Hideki Kajima

Mode switching control for a personal mobility robot based on initial value compensation

The present paper introduces a novel standing-up control strategy using Initial Value Compensation (IVC) for a Personal Mobility Robot (PMR). Personal mobility robots, which are wheeled inverted pendulum type mobility-assist devices, have the advantages of a small turn radius, maintaining a level seating posture on a slope, and a small footprint as compared to conventional electric wheelchairs with four wheels. On the other hand, the user must maintain the posture of the PMR by the use of additional assist wheels on the ground when mounting/dismounting and working from the PMR. In order to achieve these requirements, we propose the following approach. First, the PMR accelerates to lift its assist wheels off the ground and detects whether the assist wheels are in contact with the ground. The feedback controller is then switched to wheeled inverted pendulum mode using the proposed IVC. The proposed IVC is designed to improve the transient responses and suppress the amplitude of the control input and the jerk component for reducing the shock to the driver. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been verified by numerical simulations and experiments using a prototype PMR.

Human support robot (HSR)

There has been an increasing interest in mobile manipulators that is capable of performing physical work in living spaces worldwide, corresponding to population aging with declining birth rates with the expectation of improving quality of life (QOL). Research and development is a must in intelligent sensing and software which enable advanced recognition, judgment, and motion to realize household work by robots. In order to accelerate this research, we have developed a compact and safe research platform, Human Support Robot (HSR), which can be operated in an actual home environment. We assume that overall R&D will accelerate by using a common robot platform among many researchers since that enables them to share their research results. In this paper, we introduce HSR design and its utilization.