Junichi Tamamoto

Basic Design of Human-Symbiotic Robot EMIEW

We are developing a robot that supports people in their daily lives: a human-symbiotic robot. Such robot must share space with its users, be user-friendly, and be able to assist its users. We have developed a prototype autonomous mobile robot that makes use of a self-balancing two-wheeled mobile system and a body swing mechanism to shift its center of gravity. This allows it to move nimbly at up to 6 km per hour. It also has capabilities to avoid collisions with obstacles for moving safely through complex environments. Distant-speech-recognition and high-quality speech-synthesis technologies enable it to communicate with people naturally (i.e., without special tools). These capabilities were demonstrated at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan

Collision-avoidance algorithm for human-symbiotic robot

A real-time collision-avoidance algorithm for human-symbiotic robots that are required to avoid multiple pedestrians was developed. An algorithm to predict the likelihood of a collision with obstacles was based on the relative velocities between a moving robot and multiple obstacles. An algorithm that can generate the optimum path sequence to a goal in real time was also developed. The collision-avoidance path is generated by repeating an operation to select two tangent paths that connect a via-point on a path to a collision circle of each obstacle that exists in the relative space. A robot-called EMIEW”-using these algorithms with a system for avoiding collisions with many obstacles moves at a speed of 0.8 m/s in a cluster of five people walking at 1.2 m/s. The repeat period for generating a new avoidance path is 0.5s, and the processing time for the developed algorithm in the each period is a maximum of 4 ms.

Gap Control System for Transported Paper Sheet with a Pair of Flat Belts.

A machine that transports paper sheet by using a pair of flat belts, handles various paper sheet with regard to size, thickness and texture. This often causes the gap between the sheets to change when it is transported over a long distance. If the gap becomes shorter than a certain threshold value, it causes sheet jam. We have therefore developed a gap control system that determines the transport distance of sheets and measures the gap change before the sheets reach the gap controller. Using thses information, it estimates the gap change after the gap controller and sets a target value. The contoller varies the transport velocity in an optimum pattern and controls the gap to the target value. We applied the system to a transport route and it reduced the standard deviation of gap into 2/3.