Sit-to-stand motion is an important daily activity, and it is important to study the mechanism of the motion to improve the ability when it becomes weak. To study the mechanism, we hypothesized that muscle synergy generates muscle activity as a feedforward signal, which is modified by sensory input. This study focuses on determining the sensory input primarily used for modifying sit-to-stand motion

ABSTRACT Tidy-up tasks by service robots in home environments are challenging in robotics applications because they involve various interactions with the environment. In particular, robots are required not only to grasp, move, and release various home objects but also to plan the order and positions for placing the objects. In this paper, we propose a novel planning method that can efficiently estimate

A reactive motion-planning for collaborative robots using the time-layered C-spaces (TLC-spaces) is proposed in this paper. First, the time-augmented C-space (TAC-space) is introduced. TAC-space is an implementation of the configuration-time space with multiple moving obstacles [Latombe JC. Robot motion planning. Kluwer Academic; 1991. p. 22, 23]. The TAC-space is obtained by stacking the current and

ABSTRACT Robotic devices for nursing care are expected to help caregivers work with the elderly. Some robotic devices assist in the physical transfer of the elderly, and these robots come in contact with large surfaces of the human body. The regions of the buttock and the back may be uncomfortable due to the surface material or motions of the robotic devices. Therefore, sensing devices simulating a

A control architecture for robust biped navigation that takes into account traversability on terrain, foot-reachability, and capturability all at once in dynamic situations is proposed. It consists of online mapping of terrain and quick decision of foot placement. A grid map with elevation, normal direction and the standard deviation of measurement is proposed for the former and is named the stochastic

The goal state of the robot motion involved in an action is determined by the action model based on the effect of the action and the scene state. This study focuses on serving food as a robot action; the action model of serving food is obtained based on demonstrations. The arrangement position is determined by considering the spatial relations between the object being served and the multiple selected

(2021). Special issue on cyborg and bionic systems III. Advanced Robotics: Vol. 35, Special Issue on Cyborg and Bionic Systems III, pp. 399-399.

Locomotion in unstructured and irregular environments is an enduring challenge in robotics. This is particularly true at the small scale, where relative obstacle size increases, often to the point that a robot is required to climb and transition both over obstacles and between locomotion modes. In this paper, we explore the efficacy of different design features, using ‘morphological intelligence’,

Computational models of motor learning have been examined experimentally with human participants using a robotic manipulandum that produces force perturbations on their reach trajectories. Here, we developed a small-scale robotic manipulandum for rodent studies. This device enabled us to conduct the same motor control experiments typically used for human study on rodents in order to examine the neural

We propose a novel method by which a daily assistive robot can learn a new task from a user with no technical knowledge. The system is inspired by Mitate, the human capacity to communicate the movement of a tool using a different tool in a different environment. We confirmed experimentally that the system can learn a new trajectory of an object in the hand according to the online instruction by a human

This paper proposes an adaptive pin-array fixture. The key idea of this research is to use the shape-memorable mechanism of the pin array to fix multiple different shaped parts with a common pin configuration. The clamping area consists of a matrix of passively slid-able pins that conform themselves to the contour of the target object. The vertical motion of the pins enables the fixture to encase the

ABSTRACT Placing objects is a fundamental task for domestic service robots (DSRs). Thus, inferring the collision-risk before a placing motion is crucial for achieving the requested task. This problem is particularly challenging because it is necessary to predict what happens if an object is placed in a cluttered designated area. We show that a rule-based approach that uses plane detection, to detect

ABSTRACT Skilled musicians can improvise with first-time partners. Thus, the question arises how the adaptability to others can emerge through the mutual motor learning experience. We developed a two-person cooperative visuomotor task; an object was connected through virtual springs with the cursors controlled by the subjects. We instructed paired subjects to jointly control the object toward a specified

ABSTRACT In recent years, pneumatically driven soft-fingered hands constructed from polymer materials have been developed to grasp variously shaped objects. In general, the motion-control ability of these hands is limited to grasping objects. A dexterous manipulation requires pinching and in-hand manipulation. However, this is difficult because soft-fingered hands face two major problems of low positioning

We propose the control method for a snake robot to pass through a self-closing door. The proposed method is realized by applying the two-point simultaneous control method. The position and orientation of head and tail of the robot are controlled simultaneously by using the two-point simultaneous control method. By controlling the position and orientation of the head of the robot, the robot opens the

