Robotic non-contact three-dimensional (3-D) micromanipulation of micro-objects is critical for micro-assembly applications, but achieving high precision and reliable release in the microscale remains challenging. Traditional contact and non-contact techniques face limitations in automated 3-D operation. We present a fully automated micromanipulation system using an acoustic bubble end-effector for non-contact 3-D handling of microbeads. The system integrates real-time vision feedback with Z-axis autofocus and adaptive proportional-integral-derivative control for precise trapping, transport, and release. Leveraging localized bubble-driven microstreaming and acoustic radiation forces, our end-effector forms a stable trap within 100 ms and transports microbeads at speeds up to 1 mm/s. Experiments demonstrate exceptional 3-D dexterity, with trapping success rates consistently greater than 80% for microbeads of 60-120 μm diameter, and release placement accuracy is confirmed to be within ±2.5 μm when operating below a 150 μm height. The system achieves broad size adaptability and operates in free-space 3-D environments, overcoming workspace constraints of microfluidic setups. By eliminating mechanical contact, this approach reduces contamination and damage while delivering precise 3-D control often lacking in other non-contact methods. Our system bridges acoustofluidics and robotic automation, offering a versatile solution for automated micro-assembly and biomedical applications.

Microrobots have garnered significant attention due to their vast potential applications across various fields. Among various types of microrobots, piezoelectric robots stand out due to their exceptional motion accuracy, low power consumption, and simple structural design. This work introduces a novel piezoelectric microrobot, the Dual-Modal Piezoelectric Robot (DMPBot), which is fabricated with an innovative carbon fiber substrate through a heat-pressing process with a compact size of 6 mm × 9 mm × 1.1 mm and a weight of only 0.05 g. DMPBot can achieve both high-speed and high-precision motion in non-resonant mode, as well as omnidirectional movement by integrating non-resonant and resonant modes. In non-resonant mode, the robot can reach a speed of 33 mm/s (3.67 body lengths per second) and a sub-micron resolution of 0.4 μm by adjusting the applied signal. This work presents an analysis of the design, fabrication, and performance of DMPBot, focusing on its dynamic response, motion mechanisms, high-speed and high-precision motion, and omnidirectional movement capabilities. Experimental results validate the ability of DMPBot to perform high-speed, high-precision, and omnidirectional motion, demonstrating its promising potential in the field of micromanipulation.

During the past decade, DNA origami has emerged as a promising technology to construct DNA nanorobots with programmable configurations and excellent biocompatibility. However, existing DNA origami-based nanorobots exhibit weak stability in complex biological environments and lack efficient delivery capabilities when serving as drug carriers. This study introduces a reconfigurable tetrahedral DNA nanorobot, whose conformational transition pathways are validated by multi-resolution molecular dynamics simulations. Building on this, we systematically analyzed the structural stability of the tetrahedral nanorobot using multiple simulation methods. We then fabricated the specific molecule-triggered tetrahedral DNA nanorobot with high structural stability and efficient drug delivery capacity. The proposed nanorobot was further employed for the recognition and inhibition of circulating tumor cells. These results highlight the application potential of the proposed DNA origami-engineered nanorobot in biomedicine and nanosensing.

Traditional single-cell mechanical characterization techniques (e.g., atomic force microscopy) often face limitations in throughput, require invasive labeling, or fail to replicate physiological microenvironments, impeding their clinical utility for rapid cancer cell analysis. To address these limitations for automated characterization of cellular mechanical properties, this study proposes a novel method using microchannels with narrow geometric structures to measure cellular mechanical characteristics. A dynamic mechanical characterization technique with serially connected microchannels simulates malignant tumor cell deformation and migration in vivo, enabling precise identification of three malignant tumor cell lines and three normal cell lines through consecutive compressions. High-speed imaging combined with computer vision and image processing techniques facilitates rapid and accurate automated analysis for tumor cells. Furthermore, this study reveals that the mechanical properties of the cell nucleus determine the overall cellular mechanics, with the differences between tumor and normal cells attributed to variations in nucleus mechanics. This approach shows promise for early cancer diagnosis.

Micro-nano robots must break the symmetry of the flow field to generate net displacement in the low Reynolds number environment. The spherical micro-robots utilize the frictional forces generated through interaction with the surface. We designed a magnetic microroller robot powered by the rotating AC magnetic field. Here, we employed dual measurements of laser ranging and computer vision to demonstrate that a single 100 μm microroller maintains a lubrication film of 1 to 15 μm with the surface during normal motion. We found that the translational velocity of the microroller is correlated with the lubrication film thickness. Based on the robot's gravity, we controlled an additional downward gradient magnetic field to effectively increase the load of robot and reduce the lubrication film thickness, thereby controllably increasing the translational velocity of the robot. For example, the gradient magnetic field generated by superimposing a 30mA direct current input can reduce the lubrication film thickness from 8 μm to 4 μm in a 10 Hz rotating magnetic field, and increase the translational velocity from 230 μm/s to 460 μm/s. The enhancement of the robot's motion performance enables it to better control its movement in fluids. Finally, we validated the strategy for controllable acceleration of micro-scale particles rolling on surfaces, applied to control fluid motion in multiple arteries within blood vessels. These results offer deeper insights into the physical motion mechanism of surface robots and hold significant implications for future applications in biomedical engineering.

Chemical reactions constitute a cornerstone of fundamental scientific inquiry, yet traditional methodologies and platforms are encumbered by excessive reagent and consumable demands. Emerging alternatives, such as microfluidic systems, while innovative, suffer from intricate fabrication processes and elevated costs associated with operator training. Other contemporary approaches face limitations including reagent compatibility constraints and prohibitively expensive instrumentation. To address these challenges, this study introduces a contactless chemical reaction platform leveraging an ultrasonic vortex field to achieve stable capture, microscale droplet transport, and sequential multi-droplet mixing without direct contact. This platform substantially reduces contamination risks, minimizes reagent and consumable usage, accommodates a broad spectrum of reagent types, and imposes minimal demands on operator expertise. Demonstrating robust performance in microdose reaction control, the system offers significant potential for advancing chemical research and its applications.

Micromanipulation techniques struggle to achieve three-dimensional rotational control at the microscale without compromising biocompatibility or spatial flexibility. Conventional methods based on mechanical contact, optical forces, or confined microfluidics constrain dynamic reconfiguration and surgical accessibility. Here, we introduce a dual-bubble acoustic micromanipulator that enables multidirectional rotation through controlled hydrodynamic fields. By placing oscillating microbubbles at the tips of micropipettes, this system creates adjustable vortex patterns: a single microbubble generates toroidal flows for out-of-plane rotation, while two microbubbles produce shear forces for in-plane spinning. This approach uses simple mechanical adjustments to control rotational axes in open fluid environments, without needing frequency modulation or phase synchronization. Flow-field simulations and experiments with polystyrene microspheres confirm deterministic orientation control, and tests with shrimp embryos demonstrate rotation at clinically relevant speeds. The open architecture integrates seamlessly with standard microscopy and robotic injection systems, offering a non-contact, precise tool for applications such as polar body alignment, intracellular surgery, and 3-D imaging.

A magnetically controlled catheter system is proposed to enhance the precision and safety of vascular interventions by reducing procedure time and radiation exposure. The system can also function as a support channel for guidewire deployment. A novel navigation approach is introduced, employing an external permanent magnet capable of controlled rotation to actuate a catheter with an embedded magnetic tip. Leveraging magnetic coupling and a redundant rotational DoF, the system achieves fine angular tip control with minimal spatial displacement, significantly enhancing maneuverability in constrained vascular environments. The magnetic field distribution and its influence on catheter response are characterized, and a kinematic model of the actuation mechanism is established. Experimental validation is conducted under varying magnetic field strengths and orientations, demonstrating reliable steering performance. Application-based experiments in simulated clinical environments further confirm precise navigation capability. The results highlight the advantages of rotational magnetic control in enhancing flexibility and accuracy. The proposed system presents a promising solution for automating catheter-based interventions, offering improved efficiency and power in minimally invasive procedures.

Microassembly plays an important role in fabricating complex structures with small basic components in industrial and biomedical fields. Inverted optical microscope could provide high-quality image feedback for microassembly with its continuously improving resolution. However, a compact stage capable of positioning and reorienting micro-objects while fitting within the limited space under an inverted optical microscope remains unavailable. This paper proposes a compact R-X-Y stage that can transport micro-objects over long distances in the X and Y directions, and reorient the objects by the 360-degree continuous rotation. Additionally, different from commonly putting the rotational stage on the X-Y stage, we mount the thin X-Y stage on a rotational stage. Thus, after aligning the centers of the visual field and rotational stage at the beginning, all the visiable micro-objects will not move out of the visual field during the rotation. We further integrate the R-X-Y stage and the dual-finger micromanipulator, and then use them to assemble 2-D patterns and complex 3-D micromachine. The obtained results and preliminary demonstration indicate that the proposed compact R-X-Y has great potential in assembling complex micromachines.

The development of magnetic soft microrobots has been constrained by the lack of precise control of microactuator’s programmability. To address such an issue, we use a piezo-driven two-fingered microhand to selectively position the magnetic microactuators within a soft scaffold. Each microactuator is sequentially oriented to a desired direction through surface rotation by applying magnetic field–based torques, and is then fixed to the scaffold using ultraviolet (UV) cross-linking. A detailed analysis is conducted on the spatial positioning capability of the microhand’s parallel mechanism and the magnetic programming performance of electromagnetic coils’ orientation control. To overcome the inefficiency and inaccuracy of labor-intensive manual assembly, we propose an automated assembly strategy to create magnetic soft-bodied microrobots following our design. The multiple fabricated microrobot prototypes exhibit programmed 2D and 3D shape transformations and various robotic gaits for surface locomotion. This strategy can enable the rapid fabrication of multimaterial 3D magnetic microrobot designs with potential applications in robotics, biomedical engineering, and environmental governance. Note to Practitioners—The motivation of this work is to address the limitations in current fabrication methods for magnetic soft microrobots, which include 3D printing, heating, mold casting, and chemical synthesis. These approaches fall short when creating microrobots with arbitrary structures, multimaterial compositions, and complex magnetization profiles. Micro-assembly offers a potential solution, yet existing techniques depend on either time-consuming manual assembly or costly equipment lacking sufficient flexibility for 3D spatial manipulations. In this work, a 3-degree-of-freedom, high-precision parallel microhand-based assembly method is proposed. The microhand provides high precision and speed for rapid positioning of assembly modules, while electromagnetic coils enable precise orientation in magnetization programming. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of this method and demonstrate the robustness and adaptability of the automated fabrication strategy. This approach facilitates the fabrication of magnetic soft microrobots with specific deformation and locomotion capabilities according to design intent.

In recent years, micromanipulation technology has achieved extensive applications in industry and life science. Improving the precision and bandwidth of the micromanipulator and simultaneously reducing size, weight, and cost pose significant challenges to the existing micromanipulator design and fabrication methods. Here, we propose a 3-RRS micromanipulator with an origami-inspired spherical joint based on the PC-MEMS process, aiming for miniaturization and cost-effectiveness. The spherical joint allows rotations of 140° around the x-axis approximately, 140° around the y-axis approximately, and 20° around the z-axis approximately. The micromanipulator has weights of 0.8 g, dimensions of 16 mm × 16 mm × 22 mm, and workspace of 0.7 mm3. The end platform of the micromanipulator can be equipped with various effectors to accomplish different kinds of tasks. Experimental results validated its high precision and bandwidth, exhibiting its potential to perform intricate micromanipulation tasks.

Micro-assembly is an emerging method to fabricate microrobots with multiple modules or particles. However, there is always a lack of a flexible and efficient method to freely create the desired magnetic soft microrobots. In this paper, an automated assembly system based on a two-fingered microhand is presented for fabricating magnetic soft microrobots. Our proposed system can automatically pick and place components to assemble microrobots with a two-fingered micromanipulator, and orient these components through an external magnetic field. The automated assembly has the advantages of high accuracy, high speed, and high success rate. It can endow magnetic microrobots with flexible material selection, arbitrary geometry design, and programable magnetization profile. We can make full use of this system to fabricate multiple magnetic soft microrobots. The experiment results demonstrate that this system can efficiently fabricate microrobots with excellent mechanical properties, which have application potential in robotics, biomedical engineering, and environmental governance.

Micromanipulation techniques that can achieve controlled fine operations at the micro scale play an important role in biomedical fields including embryo engineering, gene engineering, drug screening, and cell analysis. However, micromanipulation of biological micro-objects, such as cells and micro tissues, suffers from mechanical damage and low efficiency. Several techniques have been introduced to manipulate cells more easily, but most of them are restricted by expensive devices, limited work area, and potential damage to cellular structure. Here we develop a hydrodynamic manipulation method to rotate and transport mouse oocytes, which utilizes acoustic waves and micropipette to generate acoustic radiation force and excite microstreaming. This method can accomplish rotational and translational operations precisely and controllably. We tested the process of trapping, rotation, and transportation of the mouse oocytes, and measured rotational and translational speed with a range of applied voltage. The method was able to shorten the cost time of delivery and posture adjustment before oocyte injection. Our study provides an easy-to-use technique for oocyte manipulation without contact, and it has the potential to be universally applied in many cellular studies.

