Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

This paper proposes an approach to assist the visually impaired in walking independently by presenting people flow and sidewalk edge information. To achieve this, a robust estimation of the direction of people flow, and a method for detecting the edges of sidewalks are presented. Image learning for sidewalk estimation is performed using binary semantic segmentation that classifies sidewalks and other areas to see sidewalks regardless of pedestrians and shadows on sidewalks. The effectiveness of the methods was evaluated. Then, preliminary user experiments will investigate the effect of the walking assistance information presented by this approach on the decision of walking behavior.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON51785.2023.10312137

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

Inspired by a common behaviour pattern from the dog-human relationship, we present a behaviour model combined with a method for controlling a real mobile robot, effectively realizing physical Human-Object-Robot Interaction. Translating social behaviours from the dog-human relationship into social robots has been already found to be a viable way. Playing, a cardinal behaviour element in the dog-human relationship, turned out to be one of the highest priority factors in forming a successful and lasting relationship between dogs and humans. Accordingly, we modeled the playing behavior when a human repeatedly initiates playing with a dog by picking up and throwing an object (toy), expecting the dog to go for the object and bring it back to the person throwing it, commonly known as playing fetch. We also developed a robot control system able to execute the commands from the behaviour model, and for gathering the poses of the participants in the real physical space we have used the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get Indoor Localization (WIL) system. The integration of these components allowed us to create a social robotics system able to offer real physical human-object-robot interaction fast enough to be enjoyable for human participants, as a tool to be used in future HRI experiments, which was our main goal. The proposed behaviour model is intended to be embedded into social robots with the purpose of applying it in e.g. therapy, child-rearing, child-robot interaction scenarios, human behaviour assessment, recreational or entertainment scenarios.

DOI： 10.1109/SMC53992.2023.10394386

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This study proposes an indoor movable static object extraction approach for building environmental maps that describe indoor human activities. In particular, it is essential to distinguishing people from non-human movable objects. To address this issue, we classify static objects into three categories based on their features. Methods for extracting movable static objects using each feature are presented. We conducted experiments and confirmed that the movable static objects were successfully detected and redefined as backgrounds, and only people were determined as dynamic objects.

DOI： 10.1080/01691864.2022.2126732

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This study investigated the impressions people have when receiving instructions by using two robots with different appearances that automatically move at different distances within a workspace and give instructions to subjects. In particular, we clarified how factors such as the appearance of the robots and the sense of distance, including personal space, influence when task instructions are given by the robots through active communication from the robots in subjects in two age groups. The results of the experiment showed the likeability of the robot and the impression of distance from the robot when the robot gave instructions to a person, as well as the impression of warmth or discomfort toward the robot. The change in the impression of the robot throughout the experiment was also shown. The results also showed differences in impressions of the distance between different age groups, and differences in the final likeability of the robot through the interaction between the person and the robot between the two different age groups.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM52237.2022.9863326

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Indoor localization methods provide pose information in their own virtual coordinate systems. Adjusting these custom virtual spaces to the real physical spaces can be a complex and high cost (manpower, equipment) procedure. Verifying whether the adjusted poses accurately reflect the poses in the real space or not is also a difficult task. This paper proposes the application of the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) style for indoor localization systems as a tool for physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) experiments. To realize this, we have constructed a system using floor projection and a self-developed virtual to real coordinate system adjustment tool with an easy to use, intuitive user interface. The calculated real positions are shown in real-time in the same space where the real tracked objects are. Therefore an operator can instantly verify and adjust the virtual-real coordinate transformation parameters, effectively minimizing the cost of calibration and possibly increasing accuracy. Our proposed system is capable of gathering positions from indoor localization systems and providing the transformed real-space pose information via different methods including a common standard interface, in the form of Robot Operating System (ROS) messages. For the proof of concept system we have used the trackers of the HTC Vive system as a localization data source and a consumer grade projector resulting in a low-cost solution. Our preliminary experiments show that the proposed WYSIWYG system provides a suitable environment for pHRI scenarios, and can also provide secondary functions e.g. intention projection, augmented reality applications etc. Furthermore, as a tool it can facilitate the conversion of simulated HRI scenarios into real physical experiments.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM52237.2022.9863359

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In the Future Convenience Store Challenge (FCSC) of the World Robot Summit (WRS), the Customer Interaction Task has been conducted from 2017 to 2020 to propose new services and store designs that can be achieved using robot technology to serve customers in convenience stores in the near future. In the Customer Interaction Task of WRS 2020 FCSC, held in Aichi, Japan, we present a convenience store introducing intelligent space, with new experiences, safety, and flexibility as key concepts. We propose a product recommendation that reflects the owner's intentions, an assistive robot that provides customers desired assistance, and a monitoring service with safety and relief.

DOI： 10.1109/SII52469.2022.9708844

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author  

DOI： 10.3156/jsoft.33.3_651

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author  

J-GLOBAL

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Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) evaluation is rapidly gaining more interest as the field of social robotics advances, but determining the effectiveness of the various HRI models can be a challenging task. Recently, ethology has been successfully incorporated in HRI models, and has been suggested to be used in HRI evaluation methods also. In ethological experiments, trained observers manually identify and record the exhibited behaviours of the participating subjects, a procedure called as coding. However, precise observation and coding of the behaviour of subjects is a resource demanding process and prone to human mistakes. Therefore, the goal of the paper is twofold. First, to introduce automatical coding as a possible method to provide accurate, unbiased, objective evaluation of HRI experiments. Second, to abolish the need for manual human work in the coding process. Accordingly, we propose a possible method which is able to automatically code simple behaviour elements in HRI experiments. The task of the proposed system is to automatically evaluate the behaviour of a mobile robot by distinguishing the cardinal behaviour elements without any information on the inner states of the model controlling the mobile robot, based solely on data gathered from the environment of the interaction. Various test scenarios were evaluated, while the mobile robot agent was exhibiting pre-programmed behaviours, where the proposed system could properly recognize and code the behaviour elements shown by the mobile robot.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM46487.2021.9517561

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This paper focuses on the robot movement's timing in a human-robot collaboration task, which can be easily changed but has not been studied well. Also, this paper discusses objective mental fatigue evaluation based on biosignals such as the blink frequency and pupil diameter for the quantitative assessment of human-robot collaboration's mental fatigue. We design a VR simulation for human-robot collaboration and conduct experiments to test different robot movement timing in the collaborative task.

DOI： 10.1109/ISIE45552.2021.9576273

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Many studies have been conducted on walking support for visually impaired people. However, only a few studies have contributed to the wide understanding of their surrounding environment. In this study, the focus was on the flow of people in environmen-tal information. The flow of people is formed by the presence of many pedestrians in the surroundings of the walking environment. If visually impaired people can independently make decisions by grasping the dynamic environment of people flow, they can walk with ease and peace of mind. A method is proposed that extracts people flow information and selects the information necessary for understanding the environment. The method utilizes vibrotactile stimulation. The ef-fectiveness of the proposed method in determining the surrounding environment and the influence of vibration information on behavior decisions were verified.

