This paper describes a system that detects the gaze points of customers looking at advertisements that have been presented on a monitor for marketing research. The proposed system detects the gaze points without restriction of customers using multiple cameras attached with each target. Using our system, the target that the customers were gazing at could be estimated, and the ratio of gaze points is countable for each advertisement.

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This paper describes a Kansei retrieval system for 3D buildings database that can be automatically categorized to support building form designs. Users can easily get 3D objects, for example, from the Internet. However, it is difficult to automatically categorize 3D objects with which users are concerned. The system focuses on 3D buildings that can be modified easily for users to apply for urban space design or cyber malls.

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We are researching about an age and gender estimation based on wrinkle texture and color of facial images. Preliminary questionnaire (enquete) examination how effectively the facial images could be used for gender and age estimations was executed by using 300 different faces and 21 examinees. Wrinkles appeared in the face and the shape and size of the facial parts are selected to model the age and gender estimation in this research basing on this enquete. Basing on this preliminal consideration, an image-processing algorithm for wrinkle modeling was proposed in this paper. In addition, a method for making relationships between facial images and their keywords was proposed by using the latent semantic indexing. An efficient interface for displaying the relationships among keywords and facial images has been introduced with 2D/3D-feature space defined by the indexing.

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We’ve developed an assistant system for housing negotiation and named it LIPSTICK. It consists of two transformation sub-systems with databases that store customers’ individual KANSEI data. A customer can input his requirements for each room using mood words, and LIPSTICK outputs several recommended sample pictures of showrooms in order of suitability. This system is available for visualizing and analyzing the customer’s requirements and activating communication during housing negotiation.

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A group working sometimes makes unexpected and great idea due to sensitivity interaction. We focus the design of coloration as typical sensitivity information, and describe the synergy effect in a cooperative designing. First of all, we define a psychological model for designer’s synergetic process, and we clear users’ behaviours referring to other’s coloration. Then, we construct an intelligent support system based on this model, which displays efficient reference images for user’s idea on Mixed Reality Display. It provides the virtual coloration with real object in real space, and it helps to give rise to synergy effect of users by themselves.

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A security system preventing to unjust use is proposed by detecting, photographing and saving a user’s front face. The face must be saved, in order not to receive ID and a password, unless the front face is detected. Front face detection uses an average face dictionary, which is four directional features field. Experiments show that front faces are correctly detectable.

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This paper presents an attempt at ‘non-verbal mapping’ between music and images in the field of Kansei information processing. We use physical parameters of sound and color, to clarify their direct correspondence when these are changed continuously. First we derive a mapping rule between sound and color from those with such special abilities as ‘colored hearing’. Next we apply the mapping to everyday people using a paired comparison test and key identification training, and confirm that this mapping is also acceptable by them.

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Accurate measurement of temperature is very important for monitoring or controlling the production process. Development of radiation thermometers has been remarkable in recent years. However, to measure accurate temperature, the infrared radiation thermometry have to calibrate emissivities of objects. Without calibration of emissivities, serious error is appears. This error can be reduced, if radiation of shorter wavelength, such as the Ultra-Violet range, is observed. UV radiation thermometry can measure temperature distributions of the stainless steel TIG weld pool accurately without correcting the emissivity.

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For improvement of the high-temperature scale realization, the spectral responsivity measurement uncertainty, which is the dominant source of uncertainty in the high temperature range, was investigated. A new single grating monochromator was introduced for this investigation, by means of which the target uncertainty of 0.03 nm was realized.

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The infrared radiation thermometer with an InSb detector operated dc-mode has been developed in the NMIJ for establishing a traceability of the infrared radiation thermometry in the middle-temperature range, 100°C-400°C. To remove chromatic aberration, it has an infrared doublet lens as an objective. Optical components except the objective lens are mounted in the cold radiation shield and are cooled by the liquid nitrogen. The radiation thermometer is calibrated against the blackbodies in the range from 0°C to 450°C. The responsibility of the thermometer is good enough to be used in the middle-temperature range.

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A calibration method for an optical pyrometer using a 650 nm monochromatic radiation thermometer was investigated. The limiting effective wavelength of the pyrometer was calculated and compared with that of the radiation thermometer. The uncertainties in calibrating a standard lamp and an optical pyrometer were estimated.