In the last decade, researchers have been trying to develop many microrobots that mimic the extraordinary abilities of bionts in complex environments. How to fabricate the biomimetic microrobot with satisfying deformability and complex shapes to realize desired precise motion is the key issue. In this paper, we proposed an efficient programable fabrication method of the magnetic soft micro-robot through an on-chip photopolymerization system. The superparamagnetic nanoparticles were compiled according to the magnetic anisotropy and assembled in the micro-robot. Then these nanoparticles were immobilized by photopolymerization of the hydrogel polymer. With this fabrication method, a joint rotation mechanism was first fabricated to characterize the deformation performance under the magnetic field control. Besides, the snake-like micro-robot were also fabricated, and the desired motions were achieved. The experimental results show that the proposed programable on-chip fabrication of magnetic soft micro-robot has the potential to facilitate the development of magnetic microrobots and their applications in the biomedical field.

The magnetic microrobot has become a promising approach in many biomedical applications due to its small volume, flexible motion, and untethered micromachines. The micro-chain robot is one of the most popular magnetic microrobots. However, the uncontrollable magnetic moment direction and quantity of the magnetic beads consisted in the existing self-assembled micro-chain robot limit their locomotion and applications. This paper proposed an on-chip micro-chain robot fabrication method to assemble the magnetic beads with controllable magnetic moment direction and quantity. The bead quantity can be controlled by the structure limits of the microchannel, and the direction of the magnetic moment can be adj usted by the integrated external magnetic field. The assembled magnetic beads are then glued by the hydrogel under UV exposure. The micro-chain robots with different quantities and magnetic moment directions of the magnetic beads were successfully fabricated and tested in experiments. Due to the array structure of the microfluidic device, batch manufacturing of low-cost magnetic robots was achieved in our method. The movement of dual-bead microrobots with two orthogonal magnetic moment directions was analyzed and compared. One of the dual-bead microrobots was applied in the transportation of the hydrogel module using pushing and pulling modes. It indicated that the proposed controllable on-chip fabrication of the magnetic micro-chain robots has the potential to enhance the microrobot ability in biomedical applications.

Microfluidic devices for cell immobilization have significantly advanced the biological analysis at the single-cell level. However, the previous research on immobilization of multiple single cells, especially with deterministic quantities, is insufficient. In this paper, we proposed a novel microfluidic device based on the passive hydrodynamics and the uniform geometric design principle, which can array different numbers of cells in every capture cavity. The capture cavities could be stretched to accommodate more cells, and the trapping force was adjusted by modifying the related geometric parameters of the inside channel. The whole procedure was monitored and further automatized by integrating computer vision technology under a microscope. On the proposed integrated on-chip platform, we realized full-automated arraying of a single cell, two cells, and three cells on a single chip, achieving success rates up to 95%, 75%, and 72%, respectively. As a primary experimental demonstration, the cell viability test of arraying multiple cells with different quantities showed excellent biocompatibility and no significant association between trapping quantity and cell survivability. We envision that the proposed quantity-controllable, high-efficiency microfluidic devices for multiple cell arraying could be a powerful platform for an in-depth study of cell heterogeneity and cell communication between multiple cells.Note to Practitioners—This article is motivated by the biomedical applications of multi-cell arraying. The designed microfluidic devices employ passive hydrodynamics, and the capture cavities are stretched to accommodate different numbers of cells. The whole arraying procedures are automatized using computer vision technology. Simulations and experiments demonstrate the high efficiency, controllability of the cell quantity, and excellent biocompatibility.

In this paper, an automated tracking system with head and tail recognition for time-lapse observation of free-moving C. elegans is presented. In microscale field, active C. elegans can move out of the view easily without an automated tracking system because of the narrow field of view and rapid speed of C. elegans. In our previous works, we constructed an automated platform with 3D freedom to track centroid region of the nematode successfully. However, tracking time was not long enough to support a full time-lapse observation. Our proposed system in this study integrate the detection method in horizontal plane with depth evaluation more tightly. Tracking time and response speed have been greatly improved. Besides, we make full use of curvature calculation to make the system recognize the head and tail of C. elegans and the recognition rate can be up to 95%. The results demonstrate that the system can fully achieve automated long-term tracking of a free-living nematode and will be a nice tool for C. elegans behavioral analysis.

Capillary Ionic Transistor (CIT) is introduced as a nanodevice which provides control of ionic transport through nanochannel by gate voltage. CIT is Ionic transistor which employs pulled capillary as nanochannel with tip diameter smaller than 100 nm. We observed that gate voltage applied to gate electrode, deposited on the outer wall of capillary, affect a conductance of nanochannel, due to change of surface charge at the solution/capillary interface. Negative gate voltage corresponds to lower conductivity and positive gate increase conductance of the channel. This effect strongly depends on the size of the channel. In general, at least one dimension of the channel has to be small enough for electrical double layer to overlap. As a demonstration of the gate control ability, we performed Si nanoparticle delivery via CIT and recorded the deliverance through resistive pulse method. Size and velocity measurement are also conducted, to showcase the versatility of CIT device.

We have successfully achieved manipulation and assembly of microbeads having the size of 100μm diameter by hemispherical end-effectors with high stability and accuracy. The motivation of achieving assembly of actual cells lies in the great significance of it in tissue regeneration and cell analysis. Firstly, the most difficult problem we need to solve is the releasing problem caused by adhesion force. The viscosity on cell surface is much larger than the microbeads which makes cell releasing challenging. Secondly, the cell can generate its deformation, then contact area with end-effector will change during grasping process. This may influence the adhesion force and also bring problem to releasing. Thirdly, cell is much smaller, around 15μm in diameter, so we need to fabricate smaller end-effector to achieve successful manipulation and ensure the stability in the meantime. In this paper, we realize the manipulation by decreasing the adhesion forces and apply vibration to release a cell stably. We found the appropriate scale size for the end-effector is around 10μm diameter. It can not only grasp a 15μm cell but also bring little interference to the environment. As a demonstration of the proposed manipulation method, the repeated experiments were conducted to explore the dependence of adhesion force on the grasping distance, which can be helpful in the improvement of successful rate. Finally, we achieved automatic cell assembly using Hela cells.

Nowadays single cell analysis becomes a more and more important method to gather the information of individual cells and study the heterogeneity of cells caused by random expression of gene, protein and the level of metabolism. Many device and technologies of single cell analysis have been developed to meet these needs. In this paper, we presented a high-throughput microchannel for single cell immobilization with small sheer pressure. It features high density arrays, which can accommodate up to 130~300 traps within 1~2 mm2. According to our experiment, about 91% of capture unit can be occupied by the single cell in 40 s, using the optimized structure of microchannels. Therefore, we expect that the high throughput microchannels can be of great importance for the biological research.

For generating interactive behavior of robot to build a long-term relationship between humans and robots, we focus on the difference in familiarity of the human behaviors during conversation. It is difficult to extract interaction motion features correlated to such familiarity as a model in manual. Therefore, we use a machine learning technique: convolution neural network to learn and generate interaction behavior with different familiarity. In the evaluation experiment, we generated interaction behavior using a convolution neural network, which learned from the behaviors of friendship and unknown relationship, who have high and low familiarity respectively. We evaluated how much such interaction behavior affect the human impression by questionnaire survey.

In micromanipulation, lots of methods have been developed to manipulate objects in microscale. However, few of them can be applied in both the transportation and the rotation of the micro objects. In this paper, we present a novel method to realize the non-contact transportation and rotation of the micro objects based on the vibration-induced swirl flow. A piezo actuator is set between the glass needle and a metal rod. The sine wave with controlled frequency and amplitude is input into the piezo actuator to drive the glass needle to move circularly, which is caused by resonance of the actuator and the metal rod. We place the glass needle under water and keep a limited distance to the bottom. The circular vibration of the glass needle can generate a swirl flow and low pressure around it. The low pressure can trap and transport the micro objects vertically to the glass needle, and the swirl flow can rotate the objects continuously. Finally, we realize the trap and rotation of micro object with only one piezo actuator. Experiments of transportation and rotation of microbeads are carried out, and the results demonstrate it is a simple, low-cost, effective micromanipulation method.

Recently, manipulation and observation of the cells are actively conducted in order to analyze the biological phenomena. Since the micro hand is usually fixed to the work environment, grasping target point of the cell on the opposite side of the micro hand by using a micro hand is limited by narrow workspace. If we move the micro hand in vertical direction to grasp the target point of the cell on the opposite side of the micro hand, we cannot focus the micro hand and the object in the microscopic field of view at the same time. In order to overcome the limitations of the limited workspace of micro hand, we assist the target point of the cell grasped by translation and rotation of the automatic stage. In this paper, we propose an automatic stage system for support the operation of the micro hand. Our automatic stage system can detect the object in the microscopic field of view by the template matching using Hu moment invariant and determine the grasping convex part of the object. by convex hull. Additionally this system can do 2d path planning considering convex part of the object to want to grasp and obstacles, and lead the micro hand to the object.

The paper describes a method of fault-tolerant adaptive gait generation based on CPG controller with interlimb coordination for multi-limbed working robot. Multi-limbed robot is expected to work in dangerous, complicated narrow spaces, where human workers cannot reach. However, if one of the limbs is broken in the dangerous/narrow working space, human operators cannot go to the space to repair it. Even in these situations, the proposed method generates a new gait adaptively using the remaining usable limbs depending on the current situation of the multi-limbed robot. This fault-tolerant ability is effective for multi-limbed robots working in dangerous/narrow space. The method is implemented to a model of a multi-limbed robot “ASTERISK” in a dynamical simulator (ODE). Experimental results show effectiveness of the proposed method.

The reliable manipulation of micro-objects has been a still difficult work in scientific and technical field due to scale effects. This paper presents two types of release methods, using local stream and inertia force generated by 3D high speed motion of an end effector, for releasing and accurate positioning of biological cells. Two-fingered microhand driven by DC motors for both end effectors and PZT actuators for right end effector is employed. A parallel mechanism controlled by three PZT actuators generates 3D high speed motions to release cells adhered to one of the end effector. The local stream and inertia force created by high speed motion of the right end effector detach the cells adhered to the left end effector and right end effector, respectively. To generate the necessary external forces for separation of the attached cells, the vibration having high frequency and suitable amplitude is applied. For accurate positioning of the object, circular motions are proposed. To verify the advantage of the proposed motion, we compare five motions, three 1D motions and two circular motions. Experiments were conducted employing 16μm NIH3T3 cells. From these analyses of experiments, we conclude that the proposed motions can detach micro objects (100%) with high position accuracy (3±0.7μm) on desired position after release.

Visual tracking of objects subjected to non-linear motion and appearance changes has shown to be a difficult task in computer vision. While research in visual object tracking has progressed significantly in terms of robust tracking of objects subjected to non-linear motion and appearance changes, these algorithms has shown limited capability for long term tracking of handheld objects during human-object interactions. The failure in tracking is a consequence of abrupt changes in the handheld object motion resulting in tracker drifting off the optimal object space. In this paper, we present a novel 3 layer RGB-D image model formulated with Bayesian filters that tracks handheld object using near constant velocity motion model. Our method divides the image into three layers of abstraction where each encodes visual information of environment, human, object and contributes toward precise localization of the handheld object during tracking. A boundary re-alignment step is introduced during tracking such that the tracker predicted object region is re-aligned to the optimal object region, therefore reducing the likelihood of tracker drifting off the object space. This compensation of the tracker prediction offset enables our algorithm to robustly track handheld object subjected to abrupt changes in motion during manipulation.

Single cell analysis has attracted much attention for revealing detailed and localized biological information. A local environmental control technique is desired when analyzing the detailed and localized properties of single cells. In this paper, we propose a local environmental stimulation system with micro dual-pipettes to stimulate the local reagent concentration dynamically, freely and automatically. When the local environment is controlled with chemical stimuli, the chemical solution is diffused and affects other objects. The local environment stimulation system with micro dual-pipettes can solve this problem by using spout pipette and suction pipette. As a cell analysis system, system quantification is necessary, so we try to realize it using a fluorescent substance. First step, we try to measure and control the light intensity. As an application of the system, the system can construct two-dimensional cell-organization by peeling off certain area of cell-sheet. Therefore, we try to control the area of peeling off cells using the system.

Recently micro manipulation techniques for cell or microorganism has attracted attention in life sciences. In this paper, non-contact manipulation method using water stream is proposed. Water stream is generated by a glass needle vibration that is actuated by a piezoelectric actuator. The stream is controlled by changing input voltage or frequency to the actuator. An accuracy of the motion of a piezoelectric actuator is in nano-meter order, so the stream is considered to be controlled precisely. The manipulator works in 3 dimensional space, that means water stream is generated in 3d space. We focused on the rotational stream generated by the glass needle 2-dimensional circular vibration. By using the resonance in a structure of the manipulator and the actuator's vibration, circular vibration can be generated by only one actuator. There is no need to use two actuators for generating circular vibration, so the structure of the manipulator is quite simple. In this paper rotational stream around the glass needle is also analyzed in 3d space using micro beads. This manipulator has the similar characteristics to the existing research of contact manipulation, so we think our method also have the capability to conduct contact manipulation.

