Robots caring for the older population in care facilities and at home is an ongoing theme in HRI research. Research projects on this topic exist all over the globe in the USA, Europe, and Asia. All of these projects have the overall ambitious goal to increase the well-being of older adults and to enable them to stay at home as long as possible. In this workshop we want to reflect whether the HRI community is trapped in stereotypes when it comes to socially assistive robots for older adults' Therefore we want to gather and compare findings from user needs analysis, user evaluation studies, as well as interaction scenarios and functionalities of existing care robots. Are our results suggesting similar scenarios? Do older end users in all countries have similar needs and desires when it comes to assistive robots? What are the challenges and opportunities for future assistive robots (maybe for those we develop for ourselves when we belong to the older population?) also on an ethical and legal level? In this workshop we want to escape the stereotype trap what socially assistive robots should do. Can socially assistive robots solve the aging population problem on a societal and individual level? Are older people in general technology opponents? Will robotic helpers be accepted in the home as long as they pretend to be social actors.

Robot therapy is expected to have psychological, physiological, and social effects similar to those of animal therapy. The therapeutic seal robot, PARO, is used in various facilities for the elderly, and its use spreading throughout the world. In previous studies, the effects of PARO were examined by various types of tests. However, the number of subjects in those studies was low. In this study, PARO was introduced in 10 facilities for the elderly, and 83 elderly individuals interacted with it under “the Nursing-care Robot Promotion Project” sponsored by Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. We reported the results of this experiment during the first week in RO-MAN 2013. This paper reports the follow-up results of this experiment for one month.

Robot therapy is expected to have psychological, physiological, and social effects similar to those of animal therapy. The therapeutic seal robot, PARO, is used in various facilities for the elderly, and its use spreading throughout the world. In previous studies, the effects of PARO were examined by various types of tests. However, the number of subjects in those studies was low. In this study, PARO was introduced in 10 facilities for the elderly, and 83 elderly individuals interacted with it under “the Nursing-care Robot Promotion Project” sponsored by Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. This paper reports the results of this experiment during the first week.

Brain activities during interaction with a seal robot, “PARO,” and subsequent resting periods were measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). In this study, there were two experimental tasks: interaction with PARO switched ON (PARO ON) and interaction with PARO switched OFF (PARO OFF) with a one-minute rest before and after the tasks. The results show significant decreased brain activities around the motor cortex area after the PARO OFF task compared with those during the PARO OFF task. These areas of the brain are supposed to be a function of planning, control, and execution of voluntary movement. This indicates that when participants touch and interact with PARO, they might voluntarily interact. Therefore, there was a reduction of brain activity in the brain areas related to the function of voluntary movement, the so-called “motor cortex area.” Conversely, there were significant decreased brain activities in the left side of the frontal areas after the PARO ON task compared with those during the PARO ON task. The results suggest that when participants interact with PARO, they might recognize the positive emotional gesture expression of PARO. Therefore, after interaction with PARO, brain activities in the areas related to happy emotion processing were reduced. The results explain the improvement of mood by interaction with PARO from of a physiological point of view.

Recently developed robotics technologies are used not only in factories, but also in our daily living environment. Human-interactive robots, used to improve the quality of life, are becoming increasingly common. Their purposes and functions vary depending on their use, such as assistance, therapy, guide, entertainment, and education. Robot therapy, which uses robots as a substitution for animals in “animal therapy,” is a new robot application in the fields of welfare and patient care. The seal robot PARO began development for robot therapy in 1993. PARO was commercialized in Japan in 2005, and in Europe and the United States in 2009, and it has been used in hospitals and care facilities in approximately 30 countries. Recent research has revealed that robot therapy has a similar effect on patients as animal therapy. In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certified PARO as a “biofeedback medical device.” While PARO can be used in various kinds of therapy similar to that where real animals are used, this study focuses on its use with elderly dementia patients because explicit differences can be easily observed before and after interacting with PARO. First, this paper explains the purposes and functions of PARO. Second, because there are several observational studies on the therapeutic effects of the elderly with dementia interacting with PARO, some typical cases and interesting special cases are introduced. These cases include recovery from depression, reduction of agitation, and recovery from speech disorders. Finally, this paper discusses why PARO has the potential to change moods and behaviors of the elderly with dementia as a nonpharmacological approach.

