System design and development are fundamental capabilities for an engineer. The Department of Control Engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Nara College, has been offering a course called “Practical System Design,” a unique opportunity for students to experience the entire process of developing an autonomous mobile robot, to fourth-year students for about 20 years. However, in recent years, robot design and construction have become a huge challenge for these students. To address this problem, we have worked on improving the engineering program. First, we have introduced a problem-based learning (PBL) education program in all experimental engineering classes in years 1-3. Also, we require students to submit a written report after each class session. This report is intended to help improve the students' schedule management, role-sharing, and work-tracking skills. These reports are reviewed by the relevant course teachers and assessed for logic and quantitative representation. In this paper, we discuss the approach to, achievements of, and future subjects to be taken up by this multi-stage-experience educational program, especially the effect of report-writing.

In this paper, we investigate a new type of hybrid element to realize a human-friendly support device. The element is a flexible actuator (called Sponge Core Soft Rubber Actuator) and its structure is a soft mechanism in which a sponge rubber is covered with silicone rubber. In addition to its actuation capability, the element can estimate external forces by making use of the relation between inner pressure and external force. Therefore, the element can be used as a hybrid element that has both actuator and force sensor functions. This paper discusses the hybrid element design, actuator characteristics, and force control and sensing abilities of the element. Experimental results are presented to illustrate the practical effectiveness of the proposed hybrid element.

In this paper, we propose a new type of soft actuator (silicon outer fence of mold actuator) that a sponge rubber is covered with silicon rubber. The structure of the sponge rubber is divided into two types. One is flat type actuator whose sponge form is flat shape and the other is clipping type actuator whose one sponge layer is cut by square shape. In order to clear the difference of characteristics of two actuators, we clear basic characteristics of the actuators and investigate both position control and trajectory control with the actuators. From some experimental results, the control performance of the clipping type actuator is clarified. Furthermore, in order to indicate the effectiveness of the actuator, we apply the actuator to a supporter for welfare machines. As the results, it is clarified that the burden degree of the body in leaning motion is reduced by making use of the supporter through some experimental results.

Pneumatic motors have many advantages over electric motors, conventionally used for robotics and automation applications. However, the control performance of pneumatic motors is quite unsatisfactory, mainly due to the compressibility of air. We have recently proposed the development of hybrid pneumatic/electric motors where a small electric motor is used in conjunction with vane-type pneumatic motors, so that the hybrid actuator has better damping and ease of control than the pneumatic motor. In the present work, we consider the switching control of the hybrid actuator system, and, propose control algorithms for position, and trajectory control of the system. The performance improvement of the new actuator is illustrated by results of experimental implementation.

Pneumatic actuators are among a variety of actuators under active study by the robotics community, for the advantages they offer over conventional electric actuators widely used in present-day robots. So far, however, only pneumatic cylinders which provide linear actuation have been mainly studied in literature. Air motors are the pneumatic counterparts of electric motors, providing rotary actuation. They have several advantages over electric motors, especially high power-to-weight and power-to-size ratios, good compliance, and resistance to environmental hazards. We consider the model-based control of vane-type air motors which are the most commonly used class of air motors. Various control problems are considered namely, position control, trajectory control, adaptive control, and force control. Results of experimental implementation on an industrial vane-type air motor illustrate the effectiveness of the air motor as a high-performance rotary actuator.

In the case of mechanical contact between humans and robots including motion-support robots or robotic orthosis, safety is most important. Therefore, in the motion-support robot presented in this paper, hexahedron rubber actuators (HRA) which have light weight, small size and flexibility of motions are used. In this paper, the basic performance of an antagonized HRA unit which is actuated by air pressure is revealed at first. Moreover, effectiveness of a motion-support robot with 4 DOF is demonstrated through experimental results.

A new type of pneumatic rubber actuators is proposed in this paper. The proposed actuator has a hexahedron structure which is suitable for making a rotational joint of a robot. We reveal the static characteristics of the actuator. It is experimentally demonstrated that a position feedback control law realize fast motions without oscillation. Moreover, we propose an adaptive gain method for the actuator to improve control performance. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed through an experiment.

In the case of pneumatic bellows actuators, the external forces are easily and exactly measured from the pressure in the chamber of bellows because there is no sliding part which generates friction. Therefore, the bellows can be utilized as a force sensing actuator which works as a sensor and an actuator simultaneously. We design one joint of a robot which is activated by the two bellows actuators antagonistically. From some experimental results we disclose the static and dynamic characteristics of the proposed robot and confirm that it can move flexibly following external forces by making use of the force sensing ability.>