The COVID-19 pandemic keeps spreading across the world and, while national governments concentrate on lockdowns and restrictions to mitigate the disaster, advanced technologies could be employed more widely to fight the pandemic. This paper surveys existing robotic solutions that could be employed for pandemic care and presents a systematized description of desired robot properties based on a particular

This paper describes a method of recognizing green perilla leaves using a deep neural network for harvest support in greenhouse horticulture. We are developing a robot for harvest support, which automates the selection and bundling process. In order to manipulate green perilla leaves correctly, the robot needs to precisely estimate their geometrical parameters such as width, height, and orientation

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present a structured approach to selecting and designing a set of grippers for an assembly task. Compared to current experience-based gripper design method, our approach accelerates the design process by automatically generating a set of initial design options for gripper types and parameters according to the CAD models of assembly components. We use mesh segmentation techniques

This paper presents a method for determining the posture of a mobile manipulator aiming to reach a target end-effector pose. A posture is composed of two parameters: the pose of the mobile platform and joint angles of the manipulator. To determine the platform pose rationally, we propose a novel posture evaluation method focusing on the pose error associated with the end-effector and caused by the

We can catch all sorts of falling objects like eggs or balls. We must predict the dynamical properties of objects to interact with them, but doing so precisely is difficult. The CNS is suggested to modulate the mechanical impedance of the musculoskeletal dynamics to accomplish robust control and overcome variability in environmental dynamics. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that musculoskeletal

Human–robot interactions are increasingly taking place between a robot agent and a human observer who, unable to witness all aspects of the robot's behaviour, is uncertain as to how the robot will behave. This uncertainty has serious consequences when it concerns the normative aspects of machine behaviour: that is, whether the robot's actions are morally permissible. Bringing together distinct threads

Point cloud information is a convenient means to accomplish grasp detection in autonomous robotic grasping. However, the performance of various state-of-the-art grasp detection methods that use point cloud decreases significantly when the available point cloud information is incomplete and the background is complex, i.e. heterogeneous. To solve this problem, we propose a robust grasp detection method

(2021). Special issue on embodied haptic technology for human augmentation. Advanced Robotics: Vol. 35, SI on Embodied Haptic Technology for Human Augmentation, pp. 267-267.

In the past, white canes, guide dogs, and guide helpers have served to assist visually impaired people when walking outdoors. However, these assistance methods have various limitations for extended and suitable usage. Therefore, our laboratory herein proposes a route guidance device that signals commands to the end-user by giving a sense of force to the thumb. The guide device is driven on the common

ABSTRACT Strokes are the third leading cause of disability worldwide. Currently, several types of performance assessment, such as the Fugl–Meyer index, are used to explore the overall difference between cerebral infarction (CI) and cerebral hemorrhage (CH) post-stroke patients. However, these performance assessments ignore subtle differences in the limbs of patients, which could be helpful for rehabilitation

In the central nervous system, regional neuronal inhibition plays important roles in functional segregation. Here, we showed how brain deactivation, which is a putative index of neuronal inhibition, develops and ages using a unimanual motor task. Healthy right-handed children (8–11 years), adolescents (12–15 years), young adults (20–24 years), and older adults (69–75 years; 21 participants in each

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to understand if and how interactions with Sexual Robots will modify users’ relational abilities in human-human relations. We first underline that, in today’s scholar discussion on the ‘symbolic argument’, there is no theoretical framework explaining the process of symbolic shift between human-robot interactions (HRI) and human-human interactions (HHI). To clarify

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on ethics in AI focusing particularly on the social and ethical issues which emerge during human–conversational agent interaction. Those issues will be approached adopting both the perspective of the user and the one of the machine. In fact, it is often stressed the need to include the ethical component within system's design, which it is certainly

(2021). Special Issue on Intelligent Autonomous Systems. Advanced Robotics: Vol. 35, Special Issue on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, pp. 129-129.