Brain activity during interaction with seal robot “Paro” was measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). In the pilot study, there were two experimental tasks: Interaction with Paro that was switched ON (Paro ON) and Paro that was switched OFF (Paro OFF) with one minute rest before and after the tasks. The results showed significant activations around the pre-motor area and the supplementary motor area (SMA) during Paro OFF task compared with rest condition before the task. These areas are supposed to be a function of initiating action. This indicates that when participants touched and interacted with Paro, they might intentionally interact. On the other hand, there were significant increased brain activations on both sides of the Sylvian fissure during Paro ON task compared with rest condition before the task. The results suggest that when participants interacted with Paro, they might recognize the emotional gesture expression of Paro. They might communicate with Paro naturally without intention of interaction.

We conducted a questionnaire survey for owners of Paro, using the questionnaires sent with Paro when they purchased it. They answered the questionnaires voluntarily; therefore, the results may reflect the positive tendency of respondents who like Paro or like to play with Paro. In this study, the owners' attributes and interaction with Paro are analyzed for indications of robot design for human-robot interaction intended for home use. The results showed that about 70% of the respondents were female and over 60 years old, and most of them cannot keep pets because they worry about the pet's death and find pet care difficult. The pet type robots for the elderly may, therefore, need to be designed for easy care. The sense of touch and word recognition are also important functions for interactive pet type robot design, along with its facial expressions and physical reactions to express emotions. Furthermore, taking into account of improvements of the robot, the weight of Paro and the battery needs to be customized. It is expected that these results will help in designing pet type robots.

Questionnaires have been conducted to the owners of Paro in order to investigate people living with Paro at home. Although service robots such as AIBO have been commercialized and tend to be familiar with us, researches on owners' background are few. The owners of Paro answered the questionnaires and 85 feedbacks were obtained. The results showed that majority of the owners were females and have kept pets before, but cannot keep pets currently. Important factors for females to keep Paro seem to be not only ldquoCan touch and hugrdquo but also ldquotactile texturerdquo. In addition, although animal preference seems to influence the way to touch Paro; it does not influence the evaluation of Paro. This tendency seems to be due to different playing style. This paper presents the analyzed data of the effects of owners' sex difference and animal preference on interaction with Paro.

This paper describes research on a ldquomental commitment robotrdquo. These robots have a different target audience to industrial robots, one that is not so rigidly dependent on objective measures such as accuracy and speed. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with the emphasis on human-robot interaction. In previous research, we classified robots into four categories, which related to their appearance. We then introduced a robot cat and a robot seal, which we evaluated by interviewing a large group of people. The results showed that physical interaction improved their subjective evaluation of the robots. Moreover, a priori knowledge of a subject has a considerable influence on the subjective interpretation and evaluation of mental commitment robots. In this paper, we asked several groups of subjects to evaluate the seal robot known as dasiaParopsila by answering questionnaires that were given out in exhibitions that were held in seven different countries; Japan, U.K., Sweden, Italy, Korea, Brunei and U.S. This paper reports the results of statistical analysis of the evaluation data.

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted since June 2005. Two therapeutic seal robots were introduced and activated for over 9 hours every day to interact with the residents. This paper presents a progress report of this experiment. In order to investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, each subject was interviewed by using the free pile sort method, and their subjective social network was analysed. In addition, the activities of the residents in public areas were recorded by video cameras during daytime hours (8:30-18:00) for over 2 months. Then, their social network was analysed from the video data objectively. The results showed that the density of the social networks was increased through interaction with the robots subjectively and objectively.

This paper presents our work on the therapeutic robotics project EmotiRob which is the continuity of the MAPH (Active Media For the Handicap) project in emotion synthesis. Our aim is to maintain emotional interaction with children. For this, word, movement, and emotion synthesis are used. Here, we strive to define a robot face which is a compromise between expressive richness and mechanical simplicity. We propose a method for modeling and dynamizing a face able to express emotions.

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted since June 2005. Two therapeutic seal robots were introduced and activated for over 9 hours every day to interact with the residents. This paper presents the results of this experiment for two months. In order to investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, each subject was interviewed by using the free pile sort method, and their social relationship was analysed. The results showed that the robots encouraged them to communicate with each other and then strengthened their social ties over the two months. In addition, the subjects accustomed to Paro and then they made personal relationship with Paro.

