ISHII, Hiroyuki

Outline：© 2015 IEEE. One of the main problems faced by land-based mobile robots is their locomotion performance on rough outdoor terrain. We focused on the navigation of grassy areas such as riversides and forests. These have many types of obstacles, which make robot locomotion difficult. Several studies have been conducted on locomotive mechanisms for rough terrains that have performed well. However, most of these mechanisms cannot pass through grass taller than their own height while using a small number of actuators. We designed a novel mechanism that uses only two motors to ensure a high locomotive ability over a field with tall grasses. We also designed "Grassbreaker" by attaching an outer covering to a tiny mobile robot shaped like an icebreaker. We found that the robot's shape greatly influences its mobility in a tall grass field and that the robot continued to move forward while bending tall grasses such as reeds. The significant difference (p < 0.05) between the average speeds of Grassbreaker and the robot without the outer covering was confirmed in an experiment. The robot's new shape is significant not only because it fills a gap in previous research work but also because this method does not require any additional actuators such as conventional cutting and bending methods.

ISSN：21530858

Outline：© 2015 IEEE. Environment recognition is an effective way for a mobile robot to move across rough terrain. In particular, this makes it possible to prevent a tiny mobile robot from getting stuck or turning over. Several studies have been conducted on environment recognition using a laser range finder or camera. However, almost all of these studies focused on obstacle detection or shape recognition, which cannot be used to recognize the surface condition such as slipperiness. The purpose of this work is to design a model for estimating the surface condition using a tiny mobile robot. We set slipperiness as one of the parameters for recognizing the surface condition, which is already used by terramechanics, along with two additional parameters, the hardness and unevenness. We find that a robot can roughly estimate the ground hardness by measuring the current peak of a motor and the unevenness from measuring the robot posture. By recognizing the surface condition, the robot can change the parameters of the controlling motor based on the ground characteristics. This new method for recognizing the surface condition is significant, not only because it fills gaps in the previous research, but also because it does not require any special sensors such as a laser range finder and does not consume a large quantity of energy. Therefore, it achieves a core objective of our environmental monitoring system using multiple mobile robot.

ISSN：1083-4435

Outline：© 2015 IEEE. Robots are possible candidates for performing tasks as helpers in activities of daily living in the future: working as a receptionist is one possible employment. However, the way the receptionist robot should appear, sound and behave needs to be investigated carefully, in order to design a robot which is accepted and perceived in a positive way by common users. This paper describes a study on anthropomorphism of a receptionist robot made for Brazilian people depending on the appearance and on the voice of the receptionist. This experiment was preceded by a preliminary survey about expectation of people regarding receptionists. The main experiment consisted in having Brazilian people interacting with a conversational agent and with a humanoid robot through a video conference. The two receptionists are not only different in physical appearance, but in the sound of the voice, too, which can be either human-like or robotic sound. The two receptionists gave indications to the participants to reach rooms where they could evaluate the receptionists through questionnaires concerning anthropomorphism and uncanniness among other concepts. The results gathered from both experiments provide useful hints to design a receptionist robot.

Outline：© 2015 IEEE. In the near future, robots are expected to perform assistive tasks and do different kind of jobs. In particular, humanoid robots are possible candidates for being used as helpers in activities of daily living. One possible employment is working as a receptionist, providing useful indications to visitors in a public office. The design of how robots could look like is a matter of growing importance, as it is important to create a look that poses no uncanny valley effects on the human user and that is appropriate to potentially serve in different job areas in human society. In this paper we want to describe the study on anthropomorphism of a receptionist robot. We invited Brazilian people with different education levels to interact with two variations of a receptionist robot, different in physical appearance as well as in the sound of the voice. In one case, the appearance was a conversational agent made with computer graphics, in the other, a real humanoid robot. Results gathered from surveys and comments of the participants provide useful directions to design a receptionist robot and insights on the effect of digital divide on anthropomorphism.

