24 accepted papers
Current Vision-based SLAM systems fail catastrophically when motion blur corrupts the visual input, as they attempt the ill-posed inverse problem of recovering sharp content from degraded observations. We present MotionGS-SLAM, which fundamentally reimagines motion blur handling through a paradigm s…
This study focuses on modeling the transmission torque of two coaxial electrorheological (ER) fluid clutches through a data-driven approach. Instead of simplifying the viscosity term in the Bingham model to be a constant as shown in conventional methods, we propose the method of introducing electric…
This study focuses on modeling the transmission torque of two coaxial electrorheological (ER) fluid clutches through a data-driven approach. Instead of simplifying the viscosity term in the Bingham model to be a constant as shown in conventional methods, we propose the method of introducing electric
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) play a crucial role in various scenarios ranging from disaster response to traffic surveillance. However, aerial video footage often suffers from severe motion blur due to rapid flight maneuvers, vibrations, and camera panning, which can significantly degrade downstre
Underwater images suffer from color distortion, haze, and poor visibility due to light refraction and absorption in water. These challenges significantly impact the utilization of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) or marine robots. Typically, color and brightness distortions manifest at lower fr…
Detecting the micromovements of eyes that reflect a person’s inner state can be an essential step in many applications, but most eye trackers need to fix the subject’s head using a chin rest to obtain sufficient data quality. We propose a stand-alone eye tracker that utilizes two 500 fps cameras, a…
In this study, a visual shock absorber capable of adapting to free-fall objects with various weights and speeds is designed and realized. The key element is a magnetic gear to passively absorb shock in the moment of contact, which is difficult for traditional feedback control to deal with. The magne…
In this study, Magripper, a highly backdrivable gripper, is developed to achieve high-speed hitting grasping executed seamlessly from reaching. The gripper is designed to achieve both high speed and environmental adaptability. The key element is backdrivability in terms of both hardware and control.…
This study proposes a dynamic observable contact (DOC) hand as a new multifingered hand to ensure high- speed insertion in an assembly process with a small clearance between objects. To achieve insertion with a small clearance at high speed, a robot hand must realize both impact reduction and positi…
In this letter, we propose a combination of sensing and control modules for catching soft objects (i.e., a marshmallow and paper balloon) at a high speed with small deformation. A paper balloon and marshmallow are deformed by a small force and they have individual differences in terms of softness. T
We developed a fingertip-size proximity sensor that detects the distance to and the tilt angle of the surface of an object with the peak-to-peak distance error less than 1/129th (<;31 μm) and the measuring time less than 1/10th (<;1 ms) those of existing sensors. In addition, we realized the task of
The regrasping function of a robotic hand and arm has been investigated by many studies. Dynamic regrasping is performed by accelerating objects and it has the advantage of being able to perform the regrasp function at high speed. However, the difficulty of increasing the success rate is a persisten…
Humans interact with deformable objects on a daily basis but this still represents a challenge for robots. To enable manipulation of and interaction with deformable objects, robots need to be able to extract and learn the deformability of objects both prior to and during the interaction. Physics-bas…
In this study, the impedance control for smoothly receiving the impact of an incoming object is designed and realized. The control strategy is based on the idea that the back drive motion of an end effector attributable to the collision impact is regarded as plastic deformation of the robot. The imp
In this study, a deformation control with spatial decoupling properties is designed and implemented. This control strategy treats the shift in position and posture attributable to an external force as the deformation of the robot. The deformation dynamics are constructed from the Maxwell and Voigt m…
This paper focuses on high-performance robotic contour tracking under the uncertainties that commonly exist in actual robotic applications. These uncertainties can be attributed to the robot itself (such as modeling errors or mechanical defects like backlash) or to environmental issues (such as cali
This work employs an adaptive learning mechanism to perform tracking of an unknown object through RGBD cameras. We extend our previous framework to robustly track a wider range of arbitrarily shaped objects by adapting the model to the measured object size. The size is estimated as the object underg
In this paper we focus on master-slave robot hand systems that can realize non-contact sensing and intuitive mapping between human hand motion and robot hand motion. Such a master-slave robot hand system can be effective from a viewpoint of usability. However, conventional systems are not able to ad…
High-speed vision technology in which not just image capturing and recording but also image processing are executed simultaneously at high frame rates, exceeding video rates (30 Hz), has recently been considered an important technology for various applications, such as robotics, and man-machine inte…
We developed an optical high-speed image rotation controller and realized a high-speed roll camera that is able to cancel the rotational motion blur of a rotating target. This system is composed of a hollow motor, a Dove prism, and a high-speed camera and controls optical image rotation according to…
A precise calibration method for optical high-speed gaze controllers using rotational mirrors is proposed. The mirror-based pan/tilt camera can change gaze direction more quickly than a conventional pan-tilt-zoom camera, which actuates the camera itself. The high-speed gaze controller can track movi…
Realizing accurate robotic manipulation of flexible objects is very challenging. It asks for dexterous manipulation skill, and demands good adaptation to dynamic uncertainties due to deformation. Unlike traditional methods that basically depend on complex modeling, we follow the opposite approach by…
Visual tracking of unknown objects is an essential task in robotic perception, of importance to a wide range of applications. In the general scenario, the robot has no full 3D model of the object beforehand, just the partial view of the object visible in the first video frame. A tracker with this in…
A visually guided shock absorber for high-speed catching without rebound is designed and realized. This visual shock absorber is based on the Maxwell model, which uses plastic deformation to suppress rebounding. The shock absorber is constructed from a spring-based passive elastic body and a servo c…