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted since June 2005. Two therapeutic robots were introduced into a care facility, and activated for over 9 h each day to interact with the residents. This paper presents the results of the first month of this experiment. To investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, each subject was interviewed, and their social network was analyzed. In addition, the activities of the residents in public areas were recorded by video cameras during daytime hours (8:30-18:00). For physiological analysis, residents' urine was obtained and analyzed for hormones 17-ketosteroid sulfate and 17-hydroxycorticosteroids. The experimental protocol was reviewed and approved by the ethical committee of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The results indicate that interaction with the seal robots increased their social interaction. Furthermore, the urinary tests showed that the reactions of the subjects' vital organs to stress improved after the introduction of the robots.

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted from June, 2005. Two therapeutic seal robots were introduced, and activated for over 9 hours every day to interact with the residents. This paper presents a progress report of this experiment. In order to investigate psychological and social influences of the robots, each subject was interviewed, and their social network was analysed. In addition, their hormones in urine: 17 Ketosteroid sulfate (17-KS-S) and 17-hydroxycorticosteroids (17-OHCS) were obtained and analysed. The results indicate that the density of the social networks was increased through interaction with the seal robots. Furthermore, urinary tests showed that the reactions of the subjects' vital organs to stress were improved after the introduction of the robots

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted since June 2005. Two therapeutic seal robots were introduced and activated for over 9 hours every day to interact with the residents. This paper presents the results of this experiment. In order to investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, the activities of the residents in public areas were recorded by video cameras during daytime hours (8:30-18:00) for over 2 months. In addition, the hormones 17-Ketosteroid sulfate (17-KS-S) and 17-hydroxycorticosteroids (17-OHCS) in the residents' urine were obtained and analyzed. The results indicate that their social interaction was increased through interaction with the seal robots. Furthermore, the results of the urinary tests showed that the reactions of the subjects' vital organs to stress improved after the introduction of the robots

Robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house has been conducted since June 2005. Two therapeutic seal robots were introduced and activated for over 9 hours every day to interact with the residents. This paper presents the results of this experiment. In order to investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, the activities of the residents in public areas were recorded by video cameras during daytime hours (8:30-18:00) for over 2 months. In addition, the hormones 17-Ketosteroid sulfate (17-KS-S) and 17-hydroxycorticosteroids (17-OHCS) in the residents' urine were obtained and analyzed. The results of the urinary tests showed that the reactions of the subjects' vital organs to stress improved after the introduction of the robots. Furthermore, the results of the case studies indicate that the residents' social interaction increased through interaction with the seal robots

A long-term experiment of robot assisted activity for elderly people has been conducted at a health service facility for the aged since Aug. 2003. Three therapeutic seal robots, Paro, were introduced there. This paper describes the results of the experiment for one year. Face scales that consist of illustrations of person's faces were used to evaluate person's moods. In addition, Geriatric Depression Scales were used to measure person's depression by questionnaires. As the results, feelings of the elderly people were improved by interaction with the seal robots.

Robot therapy for demented patients was conducted at a cranial nerve clinic. Two therapeutic seal robots, Paro, were introduced there. This paper describes the results of this experiment. DIMENSION (diagnosis method of neuronal dysfunction) was used to analyze recorded patient's EEG before and after 20 minutes of robot therapy. Questionnaire concerning impression of seal robots was also conducted. The results showed that their cortical neurons activity was improved by interaction with the seal robots, especially for patients who liked the robots.

This paper describes research on a "mental commit robot". These robots have a different target audience to industrial robots, one that is not so rigidly dependent on objective measures such as accuracy and speed. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with the emphasis on human-robot interaction. In previous research, we classified robots into four categories, which related to their appearance. We then introduced a robot cat and a robot seal, which we evaluated by interviewing a large group of people. The results showed that physical interaction improved their subjective evaluation of the robots. Moreover, a priori knowledge of a subject has a considerable influence on the subjective interpretation and evaluation of mental commit robots. In this paper, we asked several groups of subjects to evaluate the seal robot known as 'Paro' by answering questionnaires that were given out in exhibitions that were held in four different countries; Japan, U.K., Sweden and Italy. This paper reports the results of statistical analysis of the evaluation data.

A long-term experiment of robot assisted activity for elderly people has been conducted at a health service facility for the aged since Aug. 2003. Two therapeutic seal robots, Paro, were introduced there. This paper describes the first interim report of the experiment for three months. Face scales that consist of illustrations of person's faces were used to evaluate person's moods. In addition, geriatric depression scales were used to measure person's depression by questionnaires. As the results, feelings of the elderly people were improved by interaction with the seal robots.