ISSN：17483182

Outline：© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd. In this paper, we study the behavioral response of rats to a robotic rat during multi-rat interaction. Experiments are conducted in an open-field where a robotic rat called WR-5 is put together with three laboratory rats. WR-5 is following one rat (target), while avoiding the other two rats (outside observers) during interaction. The behavioral characteristics of each target rat is evaluated by scoring its locomotor activity and frequencies of performing rearing, body grooming and mounting actions. Additionally, the frequency of being mounted by other rats is also measured. Experimental results show that the target becomes more active after interaction. The rat species, with more active behavioral characteristics, is more susceptible to being adjusted by the robot. The increased time spent by the outside observers in the vicinity of the robot indicates that a biomimetic robot has the promise for modulating rat behavior even without direct interaction. Thus, this study provide a novel approach to shaping the sociality of animals living in groups.

ISSN：1861-6429

Outline：PURPOSE:Current training for laparoscopy focuses only on the enhancement of manual skill and does not give advice on improving trainees' posture. However, a poor posture can result in increased static muscle loading, faster fatigue, and impaired psychomotor task performance. In this paper, the authors propose a method, named subliminal persuasion, which gives the trainee real-time advice for correcting the upper limb posture during laparoscopic training like the expert but leads to a lower increment in the workload.;METHODS:A 9-axis inertial measurement unit was used to compute the upper limb posture, and a Detection Reaction Time device was developed and used to measure the workload. A monitor displayed not only images from laparoscope, but also a visual stimulus, a transparent red cross superimposed to the laparoscopic images, when the trainee had incorrect upper limb posture. One group was exposed, when their posture was not correct during training, to a short (about 33 ms) subliminal visual stimulus. The control group instead was exposed to longer (about 660 ms) supraliminal visual stimuli.;RESULTS:We found that subliminal visual stimulation is a valid method to improve trainees' upper limb posture during laparoscopic training. Moreover, the additional workload required for subconscious processing of subliminal visual stimuli is less than the one required for supraliminal visual stimuli, which is processed instead at the conscious level.;CONCLUSIONS:We propose subliminal persuasion as a method to give subconscious real-time stimuli to improve upper limb posture during laparoscopic training. Its effectiveness and efficiency were confirmed against supraliminal stimuli transmitted at the conscious level: Subliminal persuasion improved upper limb posture of trainees, with a smaller increase on the overall workload.

ISSN：0018-9294

ISSN：0921-0296

ISSN：0169-1864

ISSN：0179-0358

ISSN：1322-7114

ISSN：0263-5747

ISSN：1748-3182

ISSN：21551774

Outline：The number of patients with mental disorders is increasing in advanced countries, hence more effective psychotropic drugs are recently desired. In process of development of psychotropic drugs, animal experiments have been playing a very important role. Mental disorder model animals which exhibit behavior disorder like patients with mental disorders are used in these experiments. These animals are normally developed by genetic manipulation, surgical operation in their brain or drug administration. A candidate for a new drug is administrated in these animals to evaluate its effect. However, we have some doubts about conventional mental disorder model animals because they are induced these disorders by using methods which are quite different from causes of mental disorder of human beings. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an novel methodology to create mental disorder model animals. We then developed a small mobile robot and a control system for it. Using them, we have performed some experiments to create a mental disorder model rat. We had then succeeded in developing a mental disorder model rat by exposing stress using the robot during immature period. This rat exhibits low activity in some behavior tests during mature period. For better understanding of how stress exposure induces mental disorder in a rat, we conducted another experiment based on stress vulnerability hypothesis. In this experiment, stress was exposed during both immature and mature period while that had been exposed only during immature period. We prepared several conditions of stress exposure by changing robot behavior pattern to find the one to induce much stress in a rat. From a result of experiment, we found that a rat which received gentle chase by the robot during immature period was induced much stress when it received robot attack during mature period. Thus, we consider that this rat is more appropriate to the mental disorder model than that was developed in our past experiment. © 2012 IEEE.

ISSN：1383-5416

ISSN：02891824

Outline：The purpose of this study is to develop novel training system for medical skills using robot technology. We have developed Waseda Kyotokagaku Airway No.4 (WKA-4) as a novel training simulator for airway management. This robot reproduces several different patients with actuators. For instance, this robot has a unique mechanism in its temporomandibular joint that consists of a set of warm gears and force sensors, hence reproduces a patient with TMJ disorder. This robot also has the tongue that is able to change its shape using air pressure, hence reproduces the difficulty of airway management. We then asked the medical doctors to evaluate the robot using a questionnaire and confirmed that WKA-4 had enough property to use in the training of anesthesiologists.