DOI： 10.20965/jrm.2021.p0097

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

In Japan, the number of caregivers is not increasing with the same rate as the aging of the population, resulting in an increased workload per caregiver, which has become a social issue. In response, information and communication technology has been introduced to support caregivers, but the tasks it can support are currently limited. In addition, caregivers are subjected to a variety of events and conditions at the work site, which results in a heavy cognitive burden, even on skilled caregivers. To solve this problem, we develop a system to support caregivers, reduce their burden, and improve work efficiency, by observing caregivers and patients using intelligent space. First, it is necessary to understand the caregiver's tasks in detail. In this paper, we propose a task recognition method based on the recognition of poses from images captured by a camera. Moreover, we investigated alternatives to improve the results of the method. Our experiments indicated that the method can recognize the caregiver's pose with 96.9% accuracy, and we successfully solved the problem of insufficient training data.

DOI： 10.1109/ieeeconf49454.2021.9382653

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

We propose a method for recognizing tasks performed by care workers. Time-series sample data for each feature amount during tasks are defined as a task history, which is used as a basis for creating spatiotemporal task information in reference to Niitsuma's spatial memory. We perform simulated care tasks in an environment that recreates an actual care site, and measure time-series data of worker feature amounts by a motion capture system. We divide this data into learning and evaluation data, and verify the recognition accuracy. Recognition accuracy for seven defined elemental tasks is close to 80% on average, demonstrating the effectiveness of this method.

DOI： 10.1109/ieeeconf49454.2021.9382681

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

The learning phase of the traditional reinforcement learning methods can be started without any preliminary knowledge about the problem needed to be solved. The problem related knowledge-base is built based on the reinforcement signals of the environment during the trial and error style learning phase. If a portion of the a priori knowledge about the problem solution is available and if it could be injected into the initial knowledge of the reinforcement learning system, then the learning performance (and the learning ability of an agent) could be significantly improved. The goal of this paper is to highlight the effect of the external expert knowledge inclusion into the Fuzzy Rule Interpolation based Q-learning (FRIQ-learning) method, by briefly introducing a way for expert knowledge injection into FRIQ-learning and a discussion based on simulated runs of a practical benchmark example. The investigations presented here can aid in the designing of behaviour-based robot control systems, in such cases where the available expert knowledge is not enough by itself to construct a sufficiently working system.

DOI： 10.1109/IEEECONF49454.2021.9382734

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

Precise observation of the behaviour of subjects in ethological experiments is a highly resource demanding process. Trained observers carefully identify all behavior elements, called coding, either in real-time or by watching recorded video footage. Different observers can code slightly differently, have disagreements, and, even a highly skilled observer can make mistakes. In order to improve the efficiency and accuracy, and to reduce the resource needs of the coding process, many computerized solutions have been introduced already. These solutions can not only save significant time and effort by using automatic timestamps, efficient footage and data handling, etc., but provide sophisticated statistics and analysis features. Anyhow, most of the coding aiding systems in use cannot determine the exhibited behaviour elements by themselves, it still remains the task of the human observer. In this short paper, we propose the basic concepts of a method capable of automatically coding behaviour elements in a simulated environment, without the need for a skilled observer person. The method was designed to evaluate simulated dog-human interaction experiments, without having any information on the inner states of the simulation, based solely on the spatial position data of the participants. A preliminary evaluation was performed, showing that the method is capable of correctly recognizing the behaviour elements exhibited by the agent.

DOI： 10.1109/IEEECONF49454.2021.9382651

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

In recent years, 15% of the working population have suffered from mental disorders. Such conditions cause low productivity, absence of diseases, and unemployment. In addition, the treatment of mental disorders takes a long time, so routine precautions are essential. One of the ways to prevent mental disorders is to achieve healing through interaction with animals. However, this method has not been widely accepted because of the difficulties in handling animals. To solve these problem, we introduced a virtual pet through a virtual reality technology for three-dimensional stereoscopic visualization as an alternative to animals. We named the system that prevents mental disorders by interacting with the virtual pet as virtual pet-assisted activity (VAA) and verified that this system gained short-term psychological and physiological benefits. However, it was unclear what causes the system to have positive effects on users. This study investigated whether space factors affect the psychological and physiological aspects of the user and whether the scenery factor affected the psychological and physiological aspects of the user and its interactions with the virtual pet. The experiment was divided into two experiments for the space factor and scenery factor. As a result, it was not affected by the space factor but was affected by the scenery factor. The findings reveal that the open scenery is more effective than the closed scenery in the VAA system.

DOI： 10.1145/3406499.3415083

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This paper introduces novel methods which could improve the efficiency of the automated knowledge extraction methods used in the FRIQ-learning (Fuzzy Rule Interpolationbased Q-learning) machine learning method. For solving a given problem, the FRIQ-learning reinforcement learning method is capable of constructing a sparse fuzzy rule-base, which does not need to contain all the possible rules as traditional fuzzy control requires. Hence it is sufficient to keep only the most important rules due to Fuzzy Rule Interpolation (FRI). Finding those specific rules which are important to solve the given problem is not a trivial task. Some possible strategies for removing these kinds of unimportant rules from the rule-base have already been introduced, but no strategies addressing the antecedents of the rules have been developed yet. The solutions proposed in this paper allow the further reduction of these rule-bases, thus facilitating the creation of a sparse fuzzy rule-base from which the knowledge can be directly extracted. Since the form of fuzzy rules are inherently self-describing, the size of the rule-base is the key for keeping this kind of knowledge base human-readable. Possible mechatronics applications of these methods include optimizing behaviour-based control models for robotics, and also knowledge extraction in a fuzzy rule-base format from models where the real operating knowledge of the model is not known, which rule-bases then can be easily adopted in robot control applications.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM43001.2020.9158875

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

In recent years, Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) has been widely studied and the demands for human-robot collaboration are expected to increase due to the lack of working population. Regarding to the safety on human-robot collaboration, not only physical safety but also psychological safety has to be considered. However, current collaborative robots only have some limitations for physical safety. In addition, productivity is another problem of collaborative robot because of the speed and payload limitations. To solve these problems, this paper aims at developing a system that can improve the efficiency and perceptions of collaborative work. We designed auditory cues which express the destination of robot motion. Finally, experiment was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of collaborative work, mental stress of collaborators, and perception of collaborative work using both objective and subjective measures. Results revealed that auditory cues significantly improved the efficiency and fluency of collaborative work without negative effects on the mental stress of collaborator.

