A reconfigurable planetary rover system (RPRS) is presented, including the parent body and some child robots. The child robot composed with the arm part and the wheel part has two moving modes: locomotion mode and manipulation mode. According to the mechanical characteristics, we proposed the two methods for the motion planning of swerving locomotion. The results of experiments showed that the robot can achieve turn during locomotion by adjusting the arm's attitude. But the child robot's radius of left-hand turning motion during locomotion is bigger much than the radius of right-hand turning motion during locomotion and the effect is not obvious. The method of spot turning is presented by use of the difference between radial frictional force and tangential frictional force of ground and direction wheel, which is important for robot for autonomous locomotion.

We propose a new planetary rover system called "SMC-Rover". This system consists of one main body and some detachable units, which can work as child rover, and also become driving units of the main body. Each detachable unit, consisting of a single manipulator mounted on a wheel, is called "Uni-Rover". This paper discusses a new method of trajectory modelling and steering control optimization for the Uni-Rover, using the relation between arm posture and turning radius. The validity of the presented method is verified by computer simulations and experiments with an actual mechanical model. Thus, effective arm-posture-based steering method is introduced.

We have already proposed a new planetary rover system called "SMC rover". This system consists of one main body and some wheel units, which are detachable and able to work as child rovers called "arm equipped single wheel rovers". A trial model of "small arm equipped single wheel rover" has already been designed and developed. In this paper, we explain the mechanisms of this rover, and also the results of basic experiments of locomotion and manipulation.

We focus on a heterogeneous robotic system of decentralized autonomous agents with a leader, which we call "super-mechano-colony (SMC)". It has characteristics of both hierarchical and distributed control systems. This paper explains the basic concept and a physical test bed of SMC, and discusses an example, specifically planetary rovers, for SMC.

In this paper, we propose a method for realizing transfer functions containing a variable parameter, by the state-space method. By using this method, variable transfer functions (VTF) can be often realized with a minimal dimension. In case that a minimal realization can not be obtained, the realization dimension can be fairly reduced.>

A real-aperture FM-CW radar system was developed for the detection of objects buried in heavily wet snowpack. This radar uses the L-band microwave frequency with a maximum output power of 100 mW and utilizes digital signal processing techniques. A laboratory simulation and two field experiments were carried out to detect and map various objects embedded in the snowpack. It was possible to map a metallic pipe 3 cm in diameter at a depth of 70 cm and a 10*60-cm metallic plate at a depth of 90 cm in natural snowpack. Fundamental detection results are presented.>