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This paper describes the calibration and characterization of the 650 nm standard radiation thermometers used in the traceability system of radiation thermometers in Japan. NMIJ started in 2001 a new calibration service including the copper-point calibration, spectral responsivity and nonlinearity measurement. Characterization covers the size of source effect, distance effect, ambient temperature dependence, zero offset drift and long term stability.

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The intercomparison of radiation temperature scales between PTB and NMIJ was carried out in September 2001. PTB sent their radiation thermometer LP3 to Japan and NMIJ made the comparison between the LP3 and NMIJ’s Topcon radiation thermometers with a comparison blackbody from 1000 °C to 2500 °C. Both scales agreed within ±0.8 °C in the whole range.

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This paper describes a laser radar system that combines a laser range finder and pan-tilt equipment. This system transmits a laser beam in a specified direction and the point at which the beam is reflected is measured continuously. To measure the shape of the vehicles precisely we constructed an algorithm for estimating the centerline of a vehicle.

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We propose a method for simultaneously detecting the position and velocity of a magnetic head relative to the target track in a HDD by using a new servo pattern. The position is derived from the phase shift of the burst signal from the pattern, and the velocity is derived from the frequency shift thereof. By applying this method, the sampling rate of the servo system can be reduced to less than 1/2.

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It is known that the position and the attitude of a little plate can be calculated from a picture of more than 4 specific spots on the plate. Usually, 4 LED’s are arranged at the corners of a 2-dimensional square. However, calculated results are shown to be too sensitive to erroneous reading of the picture. This paper proposes an arrangement of 4 LED’s at the apices of a tetrahedron or similar 3-dimensional arrangement. The sensitivities are compared for 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional arrangements of 4 LED’s.

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This paper proposes a novel 3-D measurement system using spatially phase-modulated light, which have a single frequency for time but have different phase according to the projection angle. Another key of our system is the three-phase correlation image sensor(3PCIS), which generates temporal correlations between light intensity and three external reference signals on each pixel. Within a frame, amplitude and phase of the spatially phase-modulated light are demodulated and output by the 3PCIS to compute the individual angle on each pixel. We implemented this system using our CMOS 32 × 32 -pixel 3PCIS, and successfully reconstructed the range map on each pixel.

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We have proposed a system for real-time measurement of distance, vibration velocity and displacement by means of optical frequency modulation in the time domain that employs digital signal processing. This paper discribes the results of experiments that compare that system to a Zeeman laser system in measurements of vibration displacement at commercial frequency.

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Optical pattern formed spontaneously in a nonlinear optical feedback system composed of an optically addressable spatial light modulator and optical feedback flows due to lateral wave-front shift of the feedback light We propose to use this phenomenon to measure as a small angle, because a rotation of mirror produces the shift. We demonstrate the dependency between pattern speed and rotation angle.

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A two-dimensional binary sequence is used as a two-dimensional bar-codes, a position detection patterns, a diffraction pattern for calibration of a LASER beam, and so on. We have reported a two-dimensional binary sequence with wide range of zero-correlation [1]. We developed synthesis methods for several different classes of two-dimensional binary sequence with diamond shaped zero-correlation zone. In this paper, we show the construction of these sequence and the their properties. The area of the zero-correlation zone of the sequence is almost twice as the area of the zero-correlation zone of previous reported sequences. The size of synthesized sequence is (2^u+2m) × (2^u+2n), where mn is equal to the rank of a Hadamard matrix (not restricted to be a Walsh-Hadamard Matrix) and u≥0. The cross-correlation function of the sequence of our construction is equal to zero, when the phase shifts k_x and k_y satisfy ¦k_x¦ + ¦k_y¦ < 2^u+1, or max (¦k_x¦, ¦k_y¦) ≤ 2^u. The number of synthesized sequences is 4mn.