This paper presents an active release method of microobject for the improvement of the position accuracy after releasing by using 3D high speed motions of an end effector. In the micro manipulation, the release task is the challenge work due to adhesion forces. To overcome the adhesion force and to place microobject accurately on the desired location, in this paper, we propose a high speed motion by analyzing dynamic model of manipulated end effector and attached microbeads. Two fingered microhand driven by DC motors and PZT actuators is utilized for this paper. Parallel mecahnism with three PZT actuators was used for making 3D motion at high speed. To generatge high acceleration of end effector, many researchers applied simple vibration by using an additional PZT actuator. In our research, 3D high speed motion with large amplitude was achieved by only using a compacted parallel mechanism. To verify the advantage of the proposed motion, we compare five motions, 1D motions (X, Y, and Z direction) and circular motions (clockwise and counterclockwise direction), by changing the frequency and moving distance of the end effector. From these results of experiments, we conclude that the circular motion can detach microobjects with high placing accuracy after release.

In the field of medicine and biology, many studies to be related to regenerative medicine are accomplished. In particular, the purpose of helping the operation of the cells under a microscope, many research related to micro manipulation techniques with robotic technology has been proposed. In such background, we studied two finger micro hand that realized control of the sub-micro order size object. The accurate operation of the end effector against the object by the micro hand is demanded to users. To reduce the burden, we focus on making the manipulation easy. User can perform micro manipulation with rough operation by using the actuator that varies in size. Since the actuator fills space between the end effectors and the object. Then we focus on the gel that varies in size. In this paper, we evaluate the gel that varies in size. Then we propose the manipulation that take advantage of the gel.

In this paper, a dynamic releasing method for high-speed biological cell manipulation is proposed. A compact parallel mechanism, used for grasping and releasing microob-jects, was utilized for generating controllable vibration to overcome the strong adhesion forces between the end effector and the manipulated object. To reach the required acceleration of the end effector, which is necessary for the detachment of the target object, vibration in the end effector is generated by applying sinusoidal voltage to the PZT actuator of the parallel mechanism. For the necessary acceleration, we focus on the frequency of the vibration, while keeping the amplitude of the PZT actuator vibration small (14 nm) to achieve precise positioning. Releasing of microbeads and biological cells is conducted and results are compared for the first time. The effect of the air and liquid environments are also investigated. Successful releasing (97.5%) of biological cells proves that the proposed active releasing method is an appropriate solution for the adhered biological cells during the releasing task.

Robots operating in human environments must have the ability to autonomously acquire object representations in order to perform object search and recognition tasks without human intervention. However, autonomous acquisition of object appearance model in an unstructured and cluttered human environment is a challenging task, since the object boundaries are unknown in prior. In this paper, we present a novel method to solve the problem of unknown object boundaries for handheld objects in an unstructured environment using robotic vision. The objective is to solve the problem of object segmentation without prior knowledge of the objects that human interacts with daily. In particular, we present a method that segments handheld objects by observing human-object interaction process, and performs incremental learning on the acquired models using SVM. The unknown object boundary is estimated using sequential back-tracking via exploitation of affine relationship of consecutive frames. The segmentation is achieved using identified optimal object boundaries, and the extracted models are used to perform future object search and recognition tasks.

Single cell analysis has attracted much attention to reveal the localized biological information in detail. Local environmental control technique is developed to analyze the localized detail properties of single cells. In this paper, we propose the local environmental chemical stimulation system with micro dual pipettes to stimuli the local reagent concentration dynamically and automatically. Local environmental chemical stimulation by dual pipettes is applied to the rotational speed control of bacterial flagellar motor, which is a rotary molecular machine. Here, we show quick response and rotational speed control of Na-driven flagellar motor in both accelerating and relaxing directions was demonstrated by automatic switching the local spout between Na-containing and Na-free solutions with dual pipettes. It was shown that the rotational speed could be maintained by automatic controlling the spouting velocity of Na-containing and Na-free solution with multiplying the applied DC voltage. Furthermore, it was confirmed that by applying the P-control, rotational speed of flagellar motor could be controlled more stably.

Brain Machine Interface systems provide ways of communication and control of a variety of devices that range from domestic appliances to humanoid robots. Most BMI systems are designed exclusively to control devices using low-level commands, or high-level commands when devices with pre-programmed functionalities are available. In this paper, we build on our previous work on BMI-based Learning System in which we presented a different approach for designing BMI systems that incorporate learning capabilities that relieve the user from tedious low-level control. In this work, we extend the capabilities of our framework to allow a user to be able to teach and evaluate a robotic system by using a BMI. We provide general system architecture and demonstrate its applicability in new domains such as teaching a humanoid robot object manipulation skills and evaluating its performance. Our approach consists of 1) tele-operating robot's actions while robot's camera collects object's visual properties, 2) learning manipulation skills (i.e. push-left, lift-up, etc.) by approximating a posterior probability of commonly performed actions when observing similar properties, and 3) evaluating robot's performance by considering brain-based error perception of the human while he/she passively observes the robot performing the learned skill. This technique consists of monitoring EEG signals to detect a brain potential called error related negativity (ERN) that spontaneously occurs when the user perceives an error made by the robot. By using human error perception, we demonstrate that it is possible to evaluate robot actions and provide feedback to improve its learning performance. We present results from five human subjects who successfully used our framework to teach a humanoid robot how to manipulate diverse objects, and evaluate robot skills by visual observation.

This paper presents a chip containing a flexible scaffold which facilitates the construction of tissues with different shapes. The chip, entirely made of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), has 2 main components including actuator and channel layers. The actuator layer consists of a 6×6 array of membrane actuators, with round shapes. The channel layer has a single layered structure due to the simplicity in chip assembly and the ability to observe seeded cells via a microscope. The actuator array offers a flat surface, like a normal cell culture dish, in the rest state, while it temporarily offers a scaffold structure when actuators are activated. By changing the actuation pattern, formation of many scaffold structures is possible. To demonstrate the utility of this chip in biological application, a syringe pump is connected to all actuators to produced 2 different scaffolds, enabling the fabrication of multiple flat round and lattice shaped tissues. NIH3T3 cells with the amount of 5×106were seeded on the scaffold and kept inside the incubator for 24 hours. The 25 round shaped tissues with an average diameter of 623.87 μm were simultaneously fabricated when a scaffold with large deformed actuators was used. The lattice shaped tissue with a line width of about 300 μm was also fabricated with a different scaffold structure which has less actuator displacement. Results suggest the potential usage of this chip for the preparation of many building units with different structures, without the necessity of making a new mold for a new tissue shape.

Single cell analysis has attracted much attention for revealing detailed and localized biological information. A local environmental control technique is desired when analyzing the detailed and localized properties of single cells. In this paper, we propose a local environmental stimulation system with micro dual-pipettes to stimulate the local reagent concentration dynamically, freely and automatically. When the local environment is controlled with chemical stimuli, the chemical solution is diffused and affects other objects. The local environment stimulation system with micro dual-pipettes can solve this problem. By using spout pipette and suction pipette, it is possible to use local stimuli without affecting other objects. For evaluating the locality of the system, we use a fluorescent substance and measure the diffusion of the spouted solution.

This paper addresses the problem of mental fatigue caused by prolonged use of Brain Machine Interface (BMI) Systems. We propose a system that gradually becomes autonomous by learning user preferences and by considering error perception feedback. As a particular application, we show that our system allows patients to control electronic appliances in a hospital room, and learns the correlation of room sensor data, brain states, and user control commands. Moreover, error perception feedback based on a brain potential called error related negativity (ERN) - that spontaneously occurs when the user perceives an error made by the system - was used to correct system's mistakes and improve its learning performance. Experimental results with volunteers demonstrate that our system reduces the level of mental fatigue, and achieves over 90% overall learning performance when error perception feedback is considered. Note to Practitioners - This paper suggests a new approach for designing BMI systems that incorporate learning capabilities and error perception feedback in order to gradually become autonomous. This approach consists in learning the relationship between sensing data from the environment-brain and user actions when controlling robotic devices. After the system is trained, can predict control commands on behalf of the user under similar conditions. If the system makes a mistake, user's error perception feedback is considered to improve the learning performance the system. In this paper, we describe the methodologies to design and build hardware and software interfaces, acquire and process brain signals, and train the system using machine learning techniques. We then provide experimental evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach to design BMI systems that gradually become autonomous.

In this work, we present a high-speed pick-and-place method for cell-assembly applications. Besides range of motion and accuracy, rapidness of a manipulation system is an important parameter, which is so far underrated in related studies. To achieve high-speed micromanipulation, obtaining 3D positions of both the target microobject and the end effector rapidly is necessary. In addition, controlling the vibration of the end effector, which is greater at high speed, is another arduous task. We propose a new fast detection algorithm for both the target microobject and the end effector for achieving high-speed control of the system. Moreover, to realize the stable control for very fast movements, the vibration of the system is compensated. High-speed control of the microhand system is demonstrated with preliminary experiments consisting of pick-and-place actions of 40 to 60 μm microspheres; we aimed at performing a manipulation task in 1 second. Comparison with similar studies shows the merit of the proposed automated high-speed micromanipulation system.

In this research we present a non-invasive Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) system that allows patients with motor paralysis conditions to control electronic appliances in a hospital room. The novelty of our system compared to other BMI applications is that our system gradually becomes autonomous by learning user actions (i.e. turning on/off window, lights, etc.) under certain environment conditions (temperature, illumination, etc.) and brain states (i.e. awake, sleepy, etc.). By providing learning capabilities to the system, patients are relieved from mental fatigue or stress caused by continuously controlling appliances using a BMI. We present an interface that allows the user to select and control appliances using electromyogram signals (EMG) generated by muscle contractions such as eyebrow movement. Our learning approach consists in two steps: 1) monitoring user actions, input data from sensors distributed around the room, and Electroencephalogram (EEG) data from the user, and 2) using an extended version of the Bayes Point Machine approach trained with Expectation Propagation to approximate a posterior probability from previously observed user actions under a similar combination of brain states and environmental conditions. Experimental results with volunteers demonstrate that our system provides satisfactory user experience and achieves over 85% overall learning performance after only a few trials.

Recently, with the development of life science field, micromanipulation technology has attracted attention. A two-fingered microhand system, that has been developed as a micro manipulator, can perform dexterous cell manipulation such as grasping, rotating, and transferring using two end effectors in a chopstick-like motion. The automated manipulation uses processing results based on all-in-focus (AIF) images and depth map obtained from the vision system; however, errors in the results still reduce the efficiency of the system. In this study, we introduce an automated grasping system that corrects the image processing error using the reaction force from the target object during grasping maneuvers. In our improved microhand system, micro force sensors that comprises strain gauge are attached to the two fingers of microhand. The two fingers with micro force sensor are set to be able to measure the horizontal and vertical forces to detect grasping state, precisely. Using the sensor information and the image processing results, we demonstrate that this system improves the accuracy and success rate of automated grasping.

In the fields of medicine and biology, it is essential to realize fine manipulation. Therefore, micromanipulation techniques and micromanipulators such as microgrippers and optical tweezers have been developed. We have developed a two-fingered microhand which is using the parallel mechanism to realize precise and stable micromanipulation. However, the previous microhand has problems about workspace and vibration. In this paper, the development of a new microhand which solves problems of previous microhand. The characteristic of new microhand is to enlarge the workspace utilizing the singularity of the parallel mechanisms. Inverse kinematics and structural analysis are used to analyze the workspace, and we show that results of two analyses match. Vibration analysis simulates transportation task and grasping task for manipulation. The new microhand has a potential to reduce the vibration by vibration analysis results.

Keyframe selection is the process of finding a representative frame in an image sequence. Although mostly known from video processing, keyframe selection faces new challenges in the lifelog domain. To obtain a keyframe that is close to a user-selected frame, we propose a keyframe selection method based on image quality measurements and excitement features. Image quality measurements such as contrast, color variance, sharpness, noise and saliency are used to filter high quality images. However, high quality images are not necessarily keyframes because humans also use emotions in the selection process. In this study, we employ a biosensor to measure the excitement of humans. In previous investigation, keyframe selection using only image quality measurements yielded an acceptance rate of 79.70%. Our proposed method achieves an acceptance rate of 84.45%.

We propose a social navigation model that allows a robot to navigate in a human environment according to human intentions, in particular during a situation where the human encounters a robot and he/she wants to avoid, unavoid (maintain his/her course), or approach the robot. Avoiding, unavoiding, and approaching trajectories of humans are classified based on the face orientation on a social force model and their predicted motion. The proposed model is developed based on human motion and behavior (especially face orientation and overlapping personal space) analysis in preliminary experiments. Our experimental evidence demonstrates that the robot is able to adapt its motion by preserving personal distance from passers-by, and approaching persons who want to interact with the robot. This work contributes to the future development of a human-robot socialization environment.

