Satoshi Hashino

A blind guidance system for street crossings based on ultrasonic sensors

This paper addresses the technical feasibility of a guidance system based on ultrasonic sensors to aid visually impaired people to cross a road easily and safely. A computer processes ultrasonic signals emitted by a transmitter, which is carried by the impaired user, and provides real-time information on the direction and distance to keep user on the correct track. Instead of time of flight, the system estimates user position by the order of received ultrasonic signals at multiple receivers. Radio transmission is then used to provide guidance information to the user by using of two vibrators that act as tactile feedback. Experimental results are presented to discuss feasibility of this method.

An upper limb motion assist system: experiments with arm models

In developing service robots, safety should be considered carefully, since robots share the space with people who do not have technical backgrounds on the operation of robots. A powered orthosis is one of the most severe examples. We have been studying an upper limb motion assist system. The aim of the system is to help a disabled person move his/her arm by his/her own will, by hanging the arm with strings and changing the length of each string. We have built an experimental system to examine the motion obtained with this system.

A fast forest road segmentation for real-time robot self-navigation

Road-following by mobile robots under varying outdoor illumination demands special care to be taken on development of an algorithm, which should be flexible to color changes in sunny or shadow parts. This paper addresses the technical feasibility of an automatic color evaluation method for fast segmentation of roads with unknown geometrical shapes. Instead of using multiple image features, we describe a selective color-based road extraction method, where appropriate color parameters are projected to a one dimensional feature. We also report on mission experiments of a small 4-wheel mobile robot equipped with a color CCD camera sensor through a real forest field.

An ultrasonic blind guidance system for street crossings

This paper addresses the technical feasibility of a guidance system based on ultrasonic sensors to aid visually impaired people to cross a road easily and safely. A computer processes ultrasonic signals emitted by a transmitter, which is carried by the impaired user, and provides real-time information on the direction and distance to keep user on the correct track. Instead of time of flight, the system estimates user position by the order of received ultrasonic signals at multiple receivers. Experimental results are presented to discuss feasibility of this method.