DOI： 10.1109/ISIE45063.2020.9152413

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

A Fuzzy Rule Interpolation-based (FRI) fuzzy automaton for controlling a football match simulation is going to be introduced in this paper. Controlling the agents (football players) of the simulation is realized by evaluating such fuzzy rule-bases, which contain only the cardinal rules able to make the system work, keeping the rule-bases as small as possible (forming so called sparse rule-bases). Classical fuzzy inference methods require complete rule-bases by design and cannot handle these kinds of sparse rule-bases. However, using sparse rule-bases to control the agents becomes possible by applying FRI. The goal of this work was to construct such a model, which employs a human-readable knowledge representation to control the agents in a football simulation. For this purpose, the application of sparse fuzzy rule-bases is well suited, as these are self-describing by their nature. An example application was also developed alongside the fuzzy automaton-based model, which is able to perform and show a lifelike football match simulation in real-time. Hence the presented model can be adapted to real robot hardware and also can be used as a reference model for fuzzy logic based machine learning methods.

DOI： 10.1109/UR49135.2020.9144752

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

Studies to make space intelligent for human activity support are widely done. There are various applications of it. For example, there are applications such as cooking assist and language learning assist. However, at retail shops, even though sensors such as cameras are installed for crime prevention, application of making space intelligent has not been applied yet. Since the economy is revitalized by increasing the sales of retail stores, a system that increases sales is developed in this study. Current presentation methods of information about products at retail stores are implicit, and they are not effective due to spatial restriction. To solve this problem, we developed a system that presents information to customers effectively by making space inside retail store intelligent. By observing and evaluating the positions of customers in a store, the motion to pick up the products on the shelves, gazes and movement information of the customers, information which the customers are interested in is presented at the effective timing. From the results of the evaluation experiments of the developed system, it was shown that our system was possible to present appropriate information to customers in real time.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2019.8700404

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

With the rapid increase in the elderly population, there is a shortage of caregivers in Japan. Consequently, the workload per caregiver has increased, which is now a major social issue. In response to this, information and communication technology (ICT) systems have been introduced to assist caregivers. However, types of tasks that can be supported are limited. In addition, caregivers need to form a plan of nursing tasks according to various states of care receivers. This requires caregivers to be highly skilled, which in turn increases their cognitive burden. To resolve this, in this study, we aim to realize an assistive system to reduce the cognitive burden of caregivers and improve the efficiency of their performance. We mainly apply the iSpace (intelligent Space) concept to realize the provision of assistance based on the observations of the caregivers and care receivers. Firstly, task activity recognition is required. This paper focuses on task activity recognition. We assume that task activities of caregivers are well related with locations in the nursing environments. Thus, we propose a method to determine a caregiver's task activity based on his or her position and orientation in the potential workspaces defined in advance. In addition, to enhance this approach to wider situations, the potential workspaces should be extracted automatically. For this, we also propose a method to extract potential workspaces of caregivers based on hierarchical clustering of movement trajectories of caregivers. Through experiments, the caregiver's task activity was shown to be accurately recognized and the potential workspace of the caregiver was also successfully extracted.

DOI： 10.1109/sii46433.2020.9025950

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

We propose a task recognition method for recognizing task performed by caregivers using autonomous mobile wheelchairs equipped with automatic stop and movement functions. Task locations and times are defined as a task history, and task information is based on this task history, referring to the 'Spatial Memory' of Niitsuma et al. We propose a task recognition method that considers estimation error of localization at actual sites, and evaluated this method using data with simulated error added to worker's position data.

DOI： 10.1109/SII46433.2020.9025879

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Authorship：Last author   Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

According to a 2018 World Health Organization investigation, worldwide, there are around 253 million visually impaired persons. Technological support is required to help such people walk safely. This paper focuses on the fact that many pedestrians are forming a flow in actual walking environments. We believe that behavior decisions based on people flow lead to safe and reliable walking of the visually impaired people. The purpose of this study is to assist a visually impaired person's recognition of surrounding dynamic environments by presenting people flow. In this paper, we propose a method of estimating the situation of pedestrians around and direction people flow from an image. In addition, we propose a method of people flows presentation using vibrotactile stimulation. After identifying the vibration perception characteristics of the presentation positions on a human body, we design and verify the vibrotactile stimulation for people flow presentation.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2019.8926911

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

The work requiring a heavy load like welding should be automated. However, it is difficult to fully automate tasks requiring complexity and high quality, such as the welding of Francis hydro power turbines. It is therefore necessary for people to be involved in such tasks. Introducing Human-in-the-loop system makes it possible to combine robot productivity and human flexibility, and to build a system that is compatible with high productivity and quality. When the welding operation is performed by remote operation, the worker grasps the state of the robot from the monitor. However, it is difficult to fully understand the movement of the robot only with visual information from the monitor. In this paper, to improve the workability, we grasp the behavior of the robot when taking over work from a robot to operator in a welding task, and present pose information of the end effector to the operator using vibrotactile information. We evaluated the designed vibrotactile stimulus and confirmed its usefulness.

DOI： 10.1109/ISIE.2019.8781236

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Authorship：Last author,　Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

Path planning in a dynamic environment is required not only efficiently but also with high safety. To achieve this, it is necessary to understand people's walking activity in the space, and studies of planning paths focused on walking paths of pedestrian have been widely done. In these studies, information getting from walking paths does not include spatial features of people's walking activity such as dynamics of their walking. A walking behavior is not always smooth from the viewpoints of changes of walking speed and moving directions. For example, people should accelerate or decelerate their walking speed according to environmental settings or their purposes of walking. In addition, moving directions of people's walking also depend on the environmental structures and settings. Therefore, people's walking activity should be understood including walking dynamics. To apply the information of the walking activity to the path planning for mobile robot navigation, there are two requirements; one is that the information should be described in form that a robot system is able to use, and another one is that it should be described without lacking spatial information. To realize these, we propose that an environmental map describing the walking activity of people including walking dynamics. More specifically, we build the environmental map as a grid map that is one of the often-used maps for a mobile robot. From the results of the experiment, it was shown that the proposed environmental map was possible to determine spatial features.