We present a novel approach to automatic indoor scene reconstruction from RGB-D images acquired from a single viewpoint using active vision. The proposed method is designed to select the next view with sufficient information for reliable registration. The next view is selected based on the percentage of unexplored scene regions captured inside the field of view and the information content in the overlapping

ABSTRACT In this paper, a modified algorithm of the Rapidly exploring Random Tree star (RRT*) is proposed. This method is called RRT*N. The main advantage of this method is its speed and robustness in finding the path to the target. An extension of this method to the 3D case is also presented and its capability of handling static obstacles and dynamic unknown moving obstacles in 2D and 3D environments

ABSTRACT Pressure ulcers are caused by tissue damage, which occurs when the blood supply to an area of skin is diminished because of sustained or concentrated pressure on a patient from the mattresses of a bed. One action that concentrates the pressure is a bed head elevation operation. Recently, a control system known as the alternative pressure mattress has been proposed to prevent the concentration

ABSTRACT Inspection of critical social infrastructures, which are mainly made of concrete, is a pressing issue. Weakly supervised methods are interesting for such critical tasks because they allow a unique mix of human involvement and automation. However, humans can make mistakes, resulting in the system being misled. In the present paper is proposed a framework for weakly supervised defect detection

ABSTRACT At modern construction sites, utilizing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) to measure the real-time location and orientation (i.e. pose) of construction machines and navigate them is very common. However, GNSS is not always available. Replacing GNSS with on-board cameras and visual simultaneous localization and mapping (visual SLAM) to navigate the machines is a cost-effective solution

ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose a novel method to generate realistic acoustic datasets for forward-looking sonars. A forward-looking sonar, which is also known as an acoustic camera, outperforms other imaging sensor when applied in underwater tasks as it can provide more accurate and detailed information about the environment, even in dark or turbid water. However, the difficulty and high cost of

In this paper, a neuro-sliding mode controller (SMC) has been designed for a quadrotor transporting a suspended payload. SMCs are very efficient under uncertain conditions. However, if the uncertain dynamics change over time, SMC gains need to be updated to maintain the tracking performance. This study proposes a neuro-SMC to control a quadrotor UAV carrying a suspended payload in the existence of

(2021). Special Issue on Intelligent Autonomous Systems. Advanced Robotics: Vol. 35, Special Issue on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, pp. 129-129.

ABSTRACT The commutation torque ripple of the joint drive motor in the humanoid flexible arm provides significance to the stability of the arm joints. Here, we established a model of the joint drive system to explain the influence of driving motor output torque on joint motion state and analyzed the mechanism of commutation torque pulsation. This general model of the drive system was established based

The effectiveness of rehabilitation treatment with the Body Weight Support (BWS) system has been demonstrated in patients with stroke and spinal cord injury. Many recent studies used expensive force sensors to realize the force control, which plays an important role in a BWS system. To reduce the system cost and complexity, and overcome some shortcomings of force sensors like measurement noise and

We present a novel approach to automatic indoor scene reconstruction from RGB-D images acquired from a single viewpoint using active vision. The proposed method is designed to select the next view with sufficient information for reliable registration. The next view is selected based on the percentage of unexplored scene regions captured inside the field of view and the information content in the overlapping

This paper describes a method of recognizing green perilla leaves using a deep neural network for harvest support in greenhouse horticulture. We are developing a robot for harvest support, which automates the selection and bundling process. In order to manipulate green perilla leaves correctly, the robot needs to precisely estimate their geometrical parameters such as width, height, and orientation

ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose a novel method to generate realistic acoustic datasets for forward-looking sonars. A forward-looking sonar, which is also known as an acoustic camera, outperforms other imaging sensor when applied in underwater tasks as it can provide more accurate and detailed information about the environment, even in dark or turbid water. However, the difficulty and high cost of

ABSTRACT Pressure ulcers are caused by tissue damage, which occurs when the blood supply to an area of skin is diminished because of sustained or concentrated pressure on a patient from the mattresses of a bed. One action that concentrates the pressure is a bed head elevation operation. Recently, a control system known as the alternative pressure mattress has been proposed to prevent the concentration

The effectiveness of rehabilitation treatment with the Body Weight Support (BWS) system has been demonstrated in patients with stroke and spinal cord injury. Many recent studies used expensive force sensors to realize the force control, which plays an important role in a BWS system. To reduce the system cost and complexity, and overcome some shortcomings of force sensors like measurement noise and

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present a structured approach to selecting and designing a set of grippers for an assembly task. Compared to current experience-based gripper design method, our approach accelerates the design process by automatically generating a set of initial design options for gripper types and parameters according to the CAD models of assembly components. We use mesh segmentation techniques

ABSTRACT At modern construction sites, utilizing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) to measure the real-time location and orientation (i.e. pose) of construction machines and navigate them is very common. However, GNSS is not always available. Replacing GNSS with on-board cameras and visual simultaneous localization and mapping (visual SLAM) to navigate the machines is a cost-effective solution