Provides an overview of the technical articles and features presented in this issue.

The market for industrial robots grew rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, with a peak demand in 1991. However, due to the subsequent recession in the world economy, the market for industrial robots has been slow or stagnant over the last decade. The value of industrial robots has decreased in that term, even though they have undergone considerable technical advances. On the other hand, human interactive robots for psychological enrichment are a type of service robots that provide a service by interacting with humans while stimulating their minds. As opposed to industrial robots, accuracy or speed is not always of prime importance. Their function or purpose is not simply entertainment, but also to render assistance, to guide, to provide therapy, to educate, to enable communication, and so on. The market for human interactive robots designed for psychological enrichment is expected to grow rapidly and to become more widespread. This overview explains human-robot interactions in terms of the relationship between humans and robots, in terms of the duration of these interactions and in terms of design issues affecting human interactive robots for psychological enrichment. Then examples of cross-cultural differences in the subjective evaluation of human interactive robots are described.

Mental commit robots have been developed to provide psychological, physiological, and social effects in human beings through physical interaction. The appearance of these robots is designed to emulate real animals such as a cat or a seal. The seal robot was developed especially for therapeutic applications. Seal robots have been applied to assisting the activity of the elderly at a day service center. In order to investigate the effects of seal robots on elderly people, their mood was evaluated using face scales (which express moods by identifying the appropriate facial illustration) and questionnaires. Changes in reaction to stress in the elderly was measured using urinary tests. In addition, stress of nursing staff was investigated. Their mental state was evaluated using a "burnout scale." The day service center was provided with seal robots for five weeks. As a result, the feelings of elderly people improved by the interaction with the robots. Urinary tests showed that their ability to overcome stress were also improved. Moreover, the stress levels of the nursing staff decreased because the elderly people required less supervision when interacting with the robots. Consequently, the seal robots were judged to be useful at institutions for the elderly, such as the day service center.

This paper describes research on mental commit robot that seeks a different direction from industrial robot, and that is not so rigidly dependent on objective measures such as accuracy and speed. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with an emphasis on human-robot interaction. In the previous research, we categorized robots into four categories in terms of appearance. Then, we introduced a cat robot and a seal robot, and evaluated them by interviewing many people in Japan. The results showed that physical interaction improved subjective evaluation. Moreover, a priori knowledge of a subject has much influence into subjective interpretation and evaluation of mental commit robot. In this paper, 440 subjects evaluated the seal robot, Paro by questionnaires in an exhibition at Science Museum in London, UK. This paper reports the results of statistical analysis of evaluation data, and compares them with those obtained in Japan.

We have been developing mental commit robots that provide psychological, physiological, and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cat and seal. The seal robot was developed especially for therapy. We have applied seal robots to assisting activity of elderly people at a health service facility for the aged. In order to investigate psychological and social effects of seal robots to the elderly people, we evaluated elderly people's moods by face scales (which express person's moods by illustration of person's faces) and Profile of Mood States (which measures person's moods by questionnaires). Seal robots were provided into the facility for three weeks. As the results, feelings of elderly people were improved by interaction with the seal robots.

We have been developing mental commit robots that provide psychological, physiological, and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cat and seal. The seal robot was developed especially for therapy. We have applied seal robots to assisting activity of elderly people at a health service facility for the aged. In order to investigate psychological, physiological and social effects of seal robots to the elderly people, we evaluated elderly people's moods by Profile of Mood States (which measures person's moods by questionnaires) and urinary tests. Seal robots were provided into the facility for three weeks. As the results, moods of elderly people were improved by interaction with the seal robots.

We have been developing mental commit robots that provide psychological, physiological, and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cats and seals. We have applied mental commit robots to assisting the activity of elderly people at a day service center. In order to investigate the effect of mental commit robots on the elderly people, we evaluated elderly people's mood by face scales and questionnaires. In addition, the stress of nursing staff was investigated. We evaluated their mental poverty by a "burnout scale." Mental commit robots were provided in the day service center for five weeks. Results showed that feelings of elderly people were improved by interaction with the robots. Moreover, the nursing staff's mental poverty decreased because the elderly people spent their time by themselves with the robots. Consequently, mental commit robots are useful at elderly institutions like the day service center.