DOI： 10.1109/ISIE.2019.8781155

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In recent years, ambient assisted living (AAL) has studied and a demand for services that monitors living environments to reduce the burden of nursing care has increased. Therefore, we propose an approach of nonverbal human-robot communication for AAL applications based on an attachment behavior model for a mobile robot. This can sense the situation within the environment in real time with less burden on the user. We use an etho-robot as the user interface of an AAL system for useful monitoring services. The etho-robot mimics dogs' attachment behaviors and can provide less stressful communication between humans and robots. In addition, we design behavior for providing notification about a person's status for the etho-robot. The integration of a mobile robot as a user interface of the AAL system will make the communication spatially flexible. We conducted an experiment to evaluate whether humans can correctly recognize the attachment behavior of the etho-robot when the robot performs its notification function. We discuss the usefulness of mimicking a dog's attachment behavior when the robot has such a function.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2018.8591094

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

In the human retina, rod and cone cells detect incoming light with a molecule called rhodopsin. After rhodopsin molecules are activated (by photon impact), these molecules activate the rest of the signalling process for a brief period of time until they are deactivated by a multistage process. First, active rhodopsin is phosphorylated multiple times. Following this, they are further inhibited by the binding of molecules called arrestins. Finally, they decay into opsins. The time required for each of these stages becomes progressively longer, and each stage further reduces the activity of rhodopsin. However, while this deactivation process itself is well researched, the roles of the above stages in signal (and image) processing are poorly understood. In this paper, we will show that the activity of rhodopsin molecules during the deactivation process can be described as the fractional integration of an incoming signal. Furthermore, we show how this affects an image; specifically, the effect of fractional integration in video and signal processing and how it reduces noise and the improves adaptability under different lighting conditions. Our experimental results provide a better understanding of vertebrate and human vision, and why the rods and cones of the retina differ from the light detectors in cameras.

DOI： 10.1371/journal.pone.0205099

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

A special area of human-machine interaction, the expression of emotions gains importance with the continuous development of artificial agents such as social robots or interactive mobile applications. We developed a prototype version of an abstract emotion visualization agent to express five basic emotions and a neutral state. In contrast to well-known symbolic characters (e.g., smileys) these displays follow general biological and ethological rules. We conducted a multiple questionnaire study on the assessment of the displays with Hungarian and Japanese subjects. In most cases participants were successful in recognizing the displayed emotions. Fear and sadness were most easily confused with each other while both the Hungarian and Japanese participants recognized the anger display most correctly. We suggest that the implemented biological approach can be a viable complement to the emotion expressions of some artificial agents, for example mobile devices.

DOI： 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01191

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This paper presents a strategy for building better human-robot relationships through touch. Although physical contact is an important method of communication between humans, it can produce a negative effect on relationships depending on how it is performed. For example, if one is tapped on the shoulder by another person, one may feel unpleasant unless that person is familiar. Therefore, for touch to be useful for communication, the recipient's perception for body contact is of critical importance. However, in previous research on robot touch, the robot simply made physical contact with a person; the effects and feelings associated with this touch were not confirmed enough in these situations. Thus, we hypothesized that people must become accustomed to robot contact. Moreover, we aimed to elicit contact from people as a first step in building better human-robot relationships. To verify our hypothesis, we selected a handshake as a suitable interaction for experiment and analysis. Our results showed that an initial handshake produced a positive emotional effect in the subjects, who were then more likely to engage in further contact with the robot.

DOI： 10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.11.534

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This paper presents an approach to estimate the field of view of human eyes. To achieve this only using the information of the face direction, we focus on characteristics of human vision. More specifically, as the physical characteristics of human vision, we consider a model of the field of view. Also, as the cognitive characteristics of human vision, we assume that humans turns their eyes to moving objects under certain conditions including types of moving objects and their movement. Therefore, to investigate the cognitive characteristics of human vision related to moving objects, we carry out experiments by changing the types and paths of moving objects to investigate what kind of conditions make humans turn their eyes to moving objects. Gaze directions of human subjects are observed through the experiments.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2017.8279366

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.  

This paper discusses the possibility of using the geometric shape of a pedestrian's head to shoulder region as a feature to identify individuals. The main aim is to track humans in a high density crowd using a 3D laser range finder (3D-LRF). One of the most critical problems of human tracking in a high density crowd is the occurrence of occlusion. Occlusion might occur because of the lack of features on tracking objects and the fragmentation of trajectories. When the trajectories are fragmented, they should be associated correctly in order to realize robust and accurate tracking. To improve the robustness of human tracking in a crowded environment, we consider features of a tracking object that can recognize individuals to be useful when combining trajectories fragmented by occlusion. In this paper, the geometric shape of a pedestrian's head to shoulder region was applied as a feature of a tracking object. The applicability of the feature to the tracking in dynamic environments was done through experiments using a 3D-LRF.

DOI： 10.1109/URAI.2017.7992842

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Industrial robots are introduced in not only large enterprises but also small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Professional engineers are required when introducing and maintaining industrial robots. However, sometimes it is difficult for SMEs to do this by themselves because of economical limitations. Therefore, in many cases, they need to ask the outside for the support. To assist this situation, an aiding system for remote operation of industrial robots has been studied. This system provides information of the local site to an operator who is in the remote site using auditory and visual information. From this, the operator is able to perceive the working situation of the robot remotely. However, when several kinds of auditory information are presented at same time, recognition of the information becomes difficult. In addition, if too many kinds of visual information are presented, it is also difficult for the operator to pay attention appropriately. To solve the problem, we have proposed vibrotactile interfaces to assist information presentation for aiding remote operation of an industrial robot. In this paper, we attempt to present contact information using a vibrotactile glove when contact between an end-effector of a robot and an object occurs. We proposed two types of vibration stimuli to present the contact information. We investigate how human subjects correctly perceive the contact information through the vibration-based presentations compared with a visual based presentation. Subjects? performance of the contact information perception is evaluated based on perceived time, cognitive time and correct answer rate of the contact information.

DOI： 10.1109/HSI.2017.8005022

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

To develop long-term human-robot communication (HRC), robots' behavior must be properly perceived and interpreted by users. However, evaluations of processes involving a robot and a human are not conducted in natural situations in which humans can freely interact and observe a robot's behavior. In this study, an experiment involving both a mental model and an impression of a robot was proposed to evaluate the effect of human expectations on HRC.

