This study explores interactive scripted performance with a character robot to create an engaging storytelling experience. By involving human participants as performers alongside the robot, we investigated whether this approach could enhance engagement in the storytelling experience. We developed a character robot system capable of executing predefined phrases and movements to foster immersion, thereby enhancing engagement. We conducted interactive scripted performance events at after-school care facilities. The results indicate that interactive scripted performance encouraged participants to engage in the experience actively. Moreover, the findings suggest that the developed character robot enhanced participants’ story immersion and encouraged physical engagement.

We propose the method to adapt humanoids the ability to change the body structures that modular robots have by using Attach-Lock-Detachable Magnetic Couplings(ALDMag) to give the ability to detach and attach the robot body with an arm-type robot, and the system to manage the connection state of modularized body elements. Robots and we can use the ALDMag to attach and detach mechanical and electrical connections without actuators. Using xacro for writing the file of the robot model description of each module, we can construct a system that allows the robot to attach and detach modules during task operation. We demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method by achieving assembly experiments of a small robot with a life-size arm and experiments with environmental contacts by the small robot.

In this paper, we explain the Morphable StateNet as the StateNet with pseudo-generalized behaviors for robots with various degree-of-freedom arrangements and link lengths. Pseudo-generalization is performed by analytically calculating joint angles that satisfy the desired support conditions, focusing on link lengths and antigravity joints that contribute to motion, with constraints placed on the contact conditions between the environment and the robot body. We apply Morphable StateNet to the standing-up motion of humanoids with variable body structures and conduct evaluation experiments. We have demonstrated the usefulness of the proposed method in environments with low friction coefficients with the environment by conducting evaluations using both a simulator and an actual humanoid.

For humanoid whole body contact motions, it is important to recognize the existence of whole body contacts and the contact forces. The challenges in recognizing the existence of whole body contacts and the contact forces in life-size humanoids are: 1) the measurement part with low mechanical strength must be tolerant of high load and 2) it is difficult to model thick elastic bodies with high impact tolerance and uneven sensor placements when applied to various shapes of the whole body. This paper proposes a method of constructing a load tolerant tactile sensor by separating the loaded part from the measuring part with magnetism and protecting the measuring part inside the frame of the robot. For modeling difficulties, this paper proposes learning the relationship between the change in the detected physical quantity due to deformation of the elastic body and the contact force distribution. This paper shows through experiments that the proposed tactile sensor based on a robot frame is load tolerant enough to support the weight of a life-sized humanoid, and that it can acquire contact force distribution and the robot is able to acclimate to external forces.

To give the single robot system the ability to realize many behaviors and to realize tasks with shifting environments and objectives, it is necessary to abstract the robot’s body ability to the extent that they can be detected by sensors in the body so that we can plan as the problem of state transition.In this paper, to abstract the transformer robot system that performs heavy lifting and environmental attachment tasks in an aquatic and terrestrial environment, we extend the graphical representation of the robot’s body to manage joint capability and the body adaptability for the environment. To abstract the body ability, we divide the body into elements and define Connection between them at three different granularities. And using Connection, we propose the Connection Modification Feature(CMF) as the representation for changing body ability. To implement the Connection Modification Feature, we perform the abstract description and extract Connection to construct Body Ability Graph, a graph for the robot to manage its body ability. We show that it is possible to plan to manipulate and use its own Connection Modification Feature through multiple experiments by defining Normal Action that does not change body abilities and Body Ability Modifying Action that manipulate body abilities.

In order to make robots more useful in a variety of environments, they need to be highly portable so that they can be transported to wherever they are needed, and highly storable so that they can be stored when not in use. We propose "on-site robotics", which uses parts procured at the location where the robot will be active, and propose a new solution to the problem of portability and storability. In this paper, as a proof of concept for on-site robotics, we describe a method for estimating the kinematic model of a robot by using inertial measurement units (IMU) sensor module on rigid links, estimating the relative orientation between modules from angular velocity, and estimating the relative position from the measurement of centrifugal force.At the end of this paper, as an evaluation for this method, we present an experiment in which a robot made up of wooden sticks reaches a target position. In this experiment, even if the combination of the links is changed, the robot is able to reach the target position again immediately after estimation, showing that it can operate even after being reassembled. Our implementation is available on https://github.com/hiroya1224/urdf_estimation_with_imus.

The range of robot activities is expanding from industries with fixed environments to diverse and changing environments, such as nursing care support and daily life support. In particular, autonomous construction of robots that are personalized for each user and task is required. Therefore, we develop an actuator module that can be reconfigured to various link configurations, can carry heavy objects using a locking mechanism, and can be easily operated by human teaching using a releasing mechanism. Given multiple target coordinates, a modular robot configuration that satisfies these coordinates and minimizes the required torque is automatically generated by Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE), a type of black-box optimization. Based on the obtained results, we show that the robot can be reconfigured to perform various functions such as moving monitors and lights, serving food, and so on.

