Open House Seminar

The flow visualization is an important tool for understanding the flow field in fluid engineering. For example, the flow separation can be a major factor in the performance degradation of fluid-based processes, as it can result in several deleterious effects, such as vibration and noise. Various methods of reducing flow separation have been proposed, including passive and active flow control approaches. However, it is not easy to understand the complex flow dynamics of the flow separation phenomena. The author have already tried to clarify the complex flow fields using the numerical simulation by ANSYS-CFX (Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD) and the PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry; Experimental Fluid Dynamics, EFD). Both approaches are good tools for understanding the complex flow field qualitatively and quantitatively. In this study, I will show the some quantitative flow visualization systems, results and complex phenomena by the numerical simulation and the PIV.

There are many nanoscale phenomena that are required to be investigated for research and development, such as, nano-precision mechanical processing, semiconductor and pharmacy industries. However, the nanoscale phenomena have been usually observed by electron microscopy in vacuum environment. Although, the most of nanoscale phenomena occurs in atmosphere or in liquid with high speed progress. Therefore, our laboratory has been studied and developed various schemes of the compact and portable optical systems to achieve observation of the high-speed nanoscale phenomena in real time. The presentation will propose our method and the optical systems and then introduce some observation videos of nanoscale phenomena. For example; the material removal phenomena in dielectric material CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) are considered that occurs with nanoparticle abrasive movement on the softened reacted surface to be polished. Although the function of nanoparticles is captured as mechanical, these phenomena directly affect in the microscopic behaviour of polishing by nanoparticles and slurry flow. In order to realize further high efficiency CMP, it is necessary to investigate into the truth of this polishing phenomenon in nano-scale.

Understanding the emotion of an interlocutor is a critical human social skill. Thus, emotional assessment has become a subject of interest in studies of human-robot interaction (HRI). In this paper we propose estimating human moods by means of a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). This model assumes 1) there are only two hidden states (positive or negative mood), and 2) that these states can be recognized by certain facial and bodily expressions. The most significant parameter, face emotion score, is used to adjust the transition probability between these hidden states. A Viterbi algorithm has been adopted to predict the hidden state from the observed state of bodily expression. The model has been demonstrated in real time, showing that it could be used to enhance the skill of a social robot, thus endowing the robot with the flexibility to interact in a more human-oriented way.

This research addresses an application of a robotic system for the forest industry. We have been developing the autonomous moving robot focusing on a labor-saving in a silvicultural project. Forestry robot "SOMA", out developed, is able to move between trees without damaging them and to eliminate weed plants. This presentation reports 1) an external situation recognition using a RGB-D camera, 2) an reactive motion control to avoid obstacles such as the trees, and 3) computing a trajectory for the robot in advance of its entrance into the forest. The system was demonstrated in small experimental forest and we would like to discuss about feasibility of the forestry robot.

Japan’s population is decreasing after a peak in 2008 due to aging of the population and declining birth rates. Japan’s economy and society will have expected more development in technologies such as artificial intelligence and robots to make up for a decline in the labor force. However, the decline of the labor force already invites the labor shortages in the industries. Consequently, the Japanese government aims to introduce a new residence status that the foreign workers are accepted in the fourteen business sectors which are restaurants, hotels, nursing care, building cleaning, agriculture, fishery, food and beverage, materials processing, industrial machinery, electronics and electric machinery, construction, shipbuilding, vehicle maintenance, and airport ground handling and aircraft maintenance. In this work shop our efforts of the center for Socio-Robotic Synthesis are reported on field robot and sensing system as applications of the robotics and AI to the agriculture, the forestry, the logistic, the food factory and future industrial factory.

Five years have passed since Kyutech Center for Socio-Robotic is established. The center aims at implementation of R&D results into our society and demonstrates the possibility and potential of new robotic systems how effective or useful the systems will work. The main work of the center is the collaboration with companies, and also we have organized robotic competitions such as Tomato-harvesting competition, Forest drone and robot competition to attract young researchers and students into new area of robotic research, agricultural robots, forest robots, underwater robots, field robots. In this talk, we introduce the activities of Kyutech Center for Socio-Robotic Synthesis.

Recent demographic trend across developed nations shows a dramatic increase in ageing population, fallen fertility rates and shortage of caregivers. Hence, the demand for service robots to assist Activities of Daily Living (ADL) of the elderly and people with disabilities is rapidly increasing. Because there are generally individual differences in user needs, such robots need to adapt to the needs of each user. For this purpose, I have been working with both software and hardware approaches. The software approach uses artificial intelligence, and the hardware approach uses rapid prototyping. In this talk, I will introduce my software approaches on human-skill transferring robot and learning robot for human motor learning, and hardware approaches on robot rapid prototyping with hard and high-performance robot modules as well as soft pneumatic actuators.

Non-profit organization XPRIZE foundation located at USA has organized Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE which advance deep sea technologies for autonomous, fast and high-resolution ocean exploration. The was divided into three stage of technical document review, round 1 and round 2. Unmanned vehicle should survey the seafloor at 2,000 m depth over 100 square kilometres in round 1, and seafloor at 4,000 m depth over 250 square kilometres in round 2 with horizontal resolution of 5 m or more and vertical resolution of 0.5 m or more. The survey site is located about 15 miles away from the port, unmanned vehicle should move to the site before seafloor survey without vessel support. Team KUROSHIO built by directors including the author consist of 8 organizations in Japan, and it passed the technical document review and the round 1 in the competition. This presentation explains unmanned seafloor survey system of our team and introduces the efforts to round 2.