In this article, we aim to discover the important factors for determining the psychological safety of humanoids and to develop a new psychological scale to measure the degree of safety quantitatively. To discover the factors that determine the psychological safety of humanoids from an ordinary person's perspective, we studied 919 Japanese, who observed movies of 11 humanoids and then freely described their impressions about what the safety of each humanoid was for them. Five psychologists categorized all of the obtained descriptions into several categories and then used the categories to compose a new psychological scale. Then, 2,624 different Japanese evaluated the same 11 humanoids using the new scale. Factor analysis on the obtained quantitative data revealed six factors of psychological safety: Performance, Humanness, Acceptance, Harmlessness, Toughness, and Agency. Additional analysis revealed that Performance, Acceptance, Harmlessness, and Toughness were the most important factors for determining the psychological safety of general humanoids. The usability of the new scale is discussed.

In order for robots to be a part of human society, their social accceptance is an important issue if smooth interaction with humans is to be achieved. We propose a modified social force model that allows robots to move naturally like humans, based on estimated human motion and face pose. We add to the previous model the effect of the force due to face pose, in order to predict human motion and compute the robot motion itself. Our approach was implemented and tested on a real humanoid robot in a situation in which a human is confronted with a robot in an indoor environment. Experimental results illustrate that the robot is able to perform human-like navigation by avoiding the human in a face-to-face confrontation. Our system provides accurate face pose tracking that allows a robot to have a more realistic behaviour compared to the original social force model.

This study identifies the basic general perspectives that ordinary people use to evaluate humanoids (Study 1). In addition, it develops a new psychological scale to quantify general impressions regarding humanoids based on these basic perspectives (Study 2). In Study 1, to discover the basic perspectives toward humanoids, we used 11 humanoids and collected data from 919 Japanese people ranging from teenagers to people in their 70s in three big cities. We asked people to describe their impressions in free text about the robots. Five psychologists analyzed the qualitative data to categorize all the descriptions into several categories. Then, we made the items based on the obtained descriptions to construct a new psychological scale for evaluating general impressions regarding humanoids. In Study 2, we asked 2,624 Japanese who did not participate in Study 1 to evaluate 11 humanoids on the developed scale. Factor analysis showed that nine factors should be used for evaluating the general impressions regarding humanoids: Familiarity, Repulsion, Performance, Utility, Motion, Sound, Voice, Humanness, and Entitativity. The factor structure is clear and its reliability as a psychological scale is satisfactorily high. Finally, we discuss the usability of the new scale.

For an object recognition task in an unknown environment, we propose a novel approach for illumination recovery of surface with cast shadows and specularities by using the object spherical spaces properties. Robust objects recognition in complex environment is fundamental to robot intelligence and manipulation. The proposed method is done for reducing the illumination effects on the objects detection and recognition processes. In this work, objects reference images are regenerated to match the scene lighting environment to increase the success rate of the recognition process. First, a database is generated by computing the albedo and surface normals from captured 2D images of the target objects. Next, the scene lighting direction and illumination coefficients are estimated. Finally, by using the calculated spherical spaces properties we regenerate objects reference data to match the search area illumination condition. In this work, practical real time processing speed and small image size were considered when designing the framework. In contrast to other techniques, our work requires no 3D models for the objects training process and takes images from a single camera as an input. Using our proposed 2D Spherical Spaces experimentally showed noticeable improvements in an objects identification task performed by an autonomous robot in a harshly illuminated environment.

We present our method for learning object categories from the internet using cues obtained through human-robot interaction. Such cues include an object model acquired by observation and the name of the object. Our learning approach emulates the natural learning process of children when they observe their environment, encounter unknown objects and ask adults the name of the object. Using this learning approach, our robot is able to discover objects in a domestic environment by observing when humans naturally move objects as part of their daily activities. Using speech interface,the robot directly asks humans the name of the object by showing an example of the acquired model. The name in text format and the previously learnt model serve as input parameters to retrieve object category images from a search engine, select similar object images, and build a classifier. Preliminary results demonstrate the effectiveness of our learning approach.

The aim of this study was to compare a robot designed using a virtual reality (VR) system (termed VR robot) with a real robot by using a psychological evaluation to investigate whether the VR robot can be used in the same manner as a real robot. To make the direct comparison between a VR and real robots possible, the same designed robots in both VR and real are used in the experiment. For evaluating the robots on a psychological basis, we focused on six basic dimensions (Utility, Clumsiness of motion, Possibility of communication, Controllability, Vulnerability, and Objective hardness) that ordinary people generally use to perceive robots. Sixty-one participants observed and evaluated a real and VR humanoid robots using a psychological scale. Results show that the real robot was evaluated to have higher scores for Utility, Possibility of communication, and Objective hardness and lower ones for Controllability as compared to a VR robot. The Vulnerability scores of the real robot and the VR robot were not significantly different. The usability of a VR robot is discussed in the paper.

The ability to recognize novel items in complex environment is fundamental to robot intelligence and manipulation. In this work, we consider the issue of segmenting visual and physical aspects of novel objects of interest, specifically ones that are being seen for the first time and located in the proximity of unidentified obstacles. Illumination at different wavelengths and angles are projected by a robot, thus acquiring additional information about the scene and exploiting it for successful novel objects segmentation. By analyzing shades and reflections of a scene's objects, we were able to form and identify true edges and visually separate items of interest. In order to recognize the physical characteristics of segmented objects, we introduce a novel material classification technique which utilizes static electricity charge sensing. Our proposed methods do not require predefined models of target objects and assume no previously assigned targets' pose. Using extracted object visual and physical aspects, an autonomous robot manipulator successfully performed a trash separation task.

In the field of bioscience, such as regeneration medicine and cloning, the manipulation and analysis for cells are performed by many researchers. However, manual operation for such micro objects is not feasible and practical for beginner operators. As for the problem, we have developed a two-fingered microhand supporting manual operation. Using the microhand, we can manipulate cells i.e., grab, rotate, carry, and so on - like when using chop sticks. The stiffness measurement of a cell is a key approach in single cell analysis techniques. It is important in indicating cell condition, because the stiffness of a cancer cell is lower than that of a normal cell as an example. However, measuring stiffness is very difficult, because deformations of cell are plasticly, and many researches to measure the stiffness of cell don't deal with plastic deformation. So, in this paper, the cell hardness is calculated instead of cell stiffness by measuring the reaction force caused in the process of cell deformation via a micro force sensor attached to the end-effector of the microhand. Our results point out that this can be one efficient measurement method for acquiring cell hardness. In this paper, three topics are discussed. First one is the fabrication of the end-effector with micro force sensor. Second one is the method of measuring hardness of cell. As a last one, the hardness of the fibroblastic cell is measured by proposed method and the effectiveness of the proposal technique is shown.

For potential applications in bioscience, a two-fingered microhand with dexterous manipulation capability was developed. This microhand system could perform dexterous tasks such as cell rotation, single cell pick-and-place, cell patterning, and measurement of mechanical properties of living cells. However, it is a tedious task to manipulate micro objects manually. In order to improve the efficiency of the system, automated micromanipulation is required. This paper describes how to automate micromanipulation for this two-fingered microhand so that it can perform desired tasks more efficiently, more accurately, and faster. By integrating an All-In-Focus imaging system to the microhand system, 3D positions of the two microfinger tips and micro target objects can be obtained. These 3D positions are necessary for the microhand to handle the target object automatically. We demonstrate this capability by a pick-and-place task with multi-sized microspheres. Short time for object grasping and success rate over 70% for all cases could be achieved.

Cell stiffness could be an index for evaluating its activity. Although various systems measuring cell stiffness have been proposed so far, they are slow for adaptively connecting to cell sorters capable of handling more than 1000 [cells/sec]. This paper proposes a new approach that can indirectly evaluate the cell stiffness by measuring the passing time for a narrow channel. When a cell passes through the channel, it receives a viscous force depending upon how much deformation is exerted on the cell. We show that the stiffness is a function of both the passing time and the initial diameter of cell. We also show that the stiffness is proportional to the passing time and inversely proportional to the initial diameter, under the assumption that the thickness of fluid film is inversely proportional to the normal force. The experimental validation is given together with the basic working principle.

In this study we explored basic dimensions used to perceive humanoid robots and developed a scale to evaluate perception of humanoid robots, PERNOD. Previous studies of perception of humanoid robots used psychological scales created for interpersonal perception between humans. This study clarified the basic dimensions of perception of humanoid robots and developed PERNOD by means of psychological methodology. The results revealed six basic dimensions of perception of humanoid robots: Utility, Clumsiness of motion, Possibility of communication, Controllability, Vulnerability, and Objective hardness. The 6 dimensions of PERNOD were originally developed for humanoid robots. Thus, these dimensions represent the organization of knowledge used in the recognition of humanoid robots. Usability of PERNOD was discussed.

New gait planning using a nonholonomic model with difference equation constraints is proposed for biped robot walking. A model of a pivoting telescopic segment is used as the kinematic foothold selection model of a bipedal robot. The repetitive and discontinuous constraints of pivoting, expanding, and contracting make up the set of walking trajectory data. The k-step reachable region is defined as the set of the k-th state that the system can reach from the initial state, and the motion planning is solved using the Jacobian matrix of the state with regard to the input series. The difference equation constraints can be discussed as a digital control of continuous-time nonholonomic systems. The gait planning is modified based on the limiting condition for the HRP-2 humanoid robot. Energy consumption is evaluated based on the linear-pendulum model and the gait planning is optimized. The feasibility of the proposed walking planning is demonstrated through a numerical simulation and an experiment involving the HRP-2 humanoid robot.

A new method for bipedal walking on rough terrain by using ZMP criteria map is proposed. The rough terrain walking is classified to “step up” and “step down” by landing timing of a swing leg. The walking pattern is modified in real-time according to the difference between the ideal timing and the measured timing by a force sensor on the foot. In the case of “step up”, the landing timing is faster than the ideal, and the swing leg trajectory should be change to follow the step so that the ZMP based balance of the sudden caused double support phase is kept. In the case of “step down”, the landing timing is later than the ideal, and the swing leg trajectory should be change to seek the ground so that the balance of the unknown future double support phase is kept. The modified walking pattern is decided based on the ZMP criteria map. The ZMP criteria map can indicate a safe landing timing and landing position of a swing leg. By referring the ZMP criteria map, the robust walking pattern can be planned. The proposed method is implemented to HRP-2, and the effectiveness is confirmed through experiments.

Finding objects and tracking their poses are essential functions for service robots, in order to manipulate objects and interact with humans. We present an approach for object detection and 3D pose estimation for autonomous mobile robots, that is suitable for general uses in a modularized robot control system. Our approach extracts local features from the input images, searches for the reference pattern, and then produces the 3D pose in camera coordinate system, using only a single reference image and the 6-DOF pose in it. We have created an RT (Robot Technology) component that can be used in any RT-based system, and developed an algorithm that can extend the range of detection and produce robust pose estimation. For evaluation, we have integrated our vision component in an autonomous robot system with a search-and-grasp task, and tested it with several objects that are found in ordinary domestic environment. We present the details of our approach, the design of our modular component design, and the results of the experiments in this paper.

A two-fingered micro hand has been available for use for years and allows dexterous manipulation of a single cell: grabbing, positioning, rotating and releasing. The end-effector of this micro hand consists of two glass needles; however, the glass tips must be finely adjusted and the micro hand must be calibrated prior to use. Because these initial procedures require highly skilled human operators and a great deal of time, a fine adjustment module (FAM) has been developed for assisting with the fine adjustment work and was successfully shown to make the initial setup easier. However, problems with the calibration process and with the dependence on a user of the FAM control are still present. One means of improving the system for users is to automate the initial setup. The detection of the glass tips in a wide range of Z directions from a microscopic image having a small depth of focus requires robust calibration and must be possible using an automated FAM control. From this perspective, the tip position detection algorithm using the evaluation function, Image Quality Measurement (IQM), is proposed in this paper. Based on this algorithm, the automated initial setup method is explained and its effectiveness is experimentally evaluated.

In this paper, we propose a sensor for detecting particles flowing in a micro channel fabricated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chip. A light source placed at one side of a micro channel irradiates the micro channel through plastic optical fibers (POF), and a detector placed at the opposite side of the micro channel receives light transmitted through the POF. Since this sensor simultaneously detects plural particles with a diameter of around 100 ¿m flowing in a micro channel, it can be implemented in automatic measurement systems of cells in desktop bio plant, on which automated embryonic cell manipulation is achieved using micro robotics technology.