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Recently, the methods for analyzing the motion and size of moving objects in various scenes such as an uninhabited surveillance system are searched for. The aim of this research is proposing a new method for moving objects extraction and analysis using time series stereo images, which is realizing high-speed and high-precision. At first, creating the difference images from time series stereo images obtained from three CCD cameras, and moving objects portion in the image can be extracted. Next, applying the theory of stereo vision for extracted moving objects image, the depth image for only moving object portion is obtained. Furthermore, by using the extracted positional and depth information of moving objects, the project area and the volume as an index of size and the velocity vector as an index of movement are calculated, as the detected moving objects information. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the experimental images and the effect is confirmed.

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A method of estimating optical flow by introducing a projective space of two-dimensional velocity is proposed. This approach make it possible to analyze measurement error in both spatial- and temporal-differential coefficients of image in a unified manner. In this projective space, velocity estimation can be formulated based on singular value decomposition. It is proved from simulations that estimation error in velocity can be reduced.

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In Landsat TM images, scan stripe noise often appears every 16 lines at the both side of white object such as cloud, which not only visually degrade the images but also make the quantitative analysis difficult. As the scan stripe is considered to be a sesor related noise, it cannot be removed by the image processing technique without considering its physical mechanism. In this papaer, we assume the impulse response of AD converter as the noise source, and model the scan stripe noise as well as scandirection difference mathematically. The parameters of the response function are estimated from the night time data and they are applied to the day time data to remove the scan stripe noise.

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A detection scheme is presented for maneuvering affordance in noisy imagery. Under the assumption that image features to be observed are generated as fractal attractors induced by mental maneuvering process, environment features are represented in directional Fourier images. For extracting not-yet-identified self-similar pattern, noise level is estimated based on probabilistic complexity analysis. The detectability of affordance patterns has been verified through experimental studies.

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A mass measurement system using the self-excited oscillation of a nonlinear system is developed. The system contains an on-off relay with dead zone and switches force acting on the object in relation to the position. The mass of the object is determined from the time interval measurement of the on-state and off-state periods. The measurement accuracy is experimentally studied.

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Though activated carbon is well known for its capability to adsorb most organic substances, it lacks selectivity on the adsorbates. Keeping the ruggedness and stability of the activated carbon, molecular sieve has the selectivity which gives different adsorptivity depending on the molecular size of the adsorbates. Coating the molecular sieve on one electrode of a quartz crystal oscillator is conducted to fabricate a gas sensor in this study. The detection performance of the sensors with two different pore sizes of the molecular sieve is examined from their implement in the determination of methanol, ethanol and n-hexane concentration in air. From the performance test, the ruggedness, sensitivity and selectivity of the sensor are investigated. From the variation of oscillation frequency of the sensor, it is found that the variation is proportional to the concentration of the organic vapors. The sensors show good recovery to the initial state when fresh air is provided. While the activated carbon coated sensor doesn’t show selectivity among different organic materials, the molecular sieve coated sensor gives selective detection from methanol and ethanol mixed vapor.

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It is essential for robotic tactile sensors to provide capability of shape discrimination from static touch. For this purpose, the principal curvatures and corresponding principal directions play important roles which define the local shape of the object. This paper proposes a novel acoustic tactile sensing system which identifies a set of principal curvatures and directions on the object surface by utilizing acoustical waves. The major difficulty, however, existing in estimating these parameters is that the wavefront reflected by the paraboloidal surface cannot be described in the linear combination of the plane-waves such that the non-linearity exists between time-of-fright(TOF) and the parameters defining the surface. Avoiding the difficulties, the proposed sensing system utilizing the differences of TOFs between primary and secondary reflections.

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This paper deals with the application of a quartz resonator to a force sensor installed into an active antenna for use in environmental recognition. When the antenna makes contact with its environment, the force sensor can detect the contact force and the contact position. A rectangular plate, a circular plate and a rectangular parallelepiped were recognized by the active antenna.

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This paper deals with development of compliant artificial finger skin surface ridges with a pair of PVDF film strips embedded in each of them as sensing transducers for incipient slip detection in pursit of elucidating the mechanism of human static friction sensing. We describe design and manufacture of the surface ridges and distinctive detection of incipient slip from rolling.