DOI： 10.1145/2974804.2980520

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

Robots that live with a person for a long term need to build social relationships with the user. We focus on the human-dog relationship because a dog will be attached to the human owner. The dog and the human will then build social relations with each other. This paper proposes an approach to update the relationship between a person and a robot based on the experiences of communication with the person. The relationship between the person and robot is expressed using three types of behavioral factors: degree of attachment with the owner, degree of acceptance to a non-owner, and degree of sensitivity of anxiety. The three behavioral factors determine the behavioral characteristics of the robot. The problem with the previous model is that the parameters of the factors are given as fixed numerical values. As a result, the relationship between persons and robots never change, even though a person treats the robot with affection. More specifically, no mechanism is used in the previous model to change the robot behaviors according to the history of human-robot communication, which causes problems. For example, persons cannot appropriately interpret and estimate the relationship with the robot because the robot behaviors never change. In this paper, we propose a mechanism to update the relationship between persons and a robot by evaluating the human reactive behavior against the robot behavior. Moreover, we evaluate whether human subjects can find and interpret the change in the relationship with the robot using the proposed method.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745150

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

A smart electric wheelchair is proposed for use as a personal mobility tool (PMT). To reduce the load on the user, PMT is integrated with autonomous mobile robot navigation and human inputs. In addition, an obstacle avoidance function is provided. To facilitate comfortable and easy movement as well as safety and efficiency, we aim to realize a PMT with obstacle avoidance that does not cause discomfort and frustration to the user. The tool detects a human on the basis of the leg shape. The virtual impedance method is used as an obstacle avoidance method in dynamic environments. An experiment is conducted to evaluate the psychological effect of the PMT's obstacle avoidance movement when different types of obstacles and movement characteristics are applied.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2016.7793152

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

Recently industrial robot systems are introduced widely even in the small and medium size enterprises. However, it is difficult for them to employ professional engineers permanently. Then, they need to depend on outside to maintain industrial robots. Therefore a remote operation support system for industrial robots is proposed. Visual and auditory feedback is often used. However, a perception of the information might be limited if different kinds of information in particular sense modality is delivered at the same time. To solve the problem, we proposed a tactile interface which uses tactile information. This paper evaluates the usefulness of the vibrotactile information using the glove-type interface. The experimental results showed that vibrotactile information could not improve work efficiency. However it enable an operator to concentrate other information without increasing a workload. Therefore vibrotactile information is useful.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2016.7844081

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This study considered a leading behavior of a robot. To lead a person when the person's attention is initially elsewhere, the robot's behavior needs to be designed so that it seeks the person's attention and seamlessly brings him or her to the target location. Therefore we implement a leading behavior for a robot inspired the dog's action sequence. We evaluate the robot behavior through an experiment.

DOI： 10.1145/2701973.2701985

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper evaluates a wristband-type tactile interface as a user interface for controlling an industrial robot remotely. When operating a remote monitoring system, information delivery from a local site to an operator at a remote site is important. Visual and auditory feedback is often used. However, perception of the information might be limited if different kinds of information in particular sense modality is delivered at the same time. To solve the problem, we proposed a tactile interface which uses tactile information and we evaluate it. First, we explain the remote operation system for industrial robot and interface, then after that, we present an experiment of vibrotactile information of industrial robot.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2015.7404956

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents improved methods of tracking moving objects by using laser range finders located in the environment and of segmenting environmental maps weighted by the degree of human activity. The accuracy of our previously proposed method of detecting individuals needing route guidance service, which involves the use of an autonomous mobile robot, depends on the accuracy of pedestrian tracking Therefore, we herein propose a method that can track a pedestrian even if he or she cannot be directly detected due to occlusion. In addition, since environmental maps depict the human activity histories in particular areas, which vary depending upon the environmental situation, such histories should be divided according to environmental situation to enable more accurate analysis of human activity areas. Thus, we also propose a method of determining the times at which environmental maps should be divided, which is based on calculating the average rate of change in each grid section. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the usefulness of the proposed methods, and the results are presented herein.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2015.7404954

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

The global industry is developing towards smaller and smaller batch sizes in production due to the high pressure on Just-in-time production. This has led to the need for providing cost efficient support to robot users, especially SMEs having limited internal resources and competence to setup, maintain and reconfigure their industrial robot systems. In this study, a new method for the remote operation of industrial robot systems is presented. The method is based upon multi-modal man-machine communication and sensor bridging to transfer huge amounts of information from the industrial robot cell to the brain of the remote operator. The general methodology is explained, however, a special focus is put on gripping and stick-slip detecting in order to provide optimal grasping conditions during robot operations; especially during remote operation.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2015.7404957

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

Recently, social problems associated with a sense of isolation among elderly adults have been highlighted. To address this problem, we propose a long-term human-robot communication program inspired by human-dog relationships. An Etho-engine was improved upon to provide robot accommodations for access within rural regions. We generalized the robot's inner states and updated rules governing decision-making based on interactions with external situations. Additionally, to develop robot preferences for a person other than the owner, a "non-owner" was defined as being initially unfamiliar, with gradual acceptance being updated according to interaction histories and relationships between the non-owner and the owner. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the communication model. We discuss the effectiveness of this modified Etho-engine based on the experimental results.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2015.7392907

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

The first part of a cone's signal transduction is investigated from an image processing perspective in order to find out what differentiates (human) vision from computer vision. We found that the activity of cone opsins-visual pigments that are activated by the impact of a photon-can be described as an approximation of a fractional integrator of order 0.1-0.2 on frequencies between 1-30 Hz. We explore how this affects the output signal and provide examples of how this can be used for noise reduction and image processing. We also present a simplified model since these processes require excessive computational power for computer vision modeling.

DOI： 10.5220/0005515304810488

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：MIC  

In an increasing demand for human-robot collaboration systems, the need for safe robots is crucial. This paper presents a proactive strategy to enable an awareness of the current risk for the robot. The awareness is based upon a map of historically occupied space by the operator. The map is built based on a risk evaluation of each pose presented by the operator. The risk evaluation results in a risk field that can be used to evaluate the risk of a collaborative task. Based on this risk field, a control algorithm that constantly reduces the current risk within its task constraints was developed. Kinematic redundancy was exploited for simultaneous task performance within task constraints, and risk minimization. Sphere-based geometric models were used both for the human and robot. The strategy was tested in simulation, and implemented and experimentally tested on a NACHI MR20 7-axes industrial robot.

DOI： 10.4173/mic.2015.1.2

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier B.V.  

Worldwide, the focus on industrial development is on achieving smaller and smaller batch sizes in production. This has led to the need for providing cost efficient support to robot users. In this study, a new method for the remote operation of industrial robot systems is introduced. The method is based upon multi-modal man-machine communication and sensor bridging to transfer huge amounts of information from the industrial robot cell to the brain of the remote operator.

DOI： 10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.12.029

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier B.V.  