A new convergence calculation method of the normal distributions transform (NDT) scan matching for high resolution of grid maps is proposed. NDT scan matching algorithm usually has a good effect on large grids, so it is difficult to generate the detailed map with small grids. The proposed method employs interactive closest point (ICP) algorithm to find corresponding point, and it also enlarges the convergence area by modifying the eigenvalue of normal distribution so that the evaluation value is driven effectively for the pairing data. In addition, outlier elimination process is implemented to the scanning for sub-grid scale object. The scanning data from laser range finder (LRF) have error but its set of detected small object can be clustered to determine the center of mass (CoM) and the outlier data. The outlier commonly locates behind true points and it can be eliminated when the robot observes from other point. Experimental result shows the effectiveness of the proposed convergence algorithm and outlier elimination method.

In this paper, we presented a design for an automated cell supply system that can be used with complex microfluidic applications requiring single cell loading such as the current nuclear transplantation method. The aim of the system is to automatically transfer mammalian donor (~15 ¿m) or egg (~100 ¿m) cells one by one from a container to a PDMS micro-channel and then transport them to other modules. The system consists of two main parts; a single cell suction module, and a PDMS-based microfluidic chip controlled by an external pump. The desired number of vacuumed cells can be directed into the microfluidic chip and stored in a docking area. From the batch, they can be moved to next module by activating pneumatic pressure valves located on two sides of the chip.

Recently, human-friendly robots such are mainly focused on their functions. And, based on these functions, many researchers have tried to realize good applications for convenient human life. While, a mental safety and affinity for human are also important topics to co-existence with robots. The evaluation techniques of robot motion and design are necessary to consider the above things. However, the costs of real robot are very expensive. So, it is difficult to evaluate human impression for several real robot. So, to solve this problem, we have focused on the evaluation techniques by using virtual reality. In the previous work, several types robot design were evaluated on virtual reality by using meta model, which is abstraction model of robots. When researchers want their robot to reflect an evaluation result on virtual reality, there are some relationships between virtual robot and real one. If there is no relation from real robot and virtual one, we cannot do any feedback to real robots based on virtual one's results. In this paper, we evaluate the relationships between virtual robot and real one based on human impressions through several experiments.

New robotic systems will be playing an essential role in the future dismantling service for renewing office interiors facilities in buildings. In our study, the dismantling task would be achieved by proper collaboration between human workers and robots utilizing mobile arms, interface devices and software. This paper describes an overview of the proposed dismantling system as well as its requirements. The real experiments presented are focused on the disassembling task of a ceiling lamp panel (LP). In the disassembling task, a robot arm collaborates with the human worker holding the LP, accomplishing an assisting function. At first, in order to approach the robot to the holding position, the worker controls the robot using interface devices which are also evaluated in their usability aspect. Then, a laser pointer fixed at the robot’s tip is used both as a guidance in the teleoperation process and as a first indicator of the holding position. As a second step toward the target, the control program applies model-based 3D object recognition techniques to calculate the final position. At this stage the information of an stereo camera, configured as an eye-in-hand system, is necessary. On the last part of the task, the robot reaches the estimated position automatically by using the results of its kinematic analysis. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

A ladder climbing motion for limb mechanism robot “ASTERISK” is proposed. This robot has six legs. The upper three legs hold on the upper rung from its both sides alternately, just like pinching it. The lower three legs hold on the lower rung in the same way. Hence the robot can climb the ladder stably. Depending on the posture of the robot, when it lifts up its body, the robot automatically selects the legs supporting the robot’s weight and distributes the weight to these legs based on their force margins. The legs which cannot support forces are controlled to always contact with the rungs so that the robot holds the ladder firmly. The advantages of proposed gait and control method are verified by the analysis of the supporting range and the torque, and by experiment on force distribution.

The paper presents a new convergence calculation method of the Normal Distributions Transform (NDT) scan matching for high resolution grid map. The proposed method employs Interactive Closest Point(ICP) algorithm to find corresponding point, even if the input scan points are in the outside of the reference grid area. It also enlarges the convergence area by modifying the eigenvalue of normal distribution so that the evaluation value can be driven effectively by all the pairing data for improving convergence speed. In the normal NDT scan matching algorithm, the grid size especially has much effect on the capability of convergence area and speed. Thus, it is difficult to generate the detailed map with small grids. The proposed convergence approach can solve the problem by the phased adjustment of convergence area. Experimental result shows the feasibility of the detailed environmental map generated by the NDT grid mapping.

This paper describes research and development of a compact vision system for real-time cell detection and manipulation in a capillary in order to apply on the “Automated Nuclear Transplantation” project which will achieve sort of cell manipulation tasks such as positioning, cutting, sizing, and so on, automatically between different interconnected modules. Here, we propose a vision system boarded on a PDMS based silicon chip, which can be utilized in a complex network for continuous monitoring of mammalian egg and donor cells of sizes in the range of 10 to 100 micron. The developed prototype has sufficient resolution and is accompanied with a robust detection method for cell-based microfluidic applications.

In the renewal process of office interiors, a robotic system is needed in order to assist the human workers engaged in this kind of job. Regarding the items in the ceiling side, after the dismantling task of the ceiling panels, it is necessary to remove carefully the screws that once held these boards to the Light Gauge Steel (LGS), with the purpose of reusing. The proposed methodology to achieve the task consists at first of the LGS detection. Such detection is useful as a first approach to detect the screws because a trajectory under and near of that metal-ceiling structure can be generated for a scanning process. In both tasks, a stereo camera configured as an eye-in-hand system is necessary. During the motion under the structure, the screws are detected by applying a multi-template matching process to every caught image. A multi-frame integration increases the robustness in the screw detection process. The results of all the processed images along the trajectory are analyzed in order to measure both the true and the false positive detection rates of the screws attached to the LGS and to measure the 3D position of each one.

Psychological acceptance among users must be considered when service robots intended to work in a human population. We assessed such psychological effects using virtual reality instead of actual robots. Subjects filled out questionnaires after viewing computer graphics (CG) images of robots. Based on questionnaires, we identified potential psychological effects. In earlier work, we defined impressions made by robots on viewers using an abstract robot model. Here we define effects that robot appearance and performance have on users, varying parameters. We also define changes in impression due to colors thought to significant affect human psychology in the same way as robot appearance and performance.

An encountered-type visual haptic display using flexible sheet is proposed; it allows users to feel like seeing and pushing virtual soft objects directly. Both edges of a translucent flexible sheet such as rubber is attached to two manipulators. They apply bias tension to the sheet by pulling it from both sides, thus varying the sheet compliance. A user can feel the compliance of a virtual soft object by pushing the sheet with his finger directly. The motion of the finger tip is measured by stereo cameras. The manipulators also change the pose of the sheet along the object's surface together with the finger tip motion. The user can touch different points of the object and feel like stroking it with his finger. This sheet is also used as a rear projection screen. From the measured finger tip position, the deformation of the object is calculated by FEM. An LCD projector projects the CG image of the deformed object stereoscopically on the sheet from its back. The user can see the 3D image through stereoscopic glasses and touch the image directly. A method of correcting the CG image distortion caused by the movement of the sheet and the depression of the pushed sheet is proposed. A virtual soft cylinder is expressed by a prototype display: the stroking of the cylinder and the correction of its 3D image are evaluated.

Real-time emergent stop walking motion is necessary for humanoid robots. We propose a new emergent stop method using modification criteria map. The stable gait change is generated by adjusting the amount of the ZMP modification according to the timing of stop command. The modified ZMP trajectory is given so that the humanoid robot can change the current motion without falling down. The modification criteria are defined from the relation between the predicted ZMP trajectory using a preview controller and the support polygon. The preview controller employs table-cart model and it derives center of mass (CoM) trajectory from ZMP reference in real-time. We make the map of relation among the ZMP modification length, the modification timing and the timing of the stop command for stable gait modification. The robot can execute the best motion referring to the predefined map. In this method, the humanoid robot can stop immediately within one step or zero step to avoid a collision, if humans or objects appeared unexpectedly in front of the walking humanoid robot. The stop motion is typically divided two phase: single leg support phase and double leg support phase. In the single leg support phase, the next landing position and timing are decided according to command time of the stop signal. In the double leg support phase, the humanoid robot can stop anytime without changing standing position. The validity of the proposed method is confirmed by experiment using a humanoid robot HRP-2.

This paper investigates a calibration of a parallel mechanism stage which is set up under the microscope. The calibration method uses the measurement data of the translation movement in the plane of the end-effector and rotation about the axis perpendicular to it using measurement method with the micro grid pattern. This paper discusses its calibration method with experiments for the stage constructed a fixed linear actuated parallel mechanism. The results show that the calibration using limited data is possible and has good performance

A method for limb mechanism robots of omni-directional gait hanging from grid-like structure is proposed. Grid-like structure consists of many bars assembled in a matrix in a horizontal plane; its grid spacing is not always constant and unknown. A robot has six legs, and each foot has a hemispherical shape for hooking on the bar. The robot moves in any direction as commanded by tripod gait; it hangs from the grid-like structure using two sets of three legs alternately. The leg gropes for the bar so as to take as long stroke as possible. By increasing joint compliance, the foot contacts the bar softly and detects the contact. Then, using a foot force sensor, the robot ascertains that the foot hooks on the bar. The developed robot ASTERISK can perform omni-directional gait hanging from experimental grid-like structure by the proposed method

A compact and yet economical 3-DOF micro/nano finger manipulator based on micro parallel kinematics structure is presented in this paper. It uses three piezo-electric actuators and two types of flexure joints, one is a revolute joint and the other is a ball joint, as its main mechanism. The problem of inverse kinematics between end effector position and actuator displacements along with the Jacobian matrix for this design is derived. A glass needle of 3 to 10 cm length is used as the end effector to increase the workspace of the micro/nano manipulator. As the length of the glass needle end effector is decreased, the resolution and accuracy of the manipulator is increased while the workspace volume is decreased. The design parameters are optimally chosen so that the manipulator will obtain maximum workspace volume. The simulation results illustrate that the proposed model has a large workspace and in the same time it will be small in size using the proposed architecture

Marionette system provides an intuitive teleoperation system for the difficulty controlling whole-body motion of a multi-joint robot and the complicated observation of its condition. This system employs a small robot which has similar form to a control target as an operating/displaying device, so that the device provides an operational feeling like manipulating a doll, so it is named Marionette device. Since the characteristics of the Marionette device and the target robot are synchronized bilaterally in the system, the operation of the Marionette device is reflected intuitively in the target, and the robot motion is also displayed simultaneously by the Marionette device. In this paper, we develop a humanoid type device as a Marionette device in order to operate a humanoid robot HRP-2 and implement a wholebody teleoperation method. The remote walking and manipulation experiments in an unknown environment are introduced. In this experiment, the operator should guess the remote environment using head camera view and control legs and arms by the Marionette device. We propose a new operation method for controlling the foot position and leg joints with the Marionette device. It makes possible to walk by pointing a foot stamp step by step in a stable place

This paper describes a real-time gait change for a walking humanoid robot. We propose a control method to change the gait motion by modifying a pre-defined zero moment point (ZMP) trajectory in real time. The stable gait change is generated by adjusting the amount of the ZMP modification according to the timing of stop command. The modified ZMP trajectory is given so that the humanoid robot can change the current motion without falling down. The modification criteria is defined from the relation between the predicted ZMP trajectory using a preview controller and the support polygon. The preview controller employs table-cart model and it derives center of mass (CoM) trajectory from ZMP reference in real-time. We make the map of relation between the ZMP modification and the timing of command for stable gate modification. The robot executes the best motion referring to the map. In this method, the humanoid robot can stop immediately within one step to avoid a collision, if humans or objects appeared unexpectedly in front of the walking humanoid robot. The stop motion is typically divided two mode; single leg stop motion and double leg stop motion. The stop mode and the next landing position are decided according to the command time of the stop signal. The validity of the proposed method is confirmed by experiment using a humanoid robot HRP-2

In this paper, a wide-area recognition technique for mobile robots, which proves to be specifically effective with biped robots, using Hybrid Motion Stereo is presented. The proposed technique uses several cameras and divides the field of view into two groups, namely, areas visible in more than two cameras (MCVA : Multiple Camera Visible Area) and areas visible in only a single camera (SCVA : Single Camera Visible Area). Positional informations contained in MCVA can be computed constantly by stereo vision, while those contained in SCVA require movement of the camera to be computed by motion stereo. Estimation of the movement of cameras can be obtained by calculating the movement of immobile objects in MCVA. The measure of precision in computation by motion stereo depends on the magnitude of the movement of points in the image. Thus, high precision in SCVA can be obtained by lateral or longitudinal motions of the cameras. One such motion can be generated with biped robots for its lateral cyclic motion caused by the movement of the center of gravity for stability retainment. The authors have implemented these methods into the humanoid robot HRP-2 and evaluated the effectivity of the technique.

This paper discusses pushing a heavy object by a humanoid robot. We modify the whole body motion considering the hand reflecting forces for the walking pattern of a humanoid robot. By assuming that linear and angular momentum of a humanoid robot are calculated, we define the projection of the Center of the Mass(CoM) as” Dynamically Complemental Zero Moment Point(DCZMP)”, when external forces act to the end-effectors. We propose a new method using the DCZMP for the modification control of CoM position with balancing control. The robot can keep the dynamical balance considering the DCZMP and the walking velocity in both single and double support phase. In addition, for controlling pushing force, we implement an impedance controller with the manipulation and walking velocity controller. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by simulations and experiments.