We have developed mental commit robots that can provide psychological, physiological and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cats and seals. We have applied the mental commit robots to assist activities of the elderly people at a day service center. In order to investigate the effect of the robots on the elderly people, and to analyze the factors that influence them, we evaluated elderly people's mood by questionnaires, and investigated their experience of breeding pets, interaction with the robots and so on. The mental commit robots were introduced at the day service center for five weeks. Results show that the feelings of the elderly people were improved by interaction with the robots. As for the analysis of factors that bring mental effects to the elderly, we found the "time of touch divided by number of touch" in 2/sup nd/ week, and "experiences of breeding pets" in 5/sup th/ week. We conclude that mental commit robots are useful at elderly institutions like the day service center, and the factors of mental effects on elderly people changed from freshness of stimuli of the robots to feelings of breeding the robots like real animals.

This paper introduces the research on mental commit robot that seeks a different direction which is not so rigidly dependent on such objective measures. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with an emphasis on human-robot interaction. In the previous research, we introduced a cat robot and evaluated it by interviewing many people. However, some subjects gave severe comments on structure of the cat robot appearance because they associated and compared it with a real cat based on their own experiences and knowledge. This paper investigates the influence of a priori knowledge into subjective interpretation and evaluation of a mental commit robot. We develop a new seal robot that has appearance of a baby of harp seal. Most people did not know harp seal precisely nor have experience of interaction with it. The subjects evaluated the seal robot while interacting with it. Comparing with the results of the previous research, we show that a priori knowledge on model of robots had much influence on subjective interpretation and evaluation of mental commit robots by short-term interaction.

We have been working on research and development of a mental commit robot which aims to provide humans mental effects such as enjoyment and relaxation. In previous research, we have performed subjective evaluation of a mental commit robot by some interview forms. The results showed physical interaction improved subjective evaluations. Moreover, a priori knowledge of a subject had influence on subjective interpretation and evaluation. In this paper, we applied physiological measurements to investigate influence on a human of physical interaction with the mental commit robot. As physiological measurements, we applied the electrocardiogram, respiration rate and the electrodermal response. We measured mood state by the profile of mood states. The finding of an experiment showed changes in activities of the autonomic nervous system. In addition it was shown that there were some differences under mood states caused by contact with a texture.

Recent advances in robotics have been applied to automation in industrial manufacturing, with the primary purpose of optimizing practical systems in terms of such objective measures as accuracy, speed, and cost. This paper introduces research on mental commit robot that seeks a different direction that is not so rigidly dependent on such objective measures. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with an emphasis on human-robot interaction. In the previous research, we introduced a cat robot and evaluated it by interviewing many people. The results showed that physical interaction improved subjective evaluation. However, some subjects gave severe comments on structure of the robot when they interacted with it physically. Because of appearance of cat robot, subjects associated with a real cat depending on their own experiences and knowledge, and then compared the robot with real cat. This paper investigates influence of a priori knowledge into subjective interpretation and evaluation of mental commit robot. We developed a new seal robot that has appearance of a baby of harp seal. Most people did not know harp seal exactly nor have experience of interaction with it. Then, subjects evaluated the seal robot while interacting with it.

Recent advances in robotics have been applied to automation in industrial manufacturing, with the primary purpose of optimizing practical systems in terms of such objective measures as accuracy, speed and cost. This paper introduces research on a mental commit robot that seeks a different direction that is not so rigidly dependent on such objective measures. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with an emphasis on human-robot interaction. In the previous research, we introduced a cat robot and evaluated it by interviewing many people. The results showed that physical interaction improved subjective evaluation. However, some subjects gave severe comments on the structure of the robot when they interacted with it physically. Because of the appearance of the cat robot, subjects associated with a real cat depending on their own experiences and knowledge, and then compared the robot with a real cat. We investigate the influence of a priori knowledge into subjective interpretation and evaluation of a mental commit robot. We developed a new seal robot that has the appearance of a baby harp seal. Most people did not know the harp seal exactly nor have any experience of interaction with it. Then, subjects evaluated the seal robot while interacting with it.

