Eiichiro Tanaka

Walking Assistance According to the Emotion

A walking assistance device for apoplexy patients has been developed. We developed a walking assistance device RE-Gait®, which assists the motion of the ankle joint while walking. The motor is controlled according to the walking phase grasped with the pressure sensors under the sole. It is already utilized as a product, for the gait training by so many hemiplegic patients. By using the technology of RE-Gait®, a new device for the able-bodied elderly to promote exercise was also developed. This is RE-Gait®Light, which is lower cost, very light, and easy to move. We proposed a new control method for this device, which is automatically tuned according to the condition of the emotion of the user. In this chapter, the evaluation results using this method are introduced.

Two-Dimensional Emotion Evaluation with Multiple Physiological Signals

Extended roles of robots for activities of daily living (ADL) lead to researchers’ increasing attention to human-robot interaction. Emotional recognition has been regarded as an important issue from the human mental aspect. We are developing an assistive walking device which considers the correlation between physical assistance and mental conditions for the user. To connect the assistive device and user mental conditions, it is necessary to evaluate emotion in real-time. This study aims to develop a new method of two-dimensional valence-arousal model emotion evaluation with multiple physiological signals. We elicit users’ emotion change based on normative affective stimuli database, and further extract multiple physiological signals from the subjects. Moreover, we implement various algorithms (k-means, T method of MTS (Mahalanobis Taguchi System) and DNN (deep neural network)) for determining the emotional state from physiological data. Finally, the findings indicate that deep neural network method can precisely recognize the human emotional state.

Experimental Study on Color Preference and Visual Fatigue Against LED Lighting

In recent times, light-emitting diode (LED) lighting has been widespread in offices and manufacturing buildings, but for assembly operation in manufacturing situations, it has not yet been explored. In this study, we measure color preference and visual fatigue to evaluate LED task lighting for assembly operation. We conducted an experiment to obtain subjective responses to color preference and to measure visual fatigue under LED lighting. The participants were asked to assemble a gearbox model as a task under three different lighting conditions. As a result, lighting with high color temperature was rated with high visibility, fatigability, and low preference. On the other hand, critical fusion frequency, which indicates visual fatigue, was higher in lighting with low color temperature than in lighting with other conditions. This indicates that color preference as a subjective response discords from visual fatigue evaluated by biological information.