In this paper, the mechanical properties of yeast cell are determined by means of the developed two-fingered micro hand and an atomic force microscope (AFM). The micro hand has excellent absolute positioning accuracy after the elaborated calibration, and is typically capable of obtaining less than several hundred nanometer of positioning accuracy by human tele-operation. The authors also developed an AFM system of our own composition. The AFM consists of a laser diode module, a cantilever, a 4-segment photodiode and output circuit. The task to measure the mechanical properties of cells include moving of the fingers from the home position to the target object (cell), then picking and grasping it, moving it to a target position (AFM tip), and finally pushing it against the cantilever tip. However, since it is difficult to stabilize the sample, the authors utilized the capillary phenomenon, i.e. the liquid inside the tube-shaped object ascends the inner wall in order to stabilize the sample strongly. And force-indentation relation was obtained applying a force to individual yeast cells by moving the sample to the cantilever tip. Force is automatically calculated from the cantilever deflection measured with a laser beam and a quadrature photodiode, while indentation is obtained from the difference between the movement of the micro hand and that of the cantilever tip caused by cantilever deflection. The mechanical properties of yeast cells is finally determined using the produced force-indentation curves, the Hertz model and FIEL (force indentation to equal limits) mapping, which is an analytical way for determining relative microelastic properties from force volumes of viscoelastic materials.

Robots working in complex environment require accurate perception of a wide field of view. Using cameras, hybrid motion stereo, which combines the computations by stereo vision and motion stereo, is capable of acquiring positional information of the whole field of view. However, the technique generates errors in computation by motion stereo when tracking feature points fails. This paper describes a method to reject the outliers to avoid erroneous recognition. The method uses computation results from several previous images, computing the spatial deviation and temporal deviation of points, and rejecting those considered to be deviated. The evaluation function is composed with a weighted average of the sequential results, each with a weight of the total number of points existing in the neighboring space, which represents the spatial deviation. Experimental results using the humanoid robot HRP-2 denote the effectiveness of the method.

In this paper, we propose new method for the task of pushing an object by a humanoid robot. First, a humanoid robot leans against the task object whose mass and shape are known, and it makes multipoint contact states which the whole body is supported by both hands and feet. We focus on two support polygons which consist of the both hands and one foot, and we make them include the center of mass (CoM). In this case, the humanoid robot doesn't need to move the CoM for walking and it is easily possible to make stable gate motion. The force control considering the pushing force and the acceleration control of the CoM are implemented for the gate velocity control. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper proposes a gait control algorithm for limb-mechanism robot on rough terrains and slopes. The concept of the "limb-mechanism" is to integrate functions of legged locomotion and arm manipulation. A limb can be used as a leg and an arm according to different situations. Each limb radiates out in six directions and the robot has a symmetrical configuration in horizontal and vertical directions. The robot can walk into any direction using a simple motion planning where the same trajectory is assumed in each leg. This trajectory is generated on a cylindrical volume which is defined in the leg workspace. The robot has a touch sensor at the tip of each leg. The sensor can detect the contact with the ground, and the legs can stay on the ground stably. When the robot walks on a rough terrain, the body is inclined in parallel to the virtual plane defined by leg supporting points in order to use the leg workspace effectively. The stability margin of the robot can be also improved easily by changing the leg trajectory.

When robots coexisting with humans are designed, it is important to evaluate the influence of the shape and size of the robots and their motions on human sense of security. For this purpose, an evaluation system of human sense of security for coexisting robots using virtual reality is discussed. Virtual robots are visually presented to a human subject through a head mounted display; the subject and the robots coexist in the virtual world. Some kinds of physiological indices of the subject are measured, he answers the questionnaire about his impression of the robots, and his sense of security is evaluated. Because of using virtual reality technique, the shape and size of the robots and their motions can be easily changed and tested. In the present report, pick and place motion of humanoid robots is evaluated. As a result of analyzing the questionnaire, it is found that turning the body coordinating with the arm gives good impression on humans.

An integrated visual and haptic display using translucent and flexible sheet such as rubber is proposed. This display varies the compliance of the sheet in the normal direction by changing the bias tension of the sheet: tightly stretched sheet feels hard, and loosely stretched sheet feels soft Hence a user can feel compliance of various virtual objects when he pushes the sheet. This sheet is also used as a rear projection screen; an LCD projector projects the image on the sheet from its back. When the user's finger pushes the sheet, the position and deformation of the pushed point are measured by stereo vision. The deformation of the virtual object is calculated by FEM, and the graphical model of the deformed object is generated. The user sees both the image of the object projected on the sheet and his own finger pushing the image. As a result, the proposed visual and haptic display allows users to feel like pushing virtual soft objects with their fingers directly. It is ascertained that the developed display can generate variable compliance and simulate the compliance of a real soft object. Human subjects feel like seeing and pushing a virtual object directly.

This paper proposes a method of building a 3D map composed of static objects for localization of mobile robots using recognition of human actions. In the monitoring systems with fixed cameras and also moving cameras, high-precision localization of moving cameras is required for measuring human actions in detail and precisely. A 3D map of the environment composed of static objects such as walls, desks and shelves is useful for high-precision localization of moving cameras in 3D space, because salient features in the environment are used as landmarks. Furthermore, the 3D map is required for generation of monitoring motion of the moving cameras and recognition of human actions in the relation of the environmental objects. In order to generate a 3D map automatically by measuring 3D points in an environment, points on static objects have to be selected from measured points, because there are dynamic objects such as chairs, books, and other mobile things in the environment. The proposed method generates a 3D map for localization by selecting points on static objects from measured 3D points based on recognition of human actions. Experimental results show feasibility of our proposed method.

Mobile manipulation control method for humanoid robots provides good manipulability and stability on manipulation tasks. This method leads whole body motion and locomotion, when the manipulator tip trajectory is decided. For the dexterous manipulation, the robot has to cope with the unexpected forces acting to the hands. By assuming the statistical balance, we define the projection of the CoM as "complement zero moment point (CZMP)", when the external forces act to the end-effectors. We propose to use the CZMP for the modification control of CoM with balancing control. The method is implemented to the mobile manipulation control method and the effectiveness is confirmed by the experimental results.

We propose "marionette system" as a master slave teleoperation. The operation/display device which presents form and posture equivalent to the remote robot is named "marionette device". In the system, it is possible, making exact discrimination, to control flexibly the remote robot by using marionette device. Marionette system is the operation/presentation technique which not only enables to operate flexibly all movable joints but to discriminate correctly by checking the marionette device. Since the condition of the marionette device is made almost equivalent to the remote robot, the operator can check and operate the device as treating a doll for judgments of operation. Thus, we named the control system "marionette system." In this paper, we develop the humanoid-robot (HR) type device as an example of the remote control of the humanoid robot. When a humanoid robot is set as an operation target, it becomes easy to transpose and image a robot pattern from human motion. HR type device used as operation/display equipment enables intuitive approach in operation. In order to verify the validity of the proposed system, we have carried out various experiments comparing two types of device. One is conventional the method employing graphic simulators and a joystick, the other is a proposed control/display device employing humanoid type device. The effectiveness of the proposed system is confirmed by the experimental results.

In this paper, a novel mechanism of remote actuation was proposed and its mechanical problems were discussed. This mechanism consists of leverage and parallelogram mechanism and transmits 3 d.o.f translational and 3 d.o.f rotational motions from the input to output. Such a remote actuation is significantly useful for robotic assist around MRI where the strong and precise magnet is used for imaging, because mutual effect between MRI and robot are inverse proportional to the distance. In this paper, the basic ideas of mechanism were introduced firstly. The discussions of its stiffness and workspace conclude their trade-off. Our new idea of workspace control for mechanical safety is preliminary discussed.

A control method for humanoid robots of mobile manipulation is proposed: this method allows accurate manipulation using hands, even when the robots move around. A robot controls its body pose and steps so that manipulabilities of both arms and robot stability can increase, coordinating with the motion of both hands for performing objective tasks. Because of the vibration caused by the impact of foot landing and the slip of the feet, the accuracy of the hand positions and robot stability decrease. For this problem, the robot measures real hand positions and body orientation with its camera and gyroscope. Then the hand positions errors are transformed to correcting joint angles of the arms using arm Jacobian matrices. Adding the calculated joint angles to the desired joint angles of the arms, the arms can compensate the hand positions. New desired joint angles of the legs are calculated by inverse kinematics from real foot positions and desired shoulder position. Adding the correcting joint angles to the desired joint angles of the legs, the legs can compensate the shoulder position, thus increasing robot stability. The effectiveness of the proposed method is ascertained by simulations.

A control method for humanoid robots of mobile manipulation is proposed. A robot autonomously steps or controls its body pose while performing various manipulation tasks with its hands; that enables dexterous and stable manipulation. Two hands always move along their desired trajectories by impedance control for carrying out a given task. Coordinating with this motion of the hands, the robot controls its body and legs so that arm manipulability and robot stability may increase. It determines the next foothold by evaluating manipulabilities of both arms, shape of stable region and moving direction. An evaluation function consisting of manipulabilities of both arms and static stability of the robot is defined, and the robot steps if the new double support state is better than the current one. Both in double and single support states, the robot controls its body pose using the support leg(s) so that this evaluation may be optimal. Various motions of a humanoid robot by the proposed method are simulated.

Describes dual mode control of walk and manipulation of a prototype hexapod with integrated limb mechanism, named MELMANTIS-1. MELMANTIS-1 uses six-bar linkages with four degrees-of-freedom as an integrated limb mechanism with dual use for a leg and for an arm. Omni-directional drive control is introduced to the hexapod walk with alternative tripod gait. The transformation from hexapod walking style into the combination of dual arms and quadruped platform is introduced. A remote control to handle an object by dual arms is experimented with in a simple application of a trash pitcher.

The linear-actuated parallel mechanism that changes the motion characteristic according to the actuator configuration is known. The authors previously (2000) reported on the kinematics and the motion characteristic on the basis of the motion transmissibility. In this report, we analyze the changed in motion characteristics using the measures of manipulability. Indices of manipulability are given with components of the value determined by the singular value decomposition. The typical index is a volume of the manipulability ellipsoid. We clarify the features of the motion characteristics according to a change in the actuator configuration using these indices. Finally, we show the recommended application examples that are designed for mechanisms using the obtained result.

Calibration methods and parameter estimation analyses of a class of parallel mechanisms are discussed in order to achieve a nano-modon stage applied in the machining of high quality optical devices. The paper includes mechanical structure of Delta type parallel mechanism, its kinematics analyses for calibration, two calibration methods and their comparisons in the aspects of parameter errors, final achieved accuracy and simple procedure. Exclusion of orientation data will be also discussed for the simplicity of measurements in the calibration procedure.

The optimal posture of a humanoid robot for generating large desired force at its hands is discussed. The robot is required to stand stably and to support the force and its weight under the constraint of maximum joint torques. Furthermore, it is important to keep the robot controllable against sudden change in the force. From this point of view, an evaluation function for the task with large force based on statics is proposed; we focus on Jacobian matrices of two arms and legs to give the robot adaptability to force change. Then the method of obtaining the optimal posture, footholds and joint torques of the robot is described. Effectiveness of the method are verified through computer simulations.

An automated calibration for micro-hand is proposed to obtain high quality micromanipulation system. The calibration is based on automatic focusing of micro-object and its position detection in the microscope frame using microscope images. The automatic focusing works well even in the tracking of moving target using chromatic aberration. The finger position can be detected automatically by integrating focusing and identification of the micro-hand finger wherever it is in the microscope view. These automated processes are implemented in the actual system. The experiment shows the system can attain around 2[/spl mu/m] in absolute positioning accuracy.

A dexterous micro manipulation system was developed for applications such as assembling micro machines, manipulating cells, and micro surgery. We (1996, 1999) have proposed a concept of a two fingered micro hand, and designed and built a prototype. We succeeded in performing basic micro manipulations, including the grasp, release, and rotation of a microscopic object. The two-fingered micro hand prototype needs to be more miniaturized for higher accuracy and use in the small chamber of SEM. In this paper, we propose a new 3-DOF parallel mechanism for the micromanipulator in order to achieve low cost and small size. The new mechanism is only used for punching holes and bending a thin plate. The two-fingered micro hand with the mechanism was designed and a prototype developed. An experiment shows the excellent micro capability of the mechanism.

A dexterous micro-manipulation system was developed for applications such as assembling micro-machines, manipulating cells, and micro-surgery. We proposed a concept of a two-fingered micro-hand, and designed and built a prototype. We succeeded in performing basic micro-manipulations, including the grasp, release, and rotation of a microscopic object. The micro-hand is controlled by a position controller only. The accuracy of the micro-manipulation depends on the skill of the operator. For automatic manipulation, it is necessary to measure the micro-forces between the finger and the object. A micro force sensor has developed for the force control in micro-manipulation. In this paper, we describe the micro force sensor and perform an automatic micro-manipulation and force control with the sensor. The basic experiment performed shows excellent micro-capability.

