This research aims to develop a ceiling mobile robot that can sustain a large payload and can locomote freely under a ceiling space. In our approach, a perforated metal, one of the recent popular architectural materials, is utilized as a ceiling plate and the robot hooks and hangs the sequential holes of the ceiling plate by mechanical constraint. To realize the robot, the authors developed three key mechanisms, (1) ceiling hanging mechanism for the perforated metal, (2) horizontal locomotion mechanism like an inchworm, and (3) pantograph mechanism for smoothing horizontal locomotion speed and for load balancing. A unit testing of the ceiling hanging mechanism and the integration horizontal locomotion experiments confirmed the good performance of each mechanisms and the feasibility of mechanically constrained ceiling mobile robot. However, it was revealed that higher power motors and a stiffer body structure should be installed to sustain an extremely large payload like a human.

This paper describes development of home-use automated container storage/retrieval system, a sub-system of a logistical support robot system in living space. The s/r system has 3 features. (1) Elevator type structure enables not only auto stocking motion, but also human access to containers as if the auto rack is a general shelf. (2) A separated motion layout enables us to utilize upper ceiling space as a stock space, and decreases possibility of accidental stuck by reducing the volume of robotpsilas motion. (3) The collaboration of a container guide plate and sensing with RFID actualize to navigate people to place a container on a shelf with desired position and posture. By experiments, it is confirmed that the ACSRS can transfer a container and 5 [kg] load (total 8 [kg]). We summarize significant technical points to design a system of this type.

The authors proposed a methodology of assisting the patients who were suffering from mobility impairment of finger and thumb joints, with exoskeletal devices. The types of exoskeletal assistive devices for such patients were categorized into several groups based on required functions which are derived from the patients' condition. One of the categories, "joint motion compensator" is a novel concept taking into consideration the difference between active-ROM (range of motion) and passive-ROM of joints, and with regard to one of subgroups of this category called "joint motion amplifier", a prototype device which amplifies the motion of index-finger PIP (proximal interphalangeal) joint was constructed and verification experiments for pinching objects were conducted. The results revealed that it was feasible to pick up and pinch objects which were not so small or thin enough to be picked without nails, and also was possible for the device to hold such objects as strongly as human hands do.

This paper presents a ceiling mobile robot platform that enables multiple robots to move with low possibility of interference with humans and obstacles in an intelligent environment. An advantage of this platform is the potential to reduce sharing space between humans and robots while maintaining the robots' access to humans when their supports are needed. To realize the platform, two key techniques are developed. The first one is permanent magnet inductive traction method for the robots hanging under the ceiling plate. The second one is multiple robots simultaneous position measurement method using matrix of two dimensional codes. Validity of permanent magnet inductive traction method is confirmed by an experiment using a mock-up ceiling plate. Repeatability of position estimation using matrix of two dimensional codes is demonstrated by evaluation experiment. Finally as a demonstration of human support by the platform, transportation task is successfully performed.

In this paper, a novel describing method of human locomotion trajectory record was proposed, and methods of its application to the path planning and control of human-symbiotic mobile robots were indicated. The novel describing method, named as Existence Record Probability Map (abbreviated ERPM hereafter), was generated through the following three steps: 1) measuring human locomotion path using pressure distribution sensor floor, 2) applying a probability potential model of human body to the measured path, and 3) integrating such probability potential maps for some time period. From the ERPM, an existence probability value, ridge lines of the potential, and the Q-value at a point on a ridge line, were elicited. As a usage of these information, methods of finding a position where a collision probability of a mobile robot and a human is high, finding major trajectories of human locomotion, and evaluation of path width to avoid collision with a human, were indicated.

This paper proposes robotic kitchen counter, a novel kitchen counter with sensors to monitor a user's action and with the capability of changing its top plate height according to his preference. The robotic kitchen counter was realized by installing various kinds of sensors to the commercial kitchen counter and by putting a jack mechanism underneath. The sensor data acquisition and the top plate height setting can be done through network. Cooking experiments with this robotic kitchen counter showed that 1) there's an optimal kitchen counter height according to an individual person and to his action during cooking behavior, and that 2) the dynamic reappearance of the kitchen counter height he manually adjusted in the stages during the previous cooking behavior was recognized handful, which is the typical example of the simplest action-adapted and personally-fit assistance. The outstanding point of this robotic kitchen counter is that it can measure the cooking action without disturbing the cooking behavior itself while providing action-adapted and personally fit assistance based on the data obtained. The authors believe that the hardware and software techniques obtained through this development can be the starting point to develop other action-adapted and personally fit assistance system.

This paper proposes a high resolution sensor floor which can detect both humans and robots simultaneously. Each sensor floor unit is 500mm square and is equipped with 4,096 pressure switches distributed in a 64 /spl times/ 64 array. A 2m by 2m sensor floor with 16 of these sensor floor units has been realized. Experiments with this sensor floor have determined successfully the positions of a human and a 4-wheeled cart and can distinguish between them. The distinction is easily achieved because of the high resolution of the floor. The modular structure of the sensor floor enables easy application to a real room of irregular shape, allowing unconstrained measurement of the locations of humans, robots and objects in the room. Consequently, sensor floor systems will be essential components of future human-robot symbiosis systems to assist humans in daily life, and will also play important roles in medical and welfare robot systems.

This paper proposes a plant-shaped robot object as an awareness driven display device of human daily life information. While a conventional monitor display (operation driven display) device transmits information to a person when it is operated intentionally (actively) by the person, the awareness driven display device transmits the information to the person when the device is made aware by chance (passively) by the person with a change of its appearance. The constructed display device is designed taking account of a houseplant. It consists of 12 leaf modules and a flower module. It displays the information by means of leaf poses and extent of flower opening. The leaves can also sense a touch action. A display experiment was conducted to evaluate the device. The activity of a remote target person is calculated from actual sensed daily life data and displayed to the subject person. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the display system. It reveals that a larger change of pose and flower opening evokes more effective awareness of the activity of the person. This display device in the future will be able to be utilized as a communication tool to generate a virtual feeling of cohabitation even though the remote target person lives apart from the subject person.