Advances in robotics have been applied to automation in industrial manufacturing, with the primary purpose of optimizing practical systems in terms of such objective measures as accuracy, speed, and cost. The paper introduces research on artificial emotional creatures that seeks to explore a different direction that is not so rigidly dependent on such objective measures. The goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with an emphasis on human-robot interaction. There is a large body of evidence that shows the importance of the interaction between humans and animals such as pets. We have been building pet robots, as artificial emotional creatures, with the subjective appearance of behaviors that are dependent on internal states as well as external stimuli from both the physical environment and human beings. The pet robots have multi-modal sensory system, actuators, and bodies with artificial skin for physical interaction with human beings.

This paper proposes a method for generating cooperative behaviors among distributed autonomous robots based on local communications. In general, each robot can not communicate with all of the other robots when there are many robots in the environment. In order to cope with its problem, each robot should use local communication. However, it is difficult to make cooperation such as task sharing because each robot can not obtain the information of a whole group. In this paper, we describe a method to solve the problem. By using the method, an operator can conduct a group of robots to desired task sharing even if they use local communication. We studied an appropriate area size of local communication for robots. If the area is too small, each robot may not be able to cooperate with the other robots, because each robot doesn't have enough information. In order to find an appropriate area size of local communication, we carried out simulations. And we confirmed that the area size is not changed even if the number of robots is changed. After that, we performed simulation experiments to study the effectiveness of proposed method. In the simulations, we confirmed that robots could share task depending on commands from an operator.

Due to the drastic increase of complexity and scale, conventional centralized control methodology has being encountering its limit. To overcome this problem, recently autonomous decentralized control methodology has been attracting a lot of concerns in variety of fields. Biological system is a remarkable instantiation of autonomous decentralized systems and has been expected to provide various fruitful ideas to engineering fields. Among these systems, in this study we particularly focus on the immune system since it has a lot of interesting features such as regulation mechanism of antibody immunological tolerance, metadynamics function and so on. We propose a new adaptation method for decentralized control systems by paying close attention to "moderationism" in the immune system. Finally we will show the possibility of our approach by taking a gait acquisition problem of a hexapod walking robot as a practical example.

In this paper, we present a novel self-generating algorithm for behavioral evaluation, which is used to evaluate self-selected behaviour in a reinforcement learning system. This behavioral evaluation is composed of rewards and self-evaluated standards. Rewards are given by the operator as one of the methods for understanding the purpose of tasks; and self-evaluated standards are obtained as the result of executions. Each robot can generate the evaluation depending on its situations by using the proposed method, and therefore the robots can create cooperative behaviours even if the number of robots or tasks is changed dynamically. We performed simulation experiments to study the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results confirm that each robot can generate evaluations for creating cooperative behaviours without changing the algorithm during the simulation experiments.

This paper deals with spontaneous behavior for cooperation among distributed autonomous robots. Though human gives the robots evaluation functions of the relation of cooperation among them, each robot determines its behavior depending on its experience and the behaviors of other robots. The robot acquires a model of behaviors of the other robots through teaming. Inspired from biological systems, the robot has emotions which play important roles of behavior selection. Each robot feels frustration when its determination does not suit to its environment. Then, it changes its behavior to change its situation actively. The results show a potential of emotional intelligence in robotics.

This paper proposes a motion planning method to cut a three dimensional workpiece by a redundant manipulator with six degrees of freedom. The method applies a genetic algorithm to optimize the rotational angles of the end-effector on a path. For a fitness function, an evaluation function is defined based on references from skilled operators. The proposed method reduces the operator's labor, so that he only has to determine a path without considering redundant parameters. Both simulations and experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper proposes a modeling method of criteria of skilled operators for motion planning of a redundant manipulator in industrial applications. The method employs fuzzy-ID3 to extract important factors with certainties from the criteria and GMDH (group method of data handling) to model it to evaluate motion plans. Then, it applies a genetic algorithm to optimize redundancy of a manipulator. The proposed method reduces the operator's labor and time for task teaching process thus a path, without considering redundant parameters, only needs to be determined. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Human beings are using and consuming resources to make various products. However, the resources on the earth are limited. Therefore, recycling of the resources is very important for human beings now and in the future. After use of the products, they are thrown away or burnt while discharging COx. The environment of the earth is being damaged and the resources are being exhausted. In order to reuse the resources and to protect the environment of the earth, this paper introduces a conceptual design of disassembly automation system for automated manufacturing with ecological recycling. The system employs many robots to disassemble the used products. The disassembly process has to deal with a lot of uncertainty of the used products, while assembly process does not have to deal with so much uncertainty of the products. This paper explains a configuration of the system, functions of the robots and some problems.>

This paper presents a new scheme for intelligent control of robotic manipulators. This scheme is a hierarchically integrated approach to neuromorphic and symbolic control of robotic manipulators. This includes an applied neural network for servo control and knowledge-based approximation. The neural network in the servo control level is based on a numerical manipulation, while the knowledge based part is symbolic manipulation. The knowledge base part develops control strategies symbolically for the servo level. The neural network compensates for vagueness in the control strategies, nonlinearities of the system and uncertainties in its environment using neuromorphic control.

