Taro Fujikawa

Proposal for personal mobility vehicle supported by mobility support system

We propose a personal mobility vehicle (PMV) supported by mobility support system (MSS), which expands the field of activities of PMV. This vehicle, which is called RT-Mover P-type 2, shows adequate mobility performance in urban area. A strength of it is that it realize both a leg mode and a wheel mode in a simple mechanism. In this paper, we introduce a whole system integrated with both PMV and MSS, and evaluate basic mobility performance by itself experimentally.

Proposal for an IR system to support automatic control for a personal mobility vehicle

We propose a supporting system for automatic control of personal mobility vehicles (PMVs) to pass through a narrow space in indoor environment. This system consists of IR markers located on an entrance of a narrow space and an IR sensor to mount on a PMV. An IR sensor calculates relative distance between itself and an IR marker and angle of approach to pass through on a marker. To validate the proposed system we perform both experiments to estimate accuracy of calculated relative distance and angle and to demonstrate automatic control using our manufactured PMV. These results show that the proposed IR system is effective in path guidance for PMVs.

Motion analysis of butterfly-style flapping robot for different wing and body design

In this study, we manufactured small butterfly-style flapping robots with wing veins and investigated their flight characteristics for different design parameters such as swept-forward wing angle and center of mass (COM). The butterfly-style flapping robot is characterized by a total mass of less than 1 g, the COM at its rear, a tailless wing, a few degrees of freedom (DOF), a low aspect ratio, a low flapping frequency of 10 Hz, and a wide flapping angle from 90 deg to −90 deg. The experimental results showed that the body pitch angle was controlled by the swept-forward wing angle and by the relative positions of the COM and center of lift (COL), and that the model with a swept-forward wing angle of 20 deg and a “far-rear” COM was more suitable than that with a swept-forward wing angle of 0 deg and a “near-rear” COM for butterfly-style flight.

An IR system in the mobility support system to expand the field of activities for personal mobility vehicles

In this paper, we propose a system called mobility support system (MSS) in order to expand the field of activities of personal mobility vehicles (PMVs). We validate a method using an infrared (IR) system that is one of the components of MSS for providing self-localization for PMVs. To this end, we use the IR system to perform experiments for estimating the angle of approach of the PMV toward an IR marker so as to pass through a narrow space such as a ticket gate in a station. Our results show that this system determined the angle of approach with accuracy.

Motion analysis of small flapping robot for various design and control parameters

In this study, we investigate the flight characteristics for various design and control parameters by motion analysis using both constructed hardwares and computational models. We have developed a small flapping robot for use as an observation system in hazardous environments. Here, we have focused on a butterfly design with a few degrees of freedom (DOFs) and a low flapping frequency as a flapping model and have constructed isometric hardware to achieve the same flight mechanism as that of a butterfly. In addition, we have developed a computational model for analyzing the body motion including the abdomen swinging and the wing deformation. Motion analysis using the hardware and software has clarified the flight mechanism of a butterfly, which involves the periodic control of the angle of attack and in which the flight trajectory depends on factors including the center of mass, the body structure, and the wing shape. In this study, we analyze the relationships among the trajectory of the center of mass, the transition of the angle of attack, the design parameter, i.e., the swept-forward wing angle, and the control parameter, i.e., the initial angle of attack, using both the constructed hardwares and the computational models. These results clarify the flight characteristics for the small butterfly-style flapping robot and establish its design methodology.