In order to enable people who can not move to move, we have been developing "muscle suit" by wearing which muscular force can be supported. Muscle suit consists of wear and Mckibben type actuator driven by compressed air. Because actuators are sewed in wear, it is no need to use metal frame and thus muscle suit comes to very light and cheap. Most of medical and welfare apparatus have been developing for dare giver and then there is few apparatus for people in need of nursing care. As the result, they lost their own identity and positive attitude. It is possible for them, by wearing the muscle suit, to enable their body such as arms and legs to control by their own will. The muscle suit thus are very useful and helpful not only for muscular force support but also mental support.

Sensor-based navigation is one of the most important researches for mobile robots domain and then there are many research works for sensor-based navigation. We propose the insects inspired landmark navigation to pinpoint the target position in this paper. There exist several research works such as snapshot model and average landmark model which request the absolute bearing information (compass) and visual one. Whereas our method called relative angle model (RAM) need only visual information in order to extract relative positions of 3 landmarks. By simulation and experiment using 3D blimp-type flying robot, we find that the pinpoint 3D navigation works out well by RAM.

Effective robot functions emerge from not only according to the level of system control, i.e., intelligence, but also according to the conformity between morphology, intelligence, task and environment. This paper investigates the relationship between robotic morphology and intelligence against task and/or environmental conditions and the characteristics of functions emerging in evolutionary robotic systems. The robotic system used in the study has a reconfigurable morphology and intelligence, which were designed by genetic programming. The robotic morphology is represented as a graph structure constructed from cells with motor and visual sensors, and the intelligence is a computer program defined by a parse tree. In this study, a simulation of a task in which the robot had to maintain a certain distance from an object was executed. The results clarify the importance of conformity between morphology and intelligence, and show that effective functions emerge as the result of such conformity between morphology, intelligence, task and environment.

The goal of this study is to investigate the intelligence necessary for a machine such as a human-friendly robot working in an environment where humans and robots coexist. It seems to be required to manufacture a human-friendly robot that can communicate with human beings as a test bed or platform. Since face and facial expressions are crucial factors for communication, we have been developing a face robot which has a human-like face and can express facial expressions similar to human being. The important factors of the face robot for coexistence and communication with humans are: 1. human size and compactness; and 2. ease of control. While we have used air cylinders with pressurized air for the first-generation of face robot, to accomplish these two factors, we decided to use a SMA (shaped memory alloy) actuator driven by electricity and built the second-generation of face robot. Although we succeeded in making a human size face robot, it came to clear that the SMA does not have enough power and speed. To overcome these issues, we developed an air-tube-actuator driven by pressurized air and manufactured the third-generation of face robot. In the paper, we show how to build the third-generation of face robot and its basic ability.

Robotic behavior emerges from not only intelligence but also the relationship between morphology, intelligence and the environment. We investigate and analyze the relationship between morphology and intelligence acquired from different tasks, and the characteristic differences of functions emerges from this relationship. Robotic morphology and intelligence are encoded using genetic programming: GP operations, and robot dynamics are handled using a two-dimensional dynamics simulation. As the robotic morphology, we utilize position-changeable visual sensors through evolution by GP operations, and as the robotic intelligence, we use a decision tree which is able to evolve by GP operations. A task of the robot is to keep a certain distance from an object. The simulation results clarify the importance of harmony and/or balance between morphology and intelligence, and show that a new function emerges as the result of harmony and/or balance between morphology, intelligence and a task.