The trends of robotics changes as service robots gain more ground and become part of our daily lives. Service or social robots have to function in less controlled and more dynamically changing environments than industrial robots, and the users of social robots are generally less technologically literate than the users of industrial robots, therefore social robots have to be able to interact naturally with humans and to fit in the human social environment. Social robotics faces new challenges that require an interdisciplinary approach. In contrast to previous approaches where the communication and behaviour of social robots were based on human-human interactions, ethorobotics offer a new direction. Today robotics is not advanced enough to reach the physical and cognitive capabilities of humans thus human-animal interaction can serve as a better model for designing the behaviour of social robots. Human-dog relationship is a good example for this paradigm as dogs have similar roles as social robots will have in the future. Dogs acquired social cognitive skills during domestication that enhances the interspecific relationship with humans and helps their interactions. Etho-robotics research uses ethological principles and methods to derive complex behavioural models which can be transcribed to mathematical form and implemented into robots. Human-robot interaction studies can be conducted to evaluate and refine the implemented models. Etho-robotics research was already used to create behavioural models for attachment and for multiple aspects of human-robot interactions. The application of Fuzzy Rule Interpolation methods fits well the conceptually "spare rule-based" structure of the existing descriptive verbal ethological models, as in case of the descriptive verbal ethological models the "completeness" of the rule-base is not required. The main benefit of the FRI method adaptation in ethological model implementation is the fact, that it has a simple rule-based knowledge representation format. Because of this, even after numerical optimization of the model, the rules are still "human readable", and helps the formal validation of the model by the ethological experts. On the other side due to the FRI base, the model has still low computational demand and fits directly the requirements of the embedded implementations.

DOI： 10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.12.041

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

With the trend of increasing human robot collaboration, the need for more advanced safety systems arises. To create safe robots that act proactive to dangers, a safety system based on risk analysis has been developed. This paper presents a vital part of the risk analysis, the likelihood analysis,. In this likelihood analysis, data about human activity is recorded based on its occupied space. The times of an occupation are recorded in absolute and relative time. A multi-peak probability distribution is fitted to the data using a hidden genes genetic algorithm. This algorithm enabled the system to also optimize the number of peaks in the distribution. The system is implemented and simulated for a simple assembly task. Plots from the simulations show the system's ability to predict active and inactive periods of time in a given area. This information can later be used in a risk analysis based scheduling problem.

DOI： 10.1109/ETFA.2015.7301542

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This study addressed the leading behavior of a robot. To lead a person when the person's attention is initially elsewhere, the robot's behavior should be designed such that it seeks the person's attention and seamlessly brings him or her to a target location. Therefore, we set out to design and implement a leading behavior for a robot inspired by the dogs' behavior sequence. In particular, we considered the legibility of the movements used by the robot to show a robot's destination clearly. We evaluated the autonomous robot's leading behavior through an experiment.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2015.7333687

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The goal of the current study was to extract natural nonverbal behaviors that are implicit but specific to strangers and friends and to test the expressiveness of these nonverbal behaviors in two different levels of closeness using 3D agents. An experiment was conducted in which 48 pairs (48 strangers and 48 friends) of participants had casual conversations about recent events for 10 min. Their body movements were recorded by a motion-capture system, and 13 vectors were defined on the upper body to compute the cosine similarity for each frame in order to extract the motions. The motions specific to strangers and friends were identified and two scenarios were created using those motions. The scenarios were implemented using 3D agents of a female human and a humanoid robot, and 400 respondents were asked to evaluate the closeness that the agent seemed to express toward the counterpart. The results showed that a human- agent performing friend motions were evaluated higher in expressiveness closeness than friend motions and a human-agent and a robot-agent performing friend motions were evaluated lower in strangeness than friend motions. In future works, we aim to improve the scenarios and implement them in humanoid robots.

DOI： 10.1007/978-3-319-25554-5_31

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：GH ASACHI TECHNICAL UNIV IASI  

At the University of Debrecen, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics operates in the Building Mechatronics Research Center, where researchers took the initial steps of constructing an intelligent and sustainable building, which involved the configuring of the research infrastructure and the measurement network. In this article, we present a possible application and several advantages of the developed measurement network, which are principally conducive to monitoring the energy consumption of the building to achieve energy efficiency.

DOI： 10.30638/eemj.2014.304

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a control system for redundant robot manipulators that handles the path planning and redundancy control in two separate loops. The goal is to simplify industrial programming of redundant robots, by decomosing it to a familiar path planning loop, and an autonomous redundant control loop. The familiar path planning is done using an industrial robots native control system, which is already known to the operator. An external feedback loop acts as a secondary task control loop so that the redundancy in the robot is used automatically. The secondary task control is expanded from the null space projection method to a method where a parallel space to task space is modeled in joint space. The system was implemented and experimentally verified on a NACHI MR20 7-axes industrial robot with AX20 Controller. The secondary task in the experiments was an obstacle avoidance task that was tested in unknown dynamic and static environments.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM.2014.6878214

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

To sustain effective and long-term human-robot communications, we propose a robot behavior model based on dog behavior in human-dog relationships. The model includes behavioral factors that produce different behavioral characteristics. In this study, we improved the "play with the owner" behavior, which is the only mutual interaction between a person and the robot among the robot's attachment behaviors. We evaluated the attachment behavior with the improved "play with the person" behavior.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2014.7049104

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

Development of the international industry is towards smaller and smaller batch sizes in the production. This has riced a need for cost efficient support of robot users. In this paper, new methodology for remote operation of industrial robot systems is introduced. The method is based upon multi-modal man-machine communication and sensor bridging to transfer the huge amount of information from the industrial robot cell to the brain of the remote operator.

DOI： 10.1109/SII.2014.7028002

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

A smart electric wheelchair for use as a personal mobility tool (PMT) is proposed. To reduce the load on the user, the PMT is integrated with autonomous mobile robot navigation and human input. It is able to reach a destination autonomously based on a directional input from the user. The accuracy of the destination detection depends on the user's input. Therefore, to realize stress-free and efficient movement of the PMT, an appropriate means of destination detection based on inaccurate human input is required. We propose an approach whereby the PMT can determine its destination based not only on the user's input but also on a history of human activity in the living environment. To enable the use of a history of human activity to determine a destination, this paper proposes a mapbuilding method to express a history of human activity on a grid map. An experiment is conducted to evaluate the usefulness of the proposed approach for destination determination based on the subjects' performance of the PMT operation and their mental workload.

DOI： 10.1109/INDIN.2014.6945609

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE Computer Society  

This paper presents a method for building a multi-resolution map of a living environment to achieve efficient navigation. The standard practice for developing a representative map is to use an occupancy grid. However, the usage frequency of each environment has not been considered when building these environmental maps. These maps are not able to present the history of human activity as a feature of the environment. Therefore, these maps cannot be applied to mobile robot navigation to ensure safe and efficient robot movement in living environments. Therefore, we set out to design an environmental map containing resolution information of areas based on the movement history of humans and objects. For example, to present the position of static objects precisely, the area is required to be described in high resolution. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the proposed method and examine whether each resolution is changed appropriately based on the usage of the region. © 2013 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2013.6719253

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We investigated the correspondence relationship between vibrotactile stimuli and tactile mental imagery using a vibrotactile glove proposed in a previous study as an interface for vibrotactile stimuli [1]. The mental impressions of the vibrotactile stimuli obtained by human subjects were measured by semantic differential. Analysis of variance, multiple comparisons, and factor analyses were used to extract and evaluate the distinctive imageries induced by passive touch based on the answers given to questions the subjects were asked. We also discuss the potential of the glove to produce the five fundamental sensations of fine roughness, macro roughness, hardness, warmness, and friction. © 2013 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2013.6628425