Recurrent neural networks have dynamic characteristics and can express functions which depend on time. To apply these neural networks to the memory of robotic motions, i.e., trajectories of manipulators, it is necessary to determine appropriate network interconnection weights. A new learning scheme for recurrent neural networks using a genetic algorithm (GA) is presented and used to determine the interconnection weights. The GA approach is compared with backpropagation through time. Simulations illustrate the performance of the new approach.

A new strategy for motion planning of multiple robots as a multi-agent system is proposed. The system has a decentralized configuration. All the robots cannot communicate globally, but some robots can communicate locally and coordinate to avoid conflicts for public resources. In such systems, it is difficult for each robot to plan its motion effectively while considering other robots, because the robots cannot predict the motion of other robots as an unknown environment. Therefore, each robot only determines its motion selfishly while considering a known environment. In the proposed approach, each robot plans its motion while considering the known environment and using empirical knowledge. The robot considers its unknown environment including the other robots in the empirical knowledge. A genetic algorithm is applied to optimize the planning of the motion of each robot. Through iterations, each robot acquires knowledge empirically using fuzzy logic For an illustration, this paper deals with path planning of multiple mobile robots and performs simulations.

The authors propose a neural network (NN) model for pattern recognition which can learn new patterns without losing patterns memorized in the past. This model is called a neural network based on distance between patterns (NDP). The NDP uses the radial basis function (RBF) as the response function in place of the sigmoid function. The response function is a smooth function similar to the Gaussian base function and the probability density function. The response function learns patterns faster than the multilayered perceptron (MLP) as well as other RBF NNs. The most salient architectural feature of the NDP is self-organization by adding nodes in the output layer one by one. The NDP also varies the curve of the response function by tuning the center and the width of the response function, and separates the input space into regions for each category appropriately.

The authors present a scheme for intelligent control of robotic manipulators. This is a hybrid system of neuromorphic control and symbolic control of a robotic manipulator, including a neural network for the servo control and a knowledge-based approximation. The neural network in the servo control level is for numerical manipulation, while the knowledge-based approximation is for symbolic manipulation. In neuromorphic control, the neural network compensates for the nonlinearity of the system and the uncertainty in the environment. The knowledge base develops the control strategy symbolically for the servo level. This is an analogous control system to the human cerebral control structure.>

This paper presents hierarchical control system for compensation & vibration control of flexible material handling robot using neural network for t he control parameters scheduling and dynamic control. In this paper, compensation control method is classified into two cases; (i) a method based on estimated value of tip position, and (ii) a method based on measured value of tip position. The method (i) is only available for the simple cases (i.e., the deflection is small and the section of the material is unity). In the method (ii), by choosing control parameters properly, it is shown that the compensation & vibration control with small position error is possible. However, it is quite difficult to select proper control parameters for each different payloads so that the control system remains stable. To solve this problem, we propose hierarchical control system. This system has a gain scheduler at the upper level to roughly select proper control parameters for each different materials, and has a neural network controller at the lower level to improve control performance. After designing gain scheduler and neural network controller properly, the system can adapt to improve the response time for the large number of different kinds of materials.

The authors consider neural network applications to robotic motion control in which the controller is used for the position and force control of robotic manipulators. The proposed neural servo controller is based on a neural network consisting of two hidden layers and input/output layers. The controller can adjust the neural network output to the robot in the forward manner to cooperate with the feedback loop, depending on unknown characteristics of handling objects. In particular, the proposed neural network has delay elements in itself, so that it can learn the dynamics of the system. Simulations are carried out for the case of one- and two-dimensional robotic manipulators. The performance of the proposed neural servo controller is shown in terms of its frequency response, and the robustness against impulsive noises is also shown. The authors propose a fuzzy turbo to avoid stagnation, so that the neural network can learn the dynamical system quickly