We propose a method of relocating storage devices attached to the environment for sharing knowledge efficiently among multiple robots. If a robot stores acquired knowledge into the storage device, other robots can achieve the task by using the knowledge. Since the memory size of the storage device is limited, usefulness of the knowledge is evaluated with respect to the reducible cost. A memory unit containing useless knowledge is removed from the storage device and added to the device where more useful knowledge is required. Then, the robots can store useful knowledge for the whole environment and the memory units are flexibly relocated according to the change of a series of the tasks. The simulation results of multiple robots navigation for repetitive transportation tasks show the effectiveness of our method.

This paper describes a method of analyzing the error of dead reckoning of multilegged robots. In dead reckoning of multilegged robots, the body posture and contact positions of legs are alternately estimated. The estimated error is accumulated in locomotion. We derive the basic equations for estimation of the error of body posture and the contact positions based on the small displacement analysis. The 3D distribution of the error is analyzed by singular value decomposition.

Proposes a method of object recognition using appearance models accumulated into a RFID (radio frequency identification) tag attached to the environment. Robots recognize the object using appearance models accumulated in the tag on the object. If the robot fails in recognition, it acquires a model of the object and accumulates it to the tag. Since robots in the environment observe the object from different points of view at different time, various appearance models are accumulated as time passes. In order to accumulate many models, eigenspace analysis is applied. The eigenspace is reconstructed every time robots acquire the model. Experimental result of object recognition shows effectiveness of the proposed method.

A real-time control method for a humanoid in mobile manipulation, doing tasks with its arms while moving, is proposed. The arm tips always follow their desired position with external force applied by impedance control, for carrying out a given task with the arms. An evaluation function consisting of not only stability but also arm manipulability-both are important for mobile manipulation-is defined; the humanoid controls its body and legs so that this evaluation may be optimal. As a result, the humanoid autonomously steps or keeps standing, coordinating with the arm tips motion. The effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed method are ascertained by computer simulations on a humanoid of human-size and experiments using a small experimental robot.

There has been always a workspace problem with parallel mechanisms. This paper discusses the workspace of the parallel mechanisms and its enlargement by adjusting their link parameters. The basic idea is to cover a whole required range of workspace with small pieces of one. A fixed linear type mechanism is selected to analyze and to evaluate its adjustable workspace. The analyses of simple 2 DOF plane model show that additional spaces are obtainable, which cannot be reached by the conventional mechanism due to its singularity. More detailed analyses and evaluations are discussed based on a 6 DOF spatial model.

The concept of virtual operating environment (VOE) used for teleoperation of various machines is proposed. A virtual cockpit for each machine is constructed within a computer: it consists of virtual input devices such as switches and joysticks, meters or indicators, and TV monitors displaying the images from the machine-mounted cameras. The cockpit is displayed to an operator through a head-mounted display. In the real world, a manipulator presents the virtual input devices by turns; the operator handles the end-effector of the manipulator, regarding it as the input device. VOE can provide different types of operating environment for various machines simply by switching softwares. One of the most important techniques for VOE is the simulation and presentation of various input devices with a manipulator. The manipulator simulates the switch using the obtained impedance model. It is ascertained by experiment that the manipulator can present two different switches.

A hybrid cylinder/cable drive parallel arm and its motion control are discussed. The basic idea of the hybrid parallel arm is to make the best use of the mixture of the high power cable drive and the cylinder actuation to obtain a heavy-duty manipulator in construction and ship building applications. A prototype arm has been designed and built based on the analysis and the comparative study of several types of hybrid drive mechanisms, the Stewart platform, and a wire drive mechanism. The tension of wire has to be maintained properly in the hybrid mechanism during its motion. The proposed hybrid arm is a kind of actuation-redundant mechanism and its internal force can be freely controlled. The proposed control algorithm is to give wires proper tension during its motion by exploiting the internal force, The required tension and cylinder force can be obtained by compensating each link position command based on its compliance. The repeatability tests show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in maintaining the overall stiffness of the arm.

We apply the matrix method to kinematic analysis of our translational 3-DOF micro parallel mechanism for an instance of general flexure mechanisms. The matrix method has been well developed in architecture to analyze a frame structure. We found that this method is well applicable to such a flexure mechanism with circular notched hinges as our micro parallel mechanism because it is approximate to the Rahmen structure. Our matrix method can calculate a compliance matrix with less nodes of matrix than conventional finite element method. First, the compliance matrices of a circular notched hinge and some other beams are defined and the coordinate transformations of compliance matrix are introduced. Next, an analysis of our micro parallel mechanism is demonstrated.

The research aim is to apply locomotive robots to rescue tasks, such as searching for sufferers and removing obstacles to save sufferers. The paper discusses the exploitation of arm and leg integrated robots and basic experiments of infrared probing sensor, in the application of rescue tasks. First, the limb mechanism is introduced and discussed in the aspect of locomotion capability and stability in rough terrain of disaster area. Then, the probing sensor is evaluated in the aspect of its detection range and capability. Assuming the sensor is mounted on the tip of robot arm for probing, the probing algorithm is proposed to find quickly and locate precisely a sufferer. The basic experiments have been carried out using a parallel arm to confirm the applicability and the usefulness of the proposed rescue system.

Parallel mechanisms driven by fixed linear actuators promise high speed and high output, thanks to lightweight movable parts. Several types of mechanism applying this mechanical principle are already known. Although these have different methods of actuator arrangement, they may be considered the same mechanism since they can be treated using the same kinematics. However, it is not known how the output characteristics differ with differences in actuator arrangement. The article first shows the general kinematics that can be applied regardless of actuator arrangement. Next, changes are shown in the output characteristics occurring with changes in the actuator layout angle in a linear-actuated parallel mechanism with validity arranged actuators. The movable space and motion transmission indexes were used to determine the output characteristics. A total transmission index integrating the transmission index into the movable space is proposed, and the effects of design parameters other than actuator layout angle were investigated while giving weight to the motion transmissibility. The results show that the best actuator layout angle is 45-75 (deg).

In order to develop a high performance working robot, we design and develop a new robot based on the concept of "limb mechanism " for integration of legged locomotion and arm manipulation. The robot developed has six limbs which can be used for both locomotion and manipulation. The six limbs are set on vertices of regular hexagonal body so that this robot can have omnidirectional manipulability and mobility. We evaluate the stroke and the stability margin in all walking directions on six-legged and four-legged locomotion. As a result, this robot has higher omnidirectional mobility than conventional mechanisms.

This paper describes mobile manipulation of humanoid robots. A humanoid robot is a kind of integrated machines: two arm and two leg mechanism. It could be well applied to mobile manipulation in nonroutine task automation. The main objective of the mobile manipulation is to obtain versatile and efficient manipulation by the arms. In this respect the legs are required to assist the arms obtaining their high manipulability by changing step length and timing of step motion. Accordingly, the required motion of the legs in mobile manipulation is different from conventional biped locomotion. From this point of view, the relationship between manipulability of the arm and various leg motions is analyzed and evaluated by computer simulations.

A unique design for a 3-DOF micromanipulator is presented. The new design contains only revolute joints, and it incorporates rotation of the upper platform of the mechanism, which effectively uses the length of the end-effector to increase workspace volume. The forward and inverse kinematics problems for the device are solved, and a method for calculating the Jacobian is presented. Finally, a prototype of the manipulator was fabricated and tested experimentally to compare with the theoretical results.

Describes the mechanism and control of a leg-wheel hybrid mobile robot. Legged locomotion has high adaptability for rough terrain, and wheeled locomotion possesses speed and efficiency. A locomotion mechanism that combines legs and wheels is proposed, and a prototype mobile robot that adopts the mechanism is introduced. The robot has four legs, and a wheel is attached at the end of each leg. The front leg has three joints and a passive wheel. The rear leg has one joint and an active wheel. In order to make the best of the mechanism, three locomotion modes, wheel mode, hybrid mode, and step mode, are developed. In the wheel mode, four wheels are used on flat terrain. On rough terrain, the hybrid mode is selected, and two legs and two active wheels are used for locomotion. To climb or descend a large step, the step mode is used.

A real-time robot arm control method for obstacle avoidance is proposed. If links are close to and approaching obstacles, the end-effector velocity is modified so that collision is avoided and the error between the desired and modified end-effector velocity can be minimized. For this purpose, a new matrix called the "collision Jacobian", which relates the approaching velocity of the links to the obstacles with the end-effector velocity, is proposed. Because the modified velocity can be calculated without an iterative algorithm, the proposed method is effective for real-time obstacle avoidance. This method is applied to collision avoidance between the links of a parallel arm.

We propose a special structure for an active catheter: a spiral structure. It consists of a flexible belt on which actuators, sensors, and/or control units are built. The belt is spiraled or put spirally around flexible tube to work as a catheter. The actuators on one roll of the spiral move the next roll to realize the bending, twisting, and/or expanding motion of the catheter. With this method, minute and complicated actuators, sensors, and circuits can be precisely machined with very high density, fabricated and wired together in one continuous plane with silicon processes. The advantage of this method will be simple and high-density fabrication. In the paper, the overview and kinematic analysis of the spiral-structure active catheter are discussed and some types of active catheters are proposed.

A compact and economical 3-DOF finger module for micro manipulation is developed; it is designed for a two-finger micro manipulator which can manipulate micrometer-size objects dexterously like chopsticks. A 3-DOF parallel mechanism for this finger is proposed, and its inverse kinematics between the end effector position and the actuator displacements is formulated. The design parameters are determined so that its workspace volume may be as large as possible. A prototype using three piezo-electric actuators and two types of flexure joints, which are proposed for realizing a compact finger, is developed. The Jacobian matrix used for calculating the actuator displacements corresponding to the given end effector position is obtained by experiments. The repeatability and absolute positioning accuracy-about 2.0 /spl mu/m-of this prototype are evaluated.

A dexterous micro manipulation system was developed for applications such as assembling micro machines, manipulating cells, and micro surgery. We have proposed a concept of a two-fingered microhand, and designed and built a prototype. We succeeded in performing basic micro manipulations, including the grasp, release, and rotation of a microscopic object. The two-fingered micro hand prototype should be more miniaturized for higher accuracy and combination in small chamber of SEM. In this paper, we will propose a small-sized 3-DOF finger module with a parallel mechanism. An optimized link mechanism for miniaturization is used to the finger module. A photo fabrication system is used to fabrication of the finger module. Basic experiment shows excellent micro capability.

A new hybrid cylinder/wire drive parallel arm (simply called "a hybrid arm") for manipulating heavy materials in construction and ship building works is proposed. Various hybrid arms with different combination of cylinders and wires are compared with the conventional Stewart platform and a multiwire drive mechanism. Their workspaces considering orientation are evaluated. The most suitable hybrid arm for heavy material handling is the mechanism with three cylinders, four wires, and one connecting rod between the cylinders and the end plate. This hybrid arm is modified into a mechanism with a variable length rod for the application of manipulating a precasting concrete board with a size of 3/spl times/6/spl times/0.2 m/sup 3/ and a weight of 10 t which is used in automatic building construction systems; a prototype of this arm has been designed and developed.

A dexterous micro-manipulation system has been developed for applications in assembling micro-machines, manipulating biological cells, and performing micro-surgery. We have proposed a micro-hand having two fingers, a prototype of which has been designed and built using parallel mechanisms. We discuss the structure of our micro-hand and its operation system. The structure of the two-fingered micro-hand is strongly related to its effective workspace. The design of the micro-hand has been influenced by consideration of the usage of chopsticks. A calibration method based on least-square error is proposed for three degrees of freedom (DOF) translational motion in task coordinates fixed under a microscope. Development of a useful operational device to control the micro-hand is important for achieving dexterous micro-manipulation. A force feedback system would be ideal for such manipulation. In the case of micro-manipulation, though, a sensor with high resolution and multiple sensing axes is needed. There is no sensor meeting this demand currently. In order to achieve micro-manipulation without the force feedback system, an operational system which can be controlled with natural operational feeling like manipulation of actual human hand, is important. We have developed an operational device which is controlled by one hand. The forefinger and thumb are used to manipulate microscopic objects in tele-operation. However, due to kinematic dissimilarity between the master and the micro-hand, the motion of the fingers cannot be directly used as operational signals to move the micro-hand. We have therefore developed an operational strategy which compensates for this dissimilarity, thus providing for easy manipulation.

We have developed a precise and high-speed arm applied to assembly processes in electrical product and machine industries. The arm is designed based on the requirement from Japanese major industries. The paper addresses the background of the development, the required specification for the robot arm, and the brief introduction of the prototype arm and evaluations of accuracy. We test the repeatability of parallel mechanism. Then we calibrate the kinematic model of parallel mechanism to improve its absolute accuracy using laser tracking coordinate measuring system.