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To sustain effective and long-term human-robot communications, a robot behavior model based on dog behavior in human-dog relationships is proposed. The model includes behavioral factors that produce different behavioral characteristics. We conducted experiments to evaluate robot-user impressions of robot behaviors when presented with different characteristics using a simulator. Our findings showed that the robot-users had the impressions that we expected based on the factors selected. As in an earlier model, the behavioral characteristics were assigned fixed numeric values
therefore, the characteristics in that earlier model could not be changed by users. This paper, however, proposes a method that enables users to modify or 'tune' the behavioral characteristics based on verbal communication. © 2013 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2013.6700445

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

We investigated the correspondence relationship between vibrotactile stimuli and tactile mental imagery using a vibrotactile glove proposed in a previous study as an interface for vibrotactile stimuli [1]. The mental impressions of the vibrotactile stimuli obtained by the human subjects were measured using the semantic differential method. Analysis of variance, multiple comparisons, and factor analyses were used to extract and evaluate the distinctive imageries induced by passive touch, based on the answers of the subjects to certain questions. To build a cognitive model of tactile sensations, we investigated the correspondence relationships between tactile sensations and vibrotactile stimuli.

DOI： 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2013.6719231

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This study proposes a sine wave-based auditory user interface for assisting visually impaired persons with creating mental maps of walking environments. Wall shapes are considered as fundamental map features of the map in building a mental map of a space. Therefore, the distance and direction to walls are important. In this study, we present information to users via sound. To show the distance to and direction toward walls, a point on the walls should be selected continuously. Then, the distance and the direction to the point can be presented sequentially using sound. Based on this distance and direction information, users can reconstruct wall shapes in their mind. However, we found that the accuracy of such reconstruction depended on wall orientation. To realize the correct reconstruction of wall shapes as mental maps, we decided to provide angle information between two walls to a user in addition to distance and direction information. In this paper, sound designs for presenting distance, direction, and angle information of walls are described. Additionally, results of the experiments for evaluating the proposed method are presented. The experimental results show that angle information was useful for building a mental map using the proposed auditory presentation scheme.

DOI： 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2013.6719252

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a smart electric wheelchair used as a personal mobility tool (PMT), which integrates autonomous mobile robot navigation and human operation input. This PMT is implemented using an actual electric wheelchair. An experiment is conducted to evaluate the usability of the input interface and movement efficiency of the PMT; its performance is compared to that of a normal electric wheelchair operated using a joystick.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM.2013.6584136

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：Springer Verlag  

This paper proposes an intuitive teleoperation scheme by using human gesture in conjunction with multimodal human-robot interface. Further, in order to deal with the complication of dynamic daily environment, the authors apply haptic point cloud rendering and the virtual collaboration to the system. all these functions are achieved by a portable hardware that is proposed by authors newly, which is called "the mobile iSpace". First, a surrounding environment of a teleoperated robot is captured and reconstructed as the 3D point cloud using a depth camera. Virtual world is then generated from the 3D point cloud, which a virtual teleoperated robot model is placed in. Operators use their own whole-body gesture to teleoperate the humanoid robot. The Gesture is captured in real time using the depth camera that was placed on operator side. The operator recieves both the visual and the vibrotactile feedback at the same time by using a head mounted display and a vibrotactile glove. All these system components, the human operator, the teleoperated robot and the feedback devices, are connected with the Internet-based virtual collaboration system for a flexible accessibility. This paper showcases the effectiveness of the proposed scheme with experiment that were done to show how the operators can access the remotely placed robot in anytime and place. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

DOI： 10.1007/978-3-642-37374-9_10

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DOI： 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2013.6719167

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

This paper presents a method for building a map of a living environment, which includes the movement of moving objects, intended for mobile robot navigation. If a robot can generate a path to move to a destination by considering the working area of humans, the robot can avoid crossing those areas. Then, it can be expected that the robot will reach the destination efficiently and people's activities will not be hindered. We present a method for building a map that represents both static and moving objects. © 2012 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/inss.2012.6240564

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper proposes an intuitive teleoperation scheme by using human gesture in conjunction with multimodal human-robot interface. Further, in order to deal with the complication of dynamic daily environment, the authors apply haptic point cloud rendering and the virtual collaboration to the system. all these functions are achieved by a portable hardware that is proposed by authors newly, which is called "the mobile iSpace". First, a surrounding environment of a teleoperated robot is captured and reconstructed as the 3D point cloud using a depth camera. Virtual world is then generated from the 3D point cloud, which a virtual teleoperated robot model is placed in. Operators use their own whole-body gesture to teleoperate the humanoid robot. The Gesture is captured in real time using the depth camera that was placed on operator side. The operator recieves both the visual and the vibrotactile feedback at the same time by using a head mounted display and a vibrotactile glove. All these system components, the human operator, the teleoperated robot and the feedback devices, are connected with the Internet-based virtual collaboration system for a flexible accessibility. This paper showcases the effectiveness of the proposed scheme with experiment that were done to show how the operators the remotely placed robot in anytime and place.

DOI： 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2012.6422055

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper proposes a vibrotactile glove interface that enabled users to perceive tactile sensations of virtual objects. The proposed vibrotactile interface was designed to be easy-to-use, easily portable, and lightweight. Active touch might also be useful to realize informative tactile communication. To provide tactile stimuli based on movement of the fingers, five bending sensors were installed on the glove. In this study, the relationship of the correspondence between vibrotactile stimuli and tactile mental imagery was investigated. Subjects' mental impressions of vibrotactile stimuli were measured by using the semantic differential (SD) method. Distinctive imagery from subjects' answers was extracted for factor analysis. After that, a vibration stimuli model was applied to active touch. The tactile mental imagery of users was evaluated for both passive and active touches.

