply a polynomial curve fitting to the extraction contour.The road in the image of a residential area in suburb was extracted successfully as a result.

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The authors aim to realize a practical collaboration environment between remote users using wearable computing and mixed realit (MR) technology. The authors have proposed "Punch3D" for modeling real space as simplified and realistic 3D model. The modeling using "Punch3D" is performed following two steps; 1) making simple model using portable omni-directional camera and 2) modifying the model the user want to fix anytime. This paper describes about a modeling experiment using high-resolution camera and shows the accuracy about the tracking of the user.

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In this report, we discuss about the procedure to acquire the force information from internal organs using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), and to display it in virtual space for surgical simulation. In order to evaluate the validity of the displayed force information, comparison with the source information from real objects is necessary. We have constructed a system to compare these two types of force information, showing the feasibility of the comparison.

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Thermal sensor is very useful in human interface. The advantage of using thermal sensor for image processing is a feasibility of extracting human region without being affected by background images or condition of illumination. Many kinds of graphical tablet have been developed. But we can only use our finger or pen to input data. We have developed a graphical tablet using thermal sensor. Input device warmer or cooler than room temperature touches a tablet surface (paper) in a room. Then, heat conduction between input device and paper is caused, and paper rise or fall in temperature. We use this to detect a pointing coordinate. A tablet using this method for sensing a pointing coordinate have some advantages. If input device is warmer or cooler than temperature, we can use everything for input device for example a brush, spray, finger, pen, etc...

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This paper proposes how ALTAIR (Automatic Location Tracking system using Active IR-tag) is able to tracking and identify the user's position in a buildings includeing the office. Using priority roll-call and controlling the emission pattern of the IR-tag, ALTAIR is able to identify user. Our experiments show the effective performance in an office environment.

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Labanotation is a system of analyzing and recording of human Movement. Labanotation can describe body movement in detail. However, it is difficult to write and imagine body movement described by Labanotation. Because We must uses an original sign to describe. We propose the system which describes Labanotation and displays the motion by computer graphics

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In the systems moves with user, for example, wearable computer, sharing MR(Mixed Reality) space and so on, it is difficult to recognize an object by its color in an image. Because the illuminant environments change according to user actions. Therefore, this paper proposes the new secure color correction method. First, ceiling images are got using fish-eye lens camera. Then, The illuminant colors are estimated by identifying and categorizing illuminant from these images.

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Segmentation of an image composed of different kinds of texture fields is one of the most important theme in image understanding and indispensable for the object recognition. The purpose of this paper is to divide an image composed of different kinds of texture fields into the same segmentaion areas with Modified Messy Genetic Algorithm(MMGA). In this paper, we consider texture segmentaion as an optimization problem and propose the texture segmentation method that reduces calculation cost by applying MMGA to this problem.

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We propose a method for detecting vehicles from an image.At first ,two edge images are used for deciding candidate area.In the area of grayscale image,using Gabor filters that can extract frequency elements of any direction,the intensity of an input image is transformed into Gabor energies which has information about spatial extent and direction of the objects.Gabor energies and color information of an input image are used for segmentation of the image.And using Affine Moment Invariants,vehicles are detected with the information of the segmented image.

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Suitable Choice of the dynamical model for the moving object is one of the important for a precise kinematic GPS positioning, especially for utilizing carrier phase measurements. Many research activities have been focusing on the determination of dynamical models and their performance in case of code-based measurements. In the carrier phase kinematic GPS positioning, however, it has not been considered much on the dynamical models, especially detailed parameters in mathematical models. Moreover, the ambiguity resolution must be resolved correctly for precise positioning, which depends on the dynamical models. Therefore, in this paper, various dynamical models are compared in terms of positioning accuracy and ambiguity resolution in the carrier phase kinematic GPS positioning.

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In this paper we present a method of land-vehicle integrated INS/GPS system based on nonlinear filtering techniques and show experimental results of using the actual GPS and INS data. Closed-loop mechanization is adopted for our navigation system by integrating Inertial Navigation System (INS) and the code-based transfer Differential GPS (DGPS) which gives the position (latitude, longitude) and the Doppler velocity. Our present purpose in this paper is to integrate the advantages of these systems and to develop the integrated INS/GPS navigation system.

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In this paper, we resolve a problem to detect cycle slips in the carrier phase differential GPS positioning via a likelihood ratio test. Detection of cycle slips is one of the important problems for precise positioning. Cycle Slips are caused due to temporary loss of signal track on GPS receivers. It is known that under normal conditions, the innovation process from Kalman Filter is a zero mean Gaussian white noise process. We observe whether its mean has been changed from zero or not by applying the likelihood ratio test to detect cycle slips. Finally, the experimental results by using real receiver data are shown.

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A story in the days when the Rescue Robot Contest was born is introduced, which have not been open so far. It is from the day when an idea occurred on August 1997, to the day when the executive committee started on December 1999. Moreover, changes in the stage setting of the contest and changes in dummies which simulate victims are described.

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Recently, a consideration from viewpoint of safety has become more important when some robot or machinery is put into the market. The development of rescue robots should include the consideration concerning safety issue. In addition, use of rescue robots in real rescue activities requires social agreement. According to this, some new contest criteria connected with safety are proposed in this paper. Besides, it is stated that to make social agreement of use of rescue robots, the contest can be used as a communication tool about benefit and risk of the robots between the developers and citizens.

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We developed a cable layers machine control system using power line communication technology without a dedicated control line. Cable layers machine is necessary equipment for wiring work of cables while constructing a plant. We show a newly developed control protocol, which makes possible overcome power line noise and realize this system.

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Bi-level quantized first order Delta Sigma modulation is a simple D/A conversion method, but it requires high frequency switching to use in a DC/AC inverter. It is not suitable for high power inverter whose switching frequency cannot be raised so high. This paper proposes to apply multilevel quantized Delta Sigma modulator to a three phase DC/AC inverter with low frequency switching. The pulse width is treated by a multi-bit discrete time in accordance with the quantized level.

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The properties of averaged model of PWM regulated DC-DC buck converter are well known. In this paper, passivity-based control for DC-DC buck converter is discussed experimentally. The properties of passivity model are compared with those of averaged model. Experimental results are shown in output voltage and inductor current and efficiency.

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Owing to the deregulation of electric power supply, it is required to quantitatively evaluate the voltage regulating capability of various power apparatus. So far, as the evaluation index of static voltage atability, we examined the eigenvalues and the determinant of Jacobian matrix of the load flow calculation. In the present study, we propose a new index to evaluate the voltage supporting capability of generator based on the eigen-analysis, and examine its validity by the numerical calculations on two sample power systems; one is of rather small size and the other is of medium size.

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We propose a new path control with expansion of axes for a two wheeled robot in this paper. Until now, path control methods for an arbitrary desired curve path have not almost been proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by experiment.

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The note has been focused on the inflatable structures which are formed with membranes and are deployable by air inflation. The objective of this paper is vibration control of the inflatable tube by piezoelectric materials in order to apply for flexible robot arm. The inflatable tube was manufactured in two kinds of tube form by the difference in the actuation method. The state space model for the input-output connection of the inflatable tube using the piezoelectric material was obtained. The controller was designed with LQR control theory by using identified linear model. The experimental results confirmed the possibility of vibration control to inflatable tube by using piezoelectric materials.

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