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A key to realize an elastic sensor skin that covers the entire body of machines is removing metal wires to tactile sensing elements. Using wireless tactile sensing chips based on RF connection is a hopeful method, which was proposed recently. However, it is difficult to make the RF tactile sensing element smaller than several millimeters because the energy transmission efficiency decreases as the chip size decreases. In this paper we propose a wireless tactile sensing element based on optical connection. The sensing chip with 1 mm cubic shape operates with optical power, and sends optical codes of 6 stress components measured by an optical sensing method. We describe the chip design and the 6 stress sensing principle, and show experimental results of the stress sensing using a prototype of a 4 mm cubic chip. Then we estimated the required optical power for the sensing chip, and checked the operation of the digital circuit on the chip.

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Previously a parent-children type multi-robot system “Super-Mechano Colony” has been proposed and confirmed its advantages. In this paper, detailed analysis is performed introducing practical factors of energy recharging and collision avoidance. To dissolve the problem caused by introducing, some methods are proposed and evaluated based on the number of times that the problem happens and the amount of consumed energy.

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A Super-Mechano Colony (SMC) is a multi-robot system comprising a mother ship and numerous child robots. The key concept of an SMC is to introduce centralized features to distributed autonomous robotic systems. In this presentation, a new control method is discribed and examined for an SMC to autonomously perform effective object retrieval missions utilizing these centralized features.

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Super-Mechano Colony is a parent-children type multi-robot system proposed for an object retrieval mission over a large field. The present study addresses to gather objects efficiently when objects are concentrated in unknown several small areas. In order to realize an object gathering stream effectively, it is essential to reduce measurement errors included in position estimates. In this manuscript, two basic schemes are described for this purpose. One is to unify information reported by Child Machines on the Parent Machine. The other is to merge information among a number of Child Machines migrating as a party. The validity of this scheme is examined through simulations.

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This paper discusses a formation control of a multiple mobile robot system (MMRS) called Super Mechano Colony (SMC). First, we describe the SMC system composed of a mother ship and many agents as a prototype of MMRS. Second, we propose a cooperative transportation method of the mother ship with multiple agents, and the properties of the proposed method is analyzed using an experimental system.

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We are proposing a new planetary rover system called “SMC rover”. This system consists of one main body and some wheel units, which are detachable and able to work as child rovers, called “Uni-Rover”. Trial models of “Uni-Rover” and “SMC rover” have been designed. This paper explains the mechanisms of this rover, and also the results of basic experiments.

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The demand for mobile robots for hazardous field tasks, such as rescue operations in disaster scenes or landmine detection and removal has been increasing in recent years. Since electrical infrastructure is seldom available in such situations, robots that rely on chemical batteries or/and tethered connections to external electric generators suffer severe limitations in operation time and mobility. This paper presents a new approach, involving the use of a combustion engine for on-board electric energy generation. For practical purposes, the authors used a commercial 4-wheel buggy as the base platform. Mechanical adaptations in the steering, throttle, gearshift and brakes mechanisms were performed, and the developed mobile platform (Gryphon-I) can be computer controlled. This paper introduces new strategies for the control of Gryphon-I over uneven terrain, and the effectiveness of the proposed methods is evaluated experimentally.

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The reusable launch vehicles fly glidingly without any thrusts in the returning phase. In this phase, one of the most possible and important faults in the airframe is a jamming of the elevon. In order to make the control system tolerant to this failure the flight control system is required to keep the stability and the performance even if such failure occurs. Since this kind of faults can be modeled as a structured parameter deviation from robust control point of view, this paper presents some new ideas to realize the fault tolerant flight control system based on the μ-synthesis, and apply it to the reusable launch vehicle HOPE-X(H-II Orbiting Plane-Experimental) as an example. Also, some simulations are demonstrated to verify the usefulness of the proposed method.

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We have already verified the usefulness of the VLBI observation data via Space-VLBI satellite in deep space orbit determination by simulations. Because the sensitivity of the VLBI depends on the geometry between the stations and the radio source, it is necessary to analyze the geometrical relations for actual missions. In this paper, we analyze the iufluences of the typical geometrical relations on the precision of the orbit determination.