In this paper, a neuro-sliding mode controller (SMC) has been designed for a quadrotor transporting a suspended payload. SMCs are very efficient under uncertain conditions. However, if the uncertain dynamics change over time, SMC gains need to be updated to maintain the tracking performance. This study proposes a neuro-SMC to control a quadrotor UAV carrying a suspended payload in the existence of

The human skin has amplifier functions for tactile sense. Pacinian corpuscles of mechanoreceptors are sensitive to vibrotactile stimulation, despite their distributions in the deep portion in the skin. Collagen fibers within the subcutaneous tissue help in the transmission of stress to the deep portion. The sensing elements embedded in the deep portion can soften the tactile sensors and provide robustness

In ecology and ethology, a technique called ‘bio-logging’ has been used to record the behaviour of wild animals by attaching a small logger, which includes a global positioning system (GPS) or acceleration sensor, to the animal of interest. This method's disadvantage is that the recovery of the logger is inefficient. In this study, we propose a data logger separator, which solves this problem by focussing

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a control method to handle a state transition between a non-contact state and a contact state. The method is based on only force control instead of switching strategy between position control and force control. The main idea of the method is to utilize outputs of reflective proximity sensors as virtual forces and change the emitting energy of the sensors to adjust the magnitudes

ABSTRACT The use of physical assistant robots is expanding to activities of daily living. However, the risk of a user falling which can occur in various environments has not yet been considered despite this being a major concern for such robots. Therefore, this study focuses on curving motion, during which falling is more likely to occur, especially when the degree of freedom of the hip joint is restricted

ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose a self-supervised optical flow-based approach to learn the rotation of an arbitrarily moving spherical camera. Nowadays, deep learning has enabled efficient learning of camera rotation efficiently. However, most approaches are fully supervised and require large datasets with ground-truth labels of the rotation, and these labels are difficult to acquire. We attempt

ABSTRACT Various guidelines for the social implementation of autonomous robots have been developed so far; however, how these guidelines are used remains an issue. In this study, the concept of legitimacy is used as a criterion to evaluate such guidelines. From the perspective of legitimacy, sociological acceptance, moral legitimacy, and future expectations can be considered constitutional and legal

ABSTRACT This study describes a method for generating the online motion of multi-degree of freedom robot. To quickly generate motion, we adopt an approach that accumulates a robot's past motion experiences and subsequently selects and modifies the appropriate motions from this experience. The key aspect of our method involves using swept volume. As a pre-processing step, the robot's movements for reaching

We present a novel neural decoding system for calcium imaging data. Miniature calcium imaging is of great utility for examining population neural activity of animals. Our neural decoding system is developed using a carefully designed support vector machine subsystem together with dataflow-based techniques for system design, which capture the high-level structure of the application and enable powerful

ABSTRACT To reduce human intervention in the process of manually teaching assembly sequences to industrial robots, we developed an automated sequence planning method using only a 3D CAD model. In the proposed method, first, to find an assembly sequence for many parts, a genetic algorithm generates the initial chromosome based on interference, rather than merely generating a randomized initial chromosome

ABSTRACT The paper is concerned with force-sensorless estimation of human joint impedance utilizing an impulsive force. We analyze the dynamic response of a human joint induced by the impulsive perturbation and derive the relationship between the amplitude of the perturbation force and the initial value of the induced angular velocity. This relationship means that the force amplitude required by the

ABSTRACT We found that a spiral coil placed beneath a fingertip enhances tactile sensation while tracing small undulated surfaces. Hence, we investigated the mechanism underlying the enhanced tactile sensation. We evaluated the amplification effect quantitatively to demonstrate that the coil increases the tactile sensation in the finger pad. Specifically, we installed a strain gauge between the spiral

ABSTRACT This paper proposes RUR53: an Unmanned Ground Vehicle able to navigate through, identify, and reach areas of interest. There, it can recognize, localize, and manipulate work tools to perform both indoor and outdoor complex tasks. Indeed, a wide range of sensors composes the robot and enables it to perceive vast workspaces, reach distant targets, and face the uncertainties of the real world

ABSTRACT The present paper introduces a near-future perception system called Previewed Reality. In a co-existence environment of a human and a robot, unexpected collisions between the human and the robot must be avoided to the extent possible. In many cases, the robot is controlled carefully so as not to collide with a human. However, it is almost impossible to perfectly predict human behavior in advance