ISSN：0022-2623

Outline：This research proposes to design and develop a novel robot involved in the general and famous animal experimental method called Social Interaction Test (SIT). Aiming at increased movement range of the waist and improved interoperability, we have developed a novel small animaroid robot WR-4 (Waseda Rat No.4). The waist of WR-4 endowed with a multi-bendable 6-bar linkage mechanism makes the robot able to rotate around ±130° horizontally, meeting required movement range. Integrating with a 4-bar linkage mechanism in the neck, this 6-bar linkage mechanism achieves the bending posture as living rats, allowing the imitation of behavior such as rotating. Furthermore, ultrasonic motors (USM) used to drive forelegs greatly reduce the weight of upper body, resulting in quicker acting of rearing behavior. WR-4 consists of 10 active DOFs (two 1-DOF wheels for locomotion, two 2-DOF forelegs for interaction, one 1-DOF neck for swing, one 2-DOF waist for rearing and body grooming and one 1-DOF reserved for tail) and 2 passive DOFs in the paws. The evaluation tests on motion performance show that WR-4 could act both rearing (reaching 60°) and rotating (reaching ±100° respectively) behaviors approximately 0.1s quicker than mature rats. Preliminary SIT between WR-4 and mature rats have been conducted strictly following psychological rules. Experimental results reveal that the frequencies of rearing behavior in rats were increased significantly when WR-4 reared periodically, and the activities of rats were decreased after WR-4 reared. © 2011 IEEE.

ISSN：1557-170X

Outline：:The training in the surgical practice is of paramount importance to prepare the residents in performing surgical procedures on human subject and to provide exercise on new techniques for experienced surgeons. Usually, these trainings are carried out on live animals or in virtual environments and dry boxes; the complexity of the exercises is identical in both of the case, but the pressure in operating with a living subject could change the attitude and the movements of the trainee. Until now, it has not been possible to analyze this stress in details together in the surgical animal training and dry boxes. In this work we propose an innovative portable system that can measure two physiological parameters, the heartbeat and the surface electromyography, during a session of training in both of the environment. The preliminary results, for one subject, show a bigger average power in the shoulder muscles during the living operation together with a higher but stable heartbeat rate.

ISSN：0169-1864

ISSN：1557-170X

Outline：:This paper presents the preliminary performance evaluation of our new wireless ultra-miniaturized inertial measurement unit (IMU) WB-4 by compared with the Vicon motion capture system. The WB-4 IMU primarily contains a mother board for motion sensing, a Bluetooth module for wireless data transmission with PC, and a Li-Polymer battery for power supply. The mother board is provided with a microcontroller and 9-axis inertial sensors (miniaturized MEMS accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer) to measure orientation. A quaternion-based extended Kalman filter (EKF) integrated with an R-Adaptive algorithm for automatic estimation of the measurement covariance matrix is implemented for the sensor fusion to retrieve the attitude. The experimental results showed that the wireless ultra-miniaturized WB-4 IMU could provide high accuracy performance at the angles of roll and pitch. The yaw angle which has reasonable performance needs to be further evaluated.

Outline：In the domain of psychology and medical science, many experiments have been conducted referring to research on animal behaviors, to study the mechanism of mental disorders and to develop psychotropic drugs to treat them. Rodents such as rats are often chosen as experimental subjects in these experiments. However, according to some researchers, the experiments on social interactions using animals are poorly- reproducible. Therefore, we consider that the reproducibility of these experiments can be improved by using a robotic agent that interacts with an animal subject. We have developed a novel quadruped rat-inspired robot, the WR-2 (Waseda Rat No.2), based on the dimension and body structure of a mature rat. It is capable of reproducing the behaviors such as walking, mounting, rearing and grooming of the rat. ©2010 IEEE.

Outline：This paper presents the design and development of a bio-inspired mobile robot called WR-3 (Waseda Rat No.3), as an experimental tool to study social interaction between rats and robots. According to the motion analysis of rats, their motion can be divided into two phases: moving and interaction. Therefore, a novel hybrid mechanism in which wheels are used for moving and legs are used for interaction has been designed to actuate the WR-3. Consequently, the robot can move at a high speed using its wheels and reproduce the rats' interaction using its legs and other parts. Based on the dimension and body structure of a mature rat, WR-3 has been designed with dimensions of 240×70×90[mm] and is the same shape as a rat. It consists of 18 DOFs in total: two 1-DOF wheels, four 3-DOF legs (including passive DOFs), a 2-DOF waist, and a 2-DOF neck. Preliminary interaction experiments with rats demonstrate that WR-3 is capable of reproducing interactions such as following, rearing, grooming, mounting, etc. similar to a real rat. © 2010 IEEE.

