To maintain a high level of motivation is a vital issue during rehabilitation because rehabilitation involves much pain, depression, and discomfort. To study the mental state of patients is necessary. A new assistive approach using emotion evaluation combined with an assistive walking device to maintain motivation during the rehabilitation is proposed. To realize it, the walking-emotion relationship within personal walking limitation (PWL) was explored at first. The results showed that when people walked by following the personal preferred walking ratio (PPWR), they were evoked the arousal emotion and kept the current valence emotion simultaneously; however, when people were not following PPWR to walk, the negative emotion was elicited. After that, subject was required to wear the assistive walking device to conduct the test, which aims to observe the emotion variation when subject walked at specific walking gait with an assistive device. We then are according to current emotion state to tune device. The findings show if people mistakenly use the device, unpleasant feeling would be elicited. When we properly tuning assistive device conforms to current gait, it can validly alleviate the negative emotion further becoming the positive emotion. From these results, we conclude that emotion can be affected by walking. By using walking-emotion evaluation to an assistive device, we can be according to users' emotion to control device; also, we can use an assistive device to inspire users' emotion to further maintain motivation. Finally, this assistive approach provides a useful treatment way for serving rehabilitation.

We developed a walking assistance apparatus which can be used for gait training of neuro-rehabilitation for patients and for the promotion of exercise for the elderly. This apparatus assists only the ankle joints of the equipped person according to the posture of him/her while not only walking, but also getting up, sitting, and standing. By using this apparatus, the dorsiflexion and plantarflexion of the ankle joint of the equipped person can increase while walking. This apparatus can improve of the equipped person's gait.

We developed a new whole body motion support type mobile suit. This suit can be used separately for supporting the upper and/or lower limbs, for assisting ADL (Activities of Daily Living). We also developed a mobile lifter system which can bear both the equipped person and the suit. This suit and the lifter can be used by motor palsy patients suffering from stroke, spinal-cord-injury, and central nerve disorders. Using this device, these patients can recover normal gait with no risk of falling. In this paper, the cerebral activity during walking using the suit and normal gait without the suit are compared. According to multiple trials with the suit on a treadmill, the activities of the premotor area sensory motor cortex decreased. Especially, while walking using the suit for supporting lower limbs without swinging arms, the cerebral activities of most of the areas decreased. It means to be ineffective for the patients accustomed to the suit in rehabilitation. However, on the contrary, by walking while swinging bilateral arms (even though these arms were assisted by the suit), the activity in the supplementary motor area increased (this area of the brain is related with memory of motion). Furthermore, the cerebral activities while walking on a treadmill and while walking in a corridor with an outside view were compared. From the results of this experiment, we found it is most effective for gait training to actually walk and not stay fixed in one location. We also found it is important for patients to swing their arms during gait training in rehabilitation. Finally, we compared the differences of the cerebral activity during ADL rehabilitation (flexion, extension, and rotation of the subject's elbow) using our suit operated by a third party or themselves (using opposite hand). From this result, cerebral activity while self operated was higher than the result operated by third party, even though the subjects were assisted with the suit in both experiments. From these trials, we can conclude that this suit is suitable to assist patients in gait and ADL rehabilitation.

A prototype for a walking assistance apparatus for the elderly or motor palsy patients was developed, using a novel spatial parallel link mechanism. The flat steps of the apparatus move in parallel with the ground; the apparatus can support entire leg alignment (including soles) and assist; walking behavior at ankle, knee and hip joints simultaneously. By using a flexible link, constructed of stainless steel and rubber, the apparatus can realize the natural twisting motions of the ankle. Furthermore, in order to assist walking on uneven surfaces, we investigated walking on a slopes or stairs. For these tasks, the apparatus was equipped with a gyro sensor and an ultrasonic sensor; so the angle of the slope and the height of the stairs could be recognized. The apparatus adapted according to the signals from these sensors. Results owed that our experiment, the equipped person wearing the apparatus could walk on slopes and stairs. Motor palsy and muscle weakness patients can walk by themselves by using the apparatus; patients who have ambulation difficulty can use the apparatus with weight bearing lift that we developed. Using the apparatus with the weight bearing lift prevents stumbling and enables input of walking movement to the brain motor area. It may be beneficial for rehabilitation to use the apparatus with the weight bearing lift. This newly developed system may facilitate motor palsy and muscle weakness patients in the rehabilitation program. The effectiveness of the apparatus for one hour walking was evaluated by variation of Mean Power Frequency (MPF) of the Electromyography (EMG) data with continuous wavelet analysis. Muscle fatigue of the Tibialis Anterior muscle (TA) decreased during wearing of the apparatus. We showed the effectiveness of using the apparatus in walking.

We developed a quadruped robot which can take various postures, e.g. lying on the floor and kneeling. When the limbs are free from supporting the body of the robot, they can serve as arms. Up to two limbs can be freed from supporting the body when the robot kneels. The motion of the robot is constrained if it maintains current contact with the floor. The paper analyzes possible motions of the robot to maintain current contact. We show that even if the same parts of the robot are in contact with the floor, there exist singular postures at which the body of the robot has an additional degree of freedom.

In the development of a large-scale multimedia application, the design of the overall scenario structure is as important as the quality of each media content.With current authoring systems, authors cannot start the authoring process and proceed until the media contents are created.Moreover, the overall structure of the application cannot be evaluated until the end.Also, there is not enough support in the early-stage design phase for flexibly constructing the framework and meeting the size/speed limitations of the final application.We have developed an authoring system called Anecdote in order to support the early-design phase as well as the whole development process of multimedia applications.Anecdote employs the concept of surrogate media and surrogate scene.Surrogate media is a type of media, such as sketches, to represent the content of the media data to be created.Surrogate scene can be a design sketch of a screen representing a segment of the application structure.Both can be used to simulate the execution of the scenario and can serve as the specification of the data to be created.Anecdote allows authors to choose from different authoring styles (hypermedia/linear, graphicalhextual, etc.) to construct the scenario framework, and helps them to create the final application seamlessly from the prototype scenario.Through the development of sample applications by professional designers, we have demonstrated the usefulness of the authoring design principles of Anecdote.