The present paper introduces a microphone array design and describes the results of an evaluation of the developed microphone array. We propose an evaluation index of the directional characteristics of beamforming to optimize microphone array design. Using beamforming simulation, we obtain a microphone arrangement that minimizes sidelobes and improves the basic performance of beamforming. This microphone arrangement has 64 microphones arranged in a 350-mm-diameter sphere designed to be mounted on a mobile robot and omni-directional directivity in azimuth and elevation. The performance of the proposed microphone array is verified in different real environments. The experimental results of sound localization demonstrate the effectiveness of the array in challenging environments and the robustness of the proposed microphone array for different pressure sound sources to cover larger areas.

A legged robot "JROB-1" is developed for a robotics research platform as a result of inter-university research program on intelligent robotics supported by the Ministry of Education Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas in Japan. The JROB-1 features: 1) self-contained, 2) RT-Linux running on PG/AT processes vision and sensor processing, motion planning and control, 3) connected to a network via radio Ethernet as to utilize networked resources, 4) Fujitsu color tracking vision board and Hitachi general purpose vision processing board, 5) all parts are commercially available, and 6) it is extensible with respect to sensor, sensor processing hardware and software. JROB-1 is expected to be a common testbed for experiment and intelligent robotics research by integrating perception and motion.

View changing because of vibration while walking is one of the most fundamental problem for a vision based legged robot. To overcome this difficulty, three key issues are denoted: a) integration of color segmentation, optical flow and stereo, which is able to apply to vibrating view using correlation hardware, b) software servo loop implemented as a kernel module for the purpose of soft actuation, and c) smooth walking pattern generation using solid model and dynamics simulator. Furthermore, a quadruped legged robot "JROB-1" is developed as a platform for the research on perception-action coupling in intelligent behavior of robots.