Outline：The interaction experiment, between a robot and a rat, will benefit significantly when the rat's actions can be recognized automatically in real time. Regarding quantitative behavior analysis, the number and duration of a rat's actions should be measured efficiently and accurately. Therefore, aiming at the above-mentioned objectives, a novel cognition system capable of detecting rats' actions has been proposed in this paper. The main function of this cognition system lies on the real-time recognition and offline analysis of rats' behaviors. Basic image processing algorithm as Labeling and Contour Finding were employed to extract feature parameters (body length, body area, body radius, rotational angle, and ellipticity) of rat's actions. These parameters are integrated as the input feature vector of NN (Neural Network) and SVM (Support Vector Machine) training system respectively. Preliminary experiments reveal that the grooming, rotating and rearing actions could be recognized with extremely high rate (more than 90%) by both NN and SVM. Compared to NN, SVM provides better recognition rate and less computational cost. © 2010 IEEE.

ISSN：1861-6410

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：00446912

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：13449486

ISSN：1557170X

Outline：3D Visualization method of shape of flexible colonoscopy in simulated computing environment is proposed. Signals from sensor network are used to calculate the orientation of the body of each sensor. Position of each sensor is estimated from the orientation using assumption of forward kinematics in robotics. This data are then interpolated with curve fitting method to give natural impression of shape to surgeon who are watching monitor. The resulting simulated curve shows that motion of shape of colonoscopy can be simulated at it is. © 2011 IEEE.

Outline：In this paper, the shape of the medical robot which can move in the colon is suggested for its gate control. In this system, the current shape information plays a sensing role in order to control the gate of robot in the colon. In order to find current shape of robot, we construct sensor network system which composed of several electronic compass units. This unit makes use of chip which includes pair of 3 axis accelerometer and 3 axis magnetometer. From this signals, orientation is evaluated after filtering noise. Then, based on the kinematic chain model, the shape of the flexible robot is calculated using orientation information. The resulting trajectory shows that this method cans percept shape of flexible robot well. © 2011 IEEE.

Outline：The general characteristics of the colon are proposed in the mechanical point of view. This is prerequisite information when we want to develop endoscopic robot which can move well in the human colon. Friction property which comprise static and dynamic friction coefficient is investigated. The elastic property of colon is also investigated: the radial tensile force is measured in the elastic range. The effect on the robot is revealed by using experimental method. The design parameters of the robot are then investigated: one is for the moving mechanism which has to be selected in view of mobility compared to the above knowledge. The other is for selection problem on the fin type and size in the inverse screw type. Several apparatus for friction property measurements were made and carefully made experiments. The resulting data were analyzed. Final results show that inverse screw type of robot has more mobility compared to the rotational inertia type. © 2011 IEEE.

Outline：The Simulation Model which can visualize the shape of commercial colonoscope is proposed. This model uses kinematic chain which approximates the shape of colonoscope by serially connected multiple joint-link pairs. As the input to the model, orientation information is used. Orientation information is extracted from the Sensor Network. The sensor network consists of connecting a number of sensor units with CAN bus. Each sensor unit also has two kinds of sensor: triad of accelerometer and triad of magnetometer. Roll and pitch angle are estimated based on the accelerometer signals. Yaw angle is estimated based on the magnetometer signals. By using kinematic chain model and orientation as input, we estimate the key points which are positions of sensor units on the colonoscope. Then, we implement spline interpolation to find the intermediate points which constitutes the shape of colonoscope. We made experiment in order to check whether model has enough accuracy. Firstly, we compared estimated curve with sine curve which is used as a ground truth. Secondly, we investigated the effect of number of sensor on the accuracy. Final result says that it has enough estimation ability.

International conferenceSymposium workshop panel(nominated)Venue：Poznan

International conferenceSymposium workshop panel(nominated)Venue：San Francisco

International conferenceSymposium workshop panel(nominated)Venue：Paris