This paper proposes a User Interface (UI) of a force-controlled arm for endoscopic surgery. It consists of two input configurations for endoscope type (straight or oblique endoscope) and operation type (direct or indirect operation). Direct operation is used for wide area motion based on direct operation of the force-controlled arm, and indirect operation is for fine and precise movement to adjust the visual field by tool tracking or joystick manipulation. These were tested by doctors and development members as subjects. It was then confirmed that both operation types can be effective. We also discuss about the importance of detecting contact with organs from outside the patient's body (without sensors near the tool tip) and evaluate the feasibility of this feature with external force estimation function for force-controlled arm as a first step. As a result, it was found that the external forces in the insertion direction to the trocar can be estimated with an error of about ±0.2 N and up to 1.0 N on the other directions. Therefore we confirmed that contact detection function can be effective.

This paper proposes a control framework for a two-armed and two-wheeled mobile robot that can coordinate all the joint forces to achieve diverse motion objectives such as position, velocity, acceleration, force and impedance at any part of the body. The framework comprises two components: 1) Generalized Inverse Dynamics (GID) that determines joint forces satisfying multiple objectives considering task priorities and various constraints and 2) the Idealized Joint Unit (IJU) that generates accurate torque with assigned apparent inertia and viscosity. GID treats the robot as a single manipulator with multiple branches using a joint model with 2-DOF motion subspace equivalent to two opposing wheels. A 21-DOF mobile robot equipped with IJUs is set up and GID is applied to it. The result shows that GID works well in the examples of physical human-robot interaction and object manipulation where motion objectives are attained coordinating the whole body while keeping passivity due to the redundancy and the assigned impedance property.

In this paper we propose a new robust force and position control method for property-unknown objects grasping. The proposed control method is capable of selecting the force control or position control, and smooth and quick switching according to the amount of the external force. The proposed method was applied to adaptive grasping by three-fingered hand which has 12 DOF, and the experimental results revealed that the smooth collision process and the stable grasping is realized even if the precise surface position, the mass and the stiffness are unknown. In addition a new algorithm determines the grasp force according to the "slip" measured with the tactile sensor and the viscoelastic media on the fingertip. This algorithm works at starting and stationary state, so the friction and mass unknown object grasping is realized by the effectual force.

This paper proposes a multi-objective, highly generalized and efficient control framework for a virtual character performing various physical interactions in a dynamically simulated world. The framework comprises 1) a generalized inverse dynamics that determines joint forces satisfying multiple objectives considering priorities, unactuated joints and inequality constraints about contacts, 2) a generalized stabilizer available in various contact situations based on the long-term momentum stabilization and 3) a motion primitive network for realizing composite motions by modularizing and interconnecting motion functions. By applying the proposed framework, various interactions with a virtual humanoid, such as basic reflections and carrying objects, are realized in real time with a tactile sensation through the two-armed multi-fingered haptic device we developed.