Kouki Hayashi

Two-point discrimination threshold as a function of frequency and polarity at fingertip by electrical stimulation

The effect of frequencies and current polarity of electrical stimulation to fingertip was investigated toward realizing electrocutaneous display. We measured the two-point discrimination threshold of electrical stimulation with 1.0 mm diameter electrodes spaced by 2.0 mm. The waveform pattern with the smallest two-point discrimination threshold was anode at frequencies from 200 to 400 Hz; most subjects could clearly discriminate the physical separation of 4 mm, some of them could discriminate 2 mm with optimized electrical stimulation.

Development of face robot to express various face shapes by moving the parts and outline

During human communication, humans distinguish individuals by facial features such as silhouette, position and the shape of each part, and guess the mental state based on facial expressions. Many researchers have developed robots that can express their emotions using facial expressions. However, a robot that can change individual facial aspects has not been researched yet. Therefore, we developed a face robot that expresses various faces by changing shape of the mask and projecting the face image onto the face mask. We confirmed that the face robot can express many types of human face by solving of some problems of unsuitable wrinkle, low torque and low accuracy.

Life size humanoid robot that reproduces gestures as a communication terminal: appearance considerations

We propose an application that uses a humanoid robot as a communications terminal. We describe a life-size robot that suits inter-personal communication. For simplicity, the current version is restricted to a motorized chair. We show that the robot realizes three service modes: chat mode, e-mail mode and autonomous mode. In chat mode, the hand gestures of the humanoid robot reproduce those made by the operator as captured by surface EMG signal recognition. the humanoid robot is seen as a feasible instrument of telecommunication.

Teleoperation performance using excavator with tactile feedback

Teleoperation systems have been used in various situations such as space tasks, rescue activities, military missions, undersea operations and unmanned constructions. Compared to direct operation, teleoperation performance is limited by a lack of awareness of remote location environments. In this paper, tactile feedback on construction machine teleoperation performance is discussed. We measured the effectiveness in a study of three-dimensional pointing tasks using Fitts law paradigm with a tactile feedback. The way of the tactile feedback is that operator can notice an approaching excavators bucket to ground by vibration before touching the bucket to ground. We found that total movement time was reduced by the tactile feedback.