Hiroshi Yokoi

Find Path Problem of Autonomous Robots by Vibrating Potential Method

We have been proposing vibrating potential method (VPM) as a new mathematical model for an intelligent robotic system that can solve various engineering problems. In the VPM, an information field as energy field is defined and multi-agents can observe and communicate each other through the field. The agents can move on the field by getting the energy from the field. Then, each robotic agent can execute position-control by local-area sensoring and path planning by detecting global information from the field. In this paper, a new robotic system is introduced as a mathematical model using the VPM. First, the concepts of the VPM are introduced. Next, a mathematical model of robotic system is defined by the VPM. Then find-path problem of autonomous robots on the system is discussed. Finally, computer simulations of the dynamic find-path process are shown.

An approach to the autonomous grasping problem by the vibrating potential method

This paper proposes potential field techniques for control of a link mechanism based on a decentralized management and an approach to describing a mathematical model of autonomous machines. To control the group of machines, there are two categories of method, one was based on central control and the other on parallel distributed control. A popular method for control machines is the so-called potential method, which has been applied to navigation for automatically guided vehicles in a stable working space. Since the potential function of the working space must be determined at every instant for an unstable working space, an efficiency of the potential method becomes low. To modify the potential function local, an approach called the vibrating potential method (VPM) is introduced. With this method, there are many cases where high-performance information processing can be attained without supervision. This paper proposes a new control method based on VPM and discusses its application to the grasping problem of free form objects.