21 accepted papers
The demand for personal mobility devices (PMDs) has increased, prompting studies on various control interfaces such as joysticks and handlebars. However, these interfaces remain external to the PMD, and no system has been developed in which the PMD itself functions as the interface. This study propo…
Gas pipelines damaged by aging or earthquakes need a robotic system that can quickly inspect 50-mm-diameter service lines, consisting of horizontal and vertical pipes connected by elbow joints, tees, or sockets, from the inside. However, conventional pipe inspection robots do not target 50-mm pipes …
Tactile sensors are indispensable in robotic systems because they deliver vital contact information during environmental interactions. In our work, we leverage the variable compliance of a porous material—where different interaction forces induce varying degrees of compliance—to achieve self-adaptin
Bio-inspired multi-joint snake robots offer the advantages of terrain adaptability due to their limbless structure and high flexibility. However, a series of dozens of motor units in typical multiple-joint snake robots results in a heavy body structure and hundreds of watts of high power consumption
Fatal accidents caused by the overturning of heavy machines still happen, so the prediction and prevention of overturns are urgently needed. Indicators to evaluate overturn, such as the energy stability margin (ESM), have been proposed but are limited to a non-slip ground surface. Even if ESM is abo
Jamming grippers can grasp objects of various shapes with simple control. However, grasping fragile objects is challenging, as a secure grasp requires firm pressing, which can potentially damage delicate objects. Thus, it is important to achieve an appropriate pressing distance for damage-free grasp
Tactile sensors are crucial in robotics as they enable robots to perceive and interact with their environment through touch, akin to the human sense of touch. Adjustable sensors that can adapt to various tasks by functional or structural modification have not been extensively explored. In terms of s…
Collaborative robots that operate safely close to workers without fences have attracted attention, but few examples of such human-robot collaboration (HRC) have been seen in factories. The main reason is the difficulty in balancing safety and productivity. Current fenceless HRC systems stop the robo
Handovers play a key role in human-robot interactions. However, current research focuses on visible-hand handovers, thereby heavily relying on hand detection. Large objects in human-robot interactions present a unique challenge: they inherently block the person’s hands and arms from the robot's view…
In both teleoperation in real space and exploration in virtual space, ‘passive’ and ‘active’ haptic feedback can help to improve the performance of the task, especially in object handover and exploring. However, the current wearable haptic devices are hard to display continuous omnidirectional motio…
A treadmill system has a large potential to provide humans with an augmented walking experience in real-life without a spatial limitation. However, a treadmill gait is different from walking on level ground. In previous studies, the adaptive belt speed control of a treadmill was developed to achieve…
To smoothly and efficiently enable autonomous mobile robots to move in human crowd environments, path planning based on human movement-prediction, reactive movement toward human movement, and active motion-inducing physical interaction to avoid getting stuck are required. In this study, we developed
The skin is an important organ which enables humans to interact with the unstructured environment around. It is perfectly soft and covers the entire body providing immediate feedback even when that part is not directly in the field of vision. With the human skin as an inspiration, in this paper, we…
Conventional soft robotic grippers have been developed based on soft pneumatic actuators or using smart soft materials, but they need external pressure sources, are easily deteriorated or used in millimetric-scale, which leads to increase of the independency, instability, and vulnerability. In this
Gas pipeline requires to be inspected regularly for leakages caused by natural disaster. Robots are widely used for pipeline inspection since they are more convenient than manual inspection. Several problems, however, exist due to the restriction by complex pipe networks. The most significant one is…
Some electric-powered wheelchairs are recently redefined as personal mobility devices. Their users are not only elderly or handicapped people, but also passengers with large baggage or pedestrians going from station to destination, i.e., last-mile transport. Consequently, people with different opera…
Disaster response crawler robot OCTOPUS has four arms and four flippers for better adaptability to disaster environments. To further improve the robot mobility and terrain adaptability in unstructured terrain, we propose a new locomotion control method called compound motion pattern (CMP) for multi-…
We developed a four-arm four-crawler advanced disaster response robot called OCTOPUS. Disaster response robots are expected to be capable of both mobility, e.g., entering narrow spaces over very rough unstable ground, and workability, e.g., conducting complex debris-demolition work. However, convent
The advantages of mechanical compliance have driven the development of devices using new smart materials. A new kind of magnetorheological piston based on a toroidal array of magnetorheological valves, has been previously tested to prove its feasibility. However, being an initial prototype its poten…
A new design of a magnetorheological piston prototype intended for passive or active force control in robotic applications for human robot interaction is introduced. It is based in a novel toroidal array of valves, contained within the piston head, which are used to control the output force of the a…
Unmanned construction machines are used after disasters. Compared with manned construction, time efficiency is lower because of incomplete visual information, communication delay, and lack of tactile experience. We have developed an autonomous camera control system to supply appropriate visual infor…