In developing service robots, safety should be considered carefully, since robots share the space with people who do not have technical backgrounds on the operation of robots. A powered orthosis is one of the most severe examples. We have been studying an upper limb motion assist system. The aim of the system is to help a disabled person move his/her arm by his/her own will, by hanging the arm with strings and changing the length of each string. We have built an experimental system to examine the motion obtained with this system.

A dexterous micro manipulation system was developed for applications such as assembling micro machines, manipulating cells, and micro surgery. We have proposed a concept of a two-fingered micro hand, and designed and built a prototype. We succeeded in performing basic micromanipulations, including the grasp, release and rotation of a microscopic object. If a bonding technique for microscopic parts can be applied to our current system, the assembly of various micro 3D structures will be achieved. Various bonding techniques have been researched for assembly of micro 3D structures, including anodic bonding, direct bonding, adhesive bonding, and others. We apply the adhesive bonding technique to micro parts with micro assembly, since this method can be applied to micro parts with various material qualities. In adhesive bonding, one difficulty is how to obtain a microscopic drop of adhesive agent smaller than the micro parts. In this paper, we will propose a method to obtain a micro drop by applying the capillary phenomenon. By using this technique, a micro drop only a few microns in size could be obtained. Combining the micro drop method with our current micromanipulation system, we succeeded in building a 3D structure "Micro scarecrow".

In order to analyse the maximum velocity of parallel manipulators in operational space, a graphical method based on the analysis of the algebraic inequalities describing the constraints on the kinematics model is presented. We consider a general 6 d.o.f parallel manipulator and assume that all articular velocities are bounded by the same limit. The method is then applied to the conventional Stewart platform chosen as a reference and a new parallel manipulator for their performance comparisons. For these two parallel manipulators, respective formula of Jacobian matrix is also given.

This paper describes a walking control scheme for a quadruped robot. In conventional walking control scheme, the leg motion is generated from the robot moving trajectory beforehand and it is difficult to control in real time. The proposed control scheme employs a real time command from a human operator instead of the moving trajectory. The operator gives a current planar moving velocity command to the robot. Body propulsive action is basically continued according with the command unless a problem arises. When a foot reaches the border of the work space of the leg, the body propulsive actions is interrupted and a supporting foot pattern is changed. That is, a foot's arrival at the border is considered as an event to trigger a recovery action for the body propulsion. The recovery actions are decided to converge to the intermittent crawl gait when straight walking command is continued. The proposed control scheme is evaluated using actual walking robot.

We have established a research collaboration project to develop a precise and high-speed arm applied to assembly process in electrical product and machine industries, supported by the International Robots and Factory Automation Foundation (IROFA). The paper addresses the background of the development, the required specification for the robot arm, and the brief introduction of the prototype arm.

High speed motion and positioning accuracy are the most important performance requirements of robot manipulators for the pick and place and assembly tasks. This paper focuses on the kinematic central system applied to a new parallel manipulator (NPM) with fixed linear direct drive actuators specially designed for high-speed trajectory applications. An optimal velocity based control method for high speed straight line trajectory of the NPM is proposed. The method is based on the maximum velocity zones analysis consisting of algebraic inequalities describing the constraints on the kinematics model. The proposed control algorithm is then implemented in off-line trajectory planning and in real time position servoing for kinematic control in the sense of achieving optimal trajectory performance. Digital PD control structure of the NPM is presented in order to satisfy the requirements in the actual manufacturing automation. The experimental straight line trajectory is satisfactorily controlled at a speed of 1.5 m/s with no reduction in accuracy.

A dexterous micro manipulation system is developed for application in assembling micro machines, manipulating cells, and micro surgery. We have proposed a concept of a two-fingered micro hand, and designed and built a prototype. In the micro manipulation, the system to observe microscopic objects is important as well as a system for actually manipulating a microscopic object. An optical microscope or SEM (scanning electron microscope) is typically used to observe micro motion of fingers in the micro hand. In high scale magnification, its focusing range is limited and the finger tip may often go out of the sight. We propose and develop a vision system using auto focus by processing CCD image data in order to obtain a fine image of the finger tip and microscopic object in a micro task.

This paper describes a control method of a manipulator mounted on a quadruped walking robot. One of the advantages of legged robots is the capability to change the body position and posture without changing the foot points. When a manipulator is mounted on a legged robot, it obtains extra motion from the body. By coordinating leg motion and manipulator motion, the end-effector has more sophisticated motion. When six degrees of freedom velocity command of the end-effector is supplied the proposed control method gives each joint velocity of the manipulator and the legs. This control method is experimentally evaluated using actual robot.

A robot should be capable of both locomotion and manipulation when it is applied to various tasks in construction, agriculture, home, office, and hospital services. This paper describes why and how locomotion and manipulation should be integrated, what the benefits are, and what problems must be solved in terms of practical application of the robot. The paper is based mostly on discussions by the RSJ research committee.

A 3 DOF micro finger, that has pure translational motion, is proposed. The finger will be applied in the two finger micro manipulation in order to manipulate micrometer size objects dexterously. The possible configurations are considered based on the group theory. Then, the optimal configuration is proposed by taking simple machining of joint structures into account. Kinematics analysis is made in order to describe the relation between end effector and actuator displacements. The design parameters are examined by evaluating the force capability of the actuator and the work space volume. Basic experiments are made by a prototype finger module that show excellent micro motion capability.

This paper describes the mechanical design and basic control of a prototype hexapod with "integrated limb mechanism", named MELMANTIS. MELMANTIS uses a six-bar linkage with four degrees of freedom as an example of integrated limb mechanism with both advantages for leg and for arm. The kinematic analysis is done for mechanical design. Basic control program of MELMANTIS is developed to experiment simple walking motion and transformation from a leg into an arm.

A dexterous micro manipulation system is developed for the application in assembling micro machine, manipulating cell, and micro surgery. We have proposed a concept of a two-finger micro hand, and designed and built two types of hand modules based on parallel mechanisms. In this paper, we mainly discuss the structure of a two-finger micro hand. The structure of the two-finger micro hand is strongly related to the effective work space, or the common work space of two fingers as well as its cooperation control algorithms. We design a structure to be suitable for a two-finger micro hand and made a prototype. Development of useful master device to operate the two-finger micro hand is important issue for the dextrous micro manipulation system. We developed a master device which is operated by one hand. The forefinger and thumb is generally used to manipulate objects by one hand. However, motion of each finger cannot be directly used to move the micro manipulator operational signal. We observed difference between the manipulation by two-finger hand like chopsticks and the manipulation by forefinger and thumb in human hand, and discuss operational algorithm for easy manipulation. By using this system for the micro manipulation, we evaluated effectiveness of the two-finger micro hand. In the actual micro manipulation, we succeeded to pick up, place and rotate a micro glass ball having size of 2 microns. The positioning accuracy is less than 0.1 micron.

The concept of "limb mechanism" is proposed, consisting of several common link mechanisms which can be used for either arm or leg, selectively. Integrated kinematics is introduced for r legs and one arm mechanism. Based on the derived kinematics evaluation criteria are introduced in order to design the mechanism itself as well as a motion controller. Simulation results show how the proposed methods work effectively to analyze motion of the integrated mechanism.

An upper limb motion assist system with parallel mechanism is being developed. This system aims at assisting a patient with upper limb disability to move his/her arm in daily life or rehabilitation. It suspends an arm at its elbow and wrist with three strings each, and manipulates the arm by changing the length of each string. As a first step of development, the design parameters are evaluated using simulation.

This paper provides a new concept for the integration of locomotion and manipulation, "the integrated limb mechanism". The concept covers the technical fields both of the control integration and of the mechanism integration necessary for the practical working robot. Here, a six-bar linkage mechanism with four degrees-of-freedom is introduced as an example of the integrated limb mechanism with both advantages for leg sand for arms. Computer simulation with a dynamic model is performed to verify the transformability from leg posture into arm posture of this mechanism. The kinematic analysis is done for this mechanism, and it is suggested that the kinematic analysis is useful for the geometric and mechanical design. The possibility of dual arms or triple arm work is analyzed.

Relation between the joint displacement errors of Stewart platform manipulators and the end effector accuracy is presented. The position errors of the joints and the actuation errors and backlash are included to the kinematic model. A closed-form forward kinematics solution of the end effector error is derived from the inverse kinematics solution. The method is applied to a modified Stewart platform manipulator, and end effector error ellipsoids are computed. The analysis shows that the method can be used in evaluating the accuracy of prismatic parallel manipulators.

The dexterous micro manipulation system is developed for application in assembling micro machines, manipulating cells, and micro surgery. We have proposed a concept of a two-finger micro hand, and designed and built two types of hand modules based on parallel mechanisms. In this paper, we mainly discuss the structure of a two-finger micro hand. The structure of the two-finger micro hand is strongly related to the effective work space, or the common work space of two fingers as well as its cooperation control algorithms. Therefore we design the structure to be suitable for a two-finger micro hand, and made a prototype. And the control system for the micro hand should be robust in some disturbance for accurate position control. A H/sub /spl infin// controller is applied to the control system of the micro hand. The controller has a tuning parameter. By tuning the parameter, the characteristic of the control system is changed like a PID controller. In a general H/sub /spl infin// controller, the characteristics are conservative, however, good stability and fast response are obtained easily in our controller.

An excavation robot is required to build a large scale underground dome. The excavation robot is developed which is composed of a parallel manipulator and four legged locomotion machine. Although the parallel manipulator has a nice feature of producing large force required for the excavation, cooperative control should be considered to achieve effective excavation. This paper discusses integrated kinematics for r legs and parallel arm mechanism for analysis of the mechanism and its control. Based on the derived kinematics, evaluation criteria are introduced in order to design the mechanism itself as well as the motion controller. Numerical examples show how the proposed methods work effectively to analyze motion of the integrated mechanism.

This paper introduces a new concept for the integration of locomotion and manipulation. "the integrated limb mechanism" covers the technical fields of both the control integration and the mechanism integration necessary for the practical working robot. Here, a six-bar linkage mechanism with four degrees-of-freedom is introduced as an example of integrated limb mechanism. Kinematic analysis for the geometric and mechanical design suggests that the mechanism satisfies a contradictory conditions, not only for leg with slow heavy motion in downward posture, but also for arm with fast light motion in upward posture. The work space that two or three arms can reach is analyzed and evaluated by volume numerically for dual arm work and triple arm work. According to these analysis, a prototype hexapod with integrated limb mechanism, "MELMANTIS", was made.

A unified formulation for the calibration of both serial-link robots and robotic mechanisms having kinematic closed-loops is presented and applied experimentally to two 6-degree-of-freedom devices: the RSI 6-DOF hand controller and the MEL "modified Stewart platform". The unification is based on an equivalence between end-effector measurements and constraints imposed by the closure of kinematic loops. Errors are allocated to the joints such that the loop equations are satisfied exactly, which eliminates the issue of equation scaling and simplifies the treatment of multi-loop mechanisms. For the experiments reported here, no external measuring devices are used; instead we rely on measurements of displacements in some of the passive joints of the devices. Using a priori estimates of the statistics of the measurement errors and the parameter errors, the method estimates the parameters and their accuracy, and tests for unmodeled factors.>

A third generation parallel link manipulator (PLM) has been developed at the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. The device is similar in geometry to existing prototypes in the laboratory, however, the position sensing hardware configuration for online forward position analysis has been changed. The actuators and drivetrains are also more robust to provide for more realistic task demonstrations. This paper includes a brief description of the new prototype hardware. A closed-form forward position algorithm suitable for the new sensor configuration is derived, and a practical procedure for position sensor calibration is developed and demonstrated.

A design for a six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) parallel manipulator is presented. The design is a modification of the Stewart platform that places the legs of the manipulator on two concentric circles both at the base and at the end effector. The legs can therefore cross over one another in space without interference, which allows them to move closer to the horizontal. This brings the force/torque and velocity capacities in different directions more into balance. The degree of improvement attainable is quantified by defining a measure of dexterity as the average condition number of the Jacobian matrix over a centralized subregion of the workspace, and optimizing the manipulator design with respect to a weighted sum of dexterity and workspace volume. This measure of dexterity is compared with other measures on the basis of the singular values of the Jacobian. It is shown that the new design offers significantly improved dexterity over the traditional Stewart platform design.>

A prototype parallel link manipulator is described. The kinematics of a general parallel link manipulator are discussed. The hardware and software of the prototype manipulator are presented. Some symbolic kinematic results for the prototype are given, along with a discussion of how these results might be used. The workspace of the prototype is analyzed, both by simulation and experimentation. The singularity problem for parallel manipulators is discussed, and a singular configuration for the prototype is shown.>

A design for a 6-DOF parallel actuated robot is presented. The design is a generalization of the Stewart-platform, and has the potential for improved dexterity compared with the traditional design. Methods for handling the forward kinematics problem are discussed. These methods include approximate linear analysis using numerical integration of the Jacobian matrix, and the use of redundant position sensors. There are several alternative locations for placement of these sensors. The accuracy and complexity of the computations for the forward kinematics vary with different locations of the sensors. Further, for some configurations it is possible to continue operation when one more sensors are lost or damaged, leading to a more robust design for remote operations.>