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We evaluate the Multiple Maneuver Model (M³) estimator in the short and long range radar and show the problem of the oscillation on mode probabilities. The overlapping coefficient is also proposed as an indicator to analyze the oscillation problem. The results of a Monte-Carlo simulation show that the quality of mode probabilities degrades when the proposed overlapping coefficient falls below the certain value. These results also indicate the overlapping coefficient is available for detecting the model mismatch. In other words, the model mismatch problem could be avoided in advance by monitoring the overlapping coefficient and setting appropriate parameters.

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It is important for a maneuvering target tracking to decide an proper gatesize parameter “d” in clutter environment. There are 2 problems to set gatesize parameter. One of the problems is that d set for a target in cletter environment, the other is that d set for a maneuvering target. By the way, assume that a maneuvering target tracking in long-range radar, has been given, the gate radius of range direction and that of cross-range direction are unbalanced. Therefore if the conventional gating is applied to the maneuvering target tracking in long-ranged radar, it is impossible to control the gate radiuses of range direction and cross-range direction in the conventional gating. That is the reason the conventional gating has only one gatesize parameter which influences the gate radiuses of range direction and cross-range direction. To solve this problem, we propose a new gating which can set the gatesize parameter of range direction and that of cross-range direction independently. The computer simulations show an effectiveness of our idea by comparing our method with convensional method.

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This paper provides a measuremnet model for Linear FM(LFM) chirp waveforms in Cartesian coordinate. The model is derived by first incorporating the Doppler shift term into the measurement model in radar coordinate, and then transform it to Cartesian coordinate. The proposed model is then applied to a simple airplane tracking problem. The simulation result shows better tracking performance than the case with ordinary measurement model. It is also shown that up chirp radars has better tracking performance than down chirp radars.

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This paper is concerned with the mixed H₂/H_∞ control problem. The purpose of this paper is to give an iterative method for obtaining a sub-optimal solution. The obtained controller is the global optimal solution or a sub-optimal solution on the boundary of H_∞ constraint. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by a numerical example.

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This note extends guaranteed cost control based on the linear upper bound to the case with cross product terms in the performance index and shows that the design problem can result in the solvability of the stochastic algebraic Riccati equation with cross product terms (SARECP). It is shown that there exists a solution under stabilizabilty, detectability and the assumption that the system perturbations and cross terms are not too large.

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We consider robust state feedback control problems of a nonlinear system subject to state saturation and disturbance input. A controller design procedure for the system with state saturation is presented, and the stability properties of the closed loop system under the injection of L₂ and L_∞ disturbances are clarified.

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In this paper, a new H_∞ controller reduction method are proposed to preserve the H_∞ property using frequency-weightings. The weightings are obtained easily from the form of all controllers satisfying the H_∞ performance requirement. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

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For a traveling crane, various control methods such as fuzzy control and optimum control are studied. In the control of an actual traveling crane, it is important to accurately stop the crane at the desired position by positioning control and anti-sway control. In this paper, we used the H_∞ control theory which performs well even when there are modeling errors and parameter variations. The results of several experiments confirmed that the H_∞ control system is effective.

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In digital tele-communication, the delay time of the transmission isn’t fixed. One solution is to design a new digital controller which is composed of an analog controller and two digital compensators. However, this system is weak to measurement noise. We develop a new digital controller that can cope with the problems of measurement noise by applying the H_∞ control method.

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This paper presents a control method of robotics for tele-manipulation based on master slave control using virtual internal model. To show that the slave systems having different dynamics can be controlled by one master-device, a tele-manipulation of wheeled mobile robot and a conventional scalar types robots are dealt. The control system is designed so that the positions or velocities of the slaves track reference signals which are generated by the virtual internal model. The proposed approach is found effective by simulation.

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Adaptive PVFC is proposed for a robot manipulator to interact with its uncertain environmental geometric constraints. This approach first parameterizes the desired velocity vector field by the weighted combination of a set of basis vector fields. Force feedback is then used to adjust the weight parameters so as to modify the desired velocity field to approach the real environmental geometric constraints. Simulation studies of a 2 D.O.F. robot interact with an uncertain circle show the effectiveness of our approach.

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This paper deals with the stability of multi-fingered robot hand grasping. First, the problem is addressed at the force planning level. Next, the end point stiffness is distributed between redundant finger joints. The resulting control law is tested by an experiment with 3-fingered robot hand.

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