We need to build robot systems that can operate in multiple environments, including underwater. For a robot to be waterproof, it needs to be covered all over its body and have a waterproof structure, but this is expensive to produce and consumes hardware resources such as weight. In this study, we propose a method of constructing a robot system in which paraffin, which can change its phase between solid and liquid at different temperatures, is cloaked on the robot's body surface, and grease is inserted into the robot's body to give it an acquired the waterproof shell for waterproofing purposes. We have studied an automated method of the waterproof shell application system by combining a small spider-shaped multi-legged robot that can measure the temperature of the environment as a robot to which we apply the waterproof shell and a life-size arm robot that performs the operation applying the waterproof shell to the small robot as a system. Through the addition of the waterproof shell to the spider-shaped robot and the removing the shell in unnecessary areas by controlling temperature, and the realization of operation in land and water environments, we used the proposed robot system to add acquired functions to operate underwater robots, thereby expanding the supported area of robots which have many DOFs and sensors from conventional ground to underwater.

The humanoid robot that can transform itself into a form according to its purpose requires whole-body motions with complex contact state transitions such as recovery from a fall and transition to the target form. To make the robot behavior in simulations closer to that in the real world for planning complex target trajectories, we need a platform that can measure the body stiffness during the motion and verify its application without being damaged by repeated motions that are prone to tipping over. In this study, we propose a small, inexpensive, and robust humanoid-vehicle transformer platform with redundant sensors and a low rigidity multi degree-of-freedom body and observe the effects of body deflection and internal forces during whole-body posture transition. By comparing the results obtained from experiments in several environments with different friction and from the simulator using a rigid body model, we were able to verify the influence of body flexibility on whole-body motion and the relationship between deflection and wrench observed by redundant sensors and movement failure.

To develop Musashi as a musculoskeletal humanoid platform to investigate learning control systems, we aimed for a body with flexible musculoskeletal structure, redundant sensors, and easily reconfigurable structure. For this purpose, we develop joint modules that can directly measure joint angles, muscle modules that can realize various muscle routes, and nonlinear elastic units with soft structures, etc. Next, we develop MusashiLarm, a musculoskeletal platform composed of only joint modules, muscle modules, generic bone frames, muscle wire units, and a few attachments. Finally, we develop Musashi, a musculoskeletal humanoid platform which extends MusashiLarm to the whole body design, and conduct several basic experiments and learning control experiments to verify the effectiveness of its concept.

In order to achieve tasks in the real world environment, humanoid robots have motors and reduction drives optimized in relation to weight and size for providing the necessary torque and angle speed. Therefore, having torque or angle speed outside of the predicted range will usually cause the task to fail. In this research, we propose a joint module with a two-stage transmission mechanism during driving and a joint locking mechanism during non-driving so that the appropriate torque and joint speed can be attained during the task. By applying the joint module to a tricycle type robot and switching the driving state during the task execution, we were able to both reduce the motor load when lifting heavy objects at driving time and keep high rigidity of the joint at non-driving time.

Human hands can not only grasp objects of various shape and size and manipulate them in hands but also exert such a large gripping force that they can support the body in the situations such as dangling a bar and climbing a ladder. On the other hand, it is difficult for most robot hands to manage both. Therefore in this paper we developed the hand which can grasp various objects and exert large gripping force. To develop such hand, we focused on the thumb CM joint with wide range of motion and the MP joints of four fingers with the DOF of abduction and adduction. Based on the hand with large gripping force and flexibility using machined spring, we applied above mentioned joint mechanism to the hand. The thumb CM joint has wide range of motion because of the combination of three machined springs and MP joints of four fingers have variable rigidity mechanism instead of driving each joint independently in order to move joint in limited space and by limited actuators. Using the developed hand, we achieved the grasping of various objects, supporting a large load and several motions with an arm.

This paper reports on our industry-academia project of using a functional language in business software production. The general motivation behind the project is our ultimate goal of adopting an ML-style higher-order typed functional language in a wide range of ordinary software development in industry. To probe the feasibility and identify various practical problems and needs, we have conducted a 15 month pilot project for developing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in SML#. The project has successfully completed as we have planned, demonstrating the feasibility of SML#. In particular, seamless integration of SQL and direct C language interface are shown to be useful in reliable and efficient development of a data intensive business application. During the program development, we have found several useful functional programming patterns and a number of possible extensions of an ML-style language with records. This paper reports on the project details and the lessons learned from the project.