DOI： 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2012.6422054

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This paper presents an exploratory behavioral model for human-robot communication based on an ethological approach. To maintain long-term human-robot communication, building social relationships between the user and robot is important. As a model of social relationships between different species, we focus on human-dog relationships. We apply dogs' behaviors observed from the stranger situation test as a base model of the robot. Exploratory behavior is one of the dogs' behaviors. In this paper, human-robot communication is considered for the purpose of home-care support. For this purpose, an exploratory behavior model for home-care applications is proposed. © 2012 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2012.6343813

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To maintain long-term human-robot communication, a robot behavior model based on the behaviors of dogs in human-dog relationships has been proposed. We apply this model to a robot in a monitoring support system designed for home care. This paper presents an improvement to the model, adding behavioral factors to show different characteristics of the behaviors. We conduct experiments to evaluate users' impressions of the robot behaviors when given different characteristics using a simulator. Our findings show that the subjects had the impressions that we expected based on the factors selected. © 2012 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2012.6343731

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IFAC Secretariat  

This paper presents human-robot communication for a monitoring support system in an Intelligent Space. An Intelligent Space (iSpace) is a space in which many intelligent devices are installed to observe the user's environment. In this paper, we apply the iSpace observation function to a monitoring system used for maintaining the safety of elderly persons receiving home-care support. In addition, we use a mobile robot as a tool to deliver monitoring results to care assistants. We focus on an ethological approach for designing robot behaviors for human-robot communication. The implementation of these robot behaviors based on an ethological approach, and the results of an experiment conducted to evaluate these behaviors, are then presented. © 2012 IFAC.

DOI： 10.3182/20120905-3-HR-2030.00136

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents the social behavior of a physical agent in intelligent space. Intelligent Space (iSpace) is a space in which many intelligent devices, called distributed intelligent network devices (DINDs) and including not only sensors but also actuators, are installed. Robotic devices, which provide services to users, are considered as physical agents in iSpace. For facilitating long-term communication between users and a robot, we focus on building a social relationship between a user and a robot. Toward this end, a methodology for designing social behaviors of the robot is required. Therefore, we have used an ethologically inspired approach to construct a robot behavioral model for an is pace-based elderly monitoring support system. In this paper, the robot behavioral model is presented and implementation of robot behaviors is discussed.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2012.6389512

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：Fuji Technology Press  

Augmented Personal Working Environments (APWEs) are 3D environments in which the physical surroundings of the user are overlaid with representations of a virtual reality. With the rapid technological evolution of personal informatics devices as well as a growing demand for more comfortable and efficient working environments, the partial virtualization of resources used in our everyday work settings is expected to gradually become inevitable. Irrespective of whether someone is working in an office environment or in industrial settings, this trend in virtualization is expected to lead to more collaborative working environments in which the available resources and the interfaces for dealing with those resources can be both physical and virtual in nature. SpatialMemory, which is a memory system embedded in 3-dimensional physical reality, may without doubt be a central subsystem of future APWEs. In this paper, our goal is to contribute to the development of a theoretical background for Spatial Memory from a cognitive infocommunications perspective, and to outline the future research directions of Spatial Memory in APWEs based on some key applications.

DOI： 10.20965/jaciii.2012.p0349

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：Fuji Technology Press  

This paper presents interaction between a user and a smart electric wheelchair. We propose a personal mobility tool (PMT) that integrates autonomous mobile robot navigation technology with intuitive and cognitive interaction between a user and a smart wheelchair. An intuitive and noncontinuous input method is proposed to enable a user to specify the direction in which the wheelchair is to go. Using an acceleration sensor and pressure sensors, the user gives a direction to the PMT, then the PMT determines the goal on an environmental map based on the direction. An output interface is used to help the user interpret robot behavior through informative communication between the user and the PMT. In this paper, a vibrotactile seat interface is presented.

DOI： 10.20965/jaciii.2012.p0305

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：BUDAPEST TECH  

Spatial memory is a system to manage digital information in real space using three-dimensional position information and to operate networked devices to deliver the digital information. The concept behind the system is Intelligence Space (iSpace), which is proposed as an intelligent environment. Using distributed intelligence networked devices (DINDs), iSpace can observe events in the real world, and provide information and physical services to users via intelligent agents such as mobile robots, computer devices, and digital equipment based on what has been observed. From this, spatial memory is regarded as a human interface for iSpace. Users of iSpace can store commands and information in the real environment according to their activities, and retrieve necessary information using their own bodies without using any devices such as a mouse and a keyboard. This paper presents an enhancement of the spatial memory to improve the usability of the system and to be applicable in wider areas.

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This paper presents human-robot interaction interfaces based on ethological studies. An ethological test procedure was modeled with the application of a fuzzy rule interpolation based fuzzy automaton. This fuzzy automaton was loaded with rules formed from the extracted ethological knowledge. Using the behaviours supplied by the fuzzy automaton as conclusions, different interfaces can be defined for the incarnation of the model. The ethological test procedure and its modeling technique based on the fuzzy automaton will be shortly introduced in the paper, and then the various human-robot interfaces based on the former will be presented. These include interfaces of simulated environments and also interfaces as real robot hardware with their supplemental devices (sensors, cameras, etc.). Copyright 2012 ACM.

DOI： 10.1145/2160749.2160761

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

We present a intuitive teleoperation scheme by using human gesture and multimodal multi-user human-robot interface. Further, in order to deal with the dynamic daily environment, we apply haptic point cloud rendering and virtual collaboration and all these functions are achieved by portable hardwares which is called "mobile iSpace". First, a surrounding environment of a teleoperated robot is captured and reconstructed as the 3D point cloud using a depth camera. Virtual world is then generated from the 3D point cloud, and a virtual teleoperated robot model is placed in there. An user uses their own whole body gesture to teleoperate the humanoid type robot. The gesture is captured by the depth camera placed in user-side in real time. And the user has the visual and vibrotactile feedback at the same time by using a head mounted display and a vibrotactile glove. All these system components e. g. the human user, the teleoperated robot and the feedback devices are connected with the Internet-based virtual collaboration system to support a flexible accessibility. So eventually, this makes possible that users can access the remote placed robot whenever and wherever they want.

DOI： 10.1109/URAI.2012.6462920

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His paper presents a monitoring application using Intelligent Space. Intelligent Space (iSpace) is a space in which many intelligent devices, called distributed intelligent network devices (DINDs), are placed to observe the environment. Communicating with individual DINDs enable iSpace to apprehend and understand events in this space and to activate intelligent agents such as mobile robots, computer devices, and digital equipment to provide information and services to users based on observed information. Using the iSpace observation system, we can obtain multiple humans' positions and postures at the same time, even if the humans are in different places in iSpace. Therefore, in this paper we use the iSpace to monitor daily environments with the purpose of home case support. Also, we apply a mobile robot as a tool to deliver monitoring results to users. For designing human-robot communication to achieve continuous and command-free communication between a user and a mobile robot, we present an ethologically inspired human-robot communication model involving several simulations. © 2011 Asian Control Association.

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This paper presents interaction between a user and a smart electric wheelchair. We propose a personal mobility tool (PMT) which integrates autonomous mobile robot navigation technology with intuitive and cognitive interaction between a user and a smart wheelchair. An intuitive and noncontinuous input method to enable a user to specify a direction in which he/she wants to go is proposed. Also, to help a user interpret robot behaviors, an output interface to realize informative communication between a user and the PMT is described. In this paper, we introduce a vibrotactile interface to present environmental information from a smart wheