Environmental recognition has an important role in tele-operation. It contributes to the stabilization of complex interactions of robots with the environment. Previous studies have focused on the vision-based method. However, subject dynamics, expressed as stiffness or viscosity, can not be obtained from visual information. One method to determine this is to apply a probing signal to the system and satisfy persistent excitation (PE). However, it comes with the disadvantage of deteriorating operationality for the vibration. Thus, this paper proposed a probing signal compensation method for a 4ch bilateral control system by using a band-pass filter (BPF). Therefore, dynamics identification was accomplished with sufficient PE derived from the probing signal. While on the leader device, oscillations were suppressed and operationality was guaranteed. The proposal contributes to compatible environmental recognition and operationality indemnification for tele-operation systems.

Motion reproduction is a motion generation method in robotics characterized by the small amount of required data and its adaptability to environmental variations. However, completing the task is difficult when the environmental position variation is significant. Therefore, the proposed method generates motion data that is adaptive to environmental fluctuations by performing motion reproduction, with data integrating the position and velocity responses when motion reproduction is performed and the original force response. In simulations, it successfully made contact with the environment even when the distance to the environment was varied. In other words, the proposed method can create motions such that the task succeeded using the failed reproduction data.

Electroaerodynamics (EAD) is a phenomenon that generates a gas motion by applying high voltage between electrodes. One method of creating thrust with EAD is the use of the corona discharge, which is a self-sustaining discharge. Since it does not require any moving parts, the corona discharge produces thrust robustly and quietly. Therefore, this thrust system is expected to be utilized as the thrust source for drones. However, since the relationship between thrust and applied voltage is nonlinear, dealing with this problem in control is indispensable. Although some studies have been conducted on control methods with the corona discharge, few have been performed on multi-degrees of freedom (DOF) control based on theoretical modeling, which is essential for achieving attitude control during flight. Thus, this paper proposes a control system based on theoretical modeling to realize 2-DOF height and angle control. This study utilizes the idea of differential mode and voltage range limitations and introduces a disturbance observer (DOB) to construct a control system. Two simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposal. The first simulation shows that the proposal can follow the command value with small errors, indicating the possibility of multi-DOF control. The second simulation revealed that the proposal significantly suppressed attitude change under disturbance and contributed to improved responsiveness.

A corona discharge is a kind of self-sustaining discharge that is generated by applying high voltage to asymmetric electrodes. The thrust by the corona discharge is expected as a new actuator since it has no moving parts, is quiet, and is robust. However, the relationship between the applied voltage and the thrust is highly nonlinear, which means that this problem must be solved by control. Furthermore, a control system that compensates for disturbances such as wind and modeling errors is also required. Therefore, this paper proposes a control system with a voltage range limitation that takes into account the characteristics of corona discharges and the disturbance observer to improve disturbance suppression characteristics. Two experiments were conducted to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method. The first experiment shows that the proposed method improves the response speed by 70.0% in step response. The second experiment indicates that the proposed method enhances the response speed by 60.0% in disturbance response and suppresses angle change by 42.3%. Through experiments, it is confirmed that the proposed method succeeded in attitude control on the centimeter order and improved control performance.

We have proposed and demonstrate Manzai robots that automatically generate Manzai scenarios. Manzai is a Japanese traditional comedy consisting of two comedians with funny dialogues like stand up comedy. Our Manzai robots are a huge system, but it is not easy for users to watch Manzai every day using our Manzai robots. As described herein, we propose a mobile style of presenting our automatically generated Manzai anytime and anywhere using a web application. We designate the application as a Chat-type Manzai Application. The Chat-type Manzai Application is intended to make people healthier by laughing as they relax and watch the Manzai. However, the Chat-type Manzai Application loses direction. Therefore, we propose a new dialogue component: the Name list component. We used experiments of three types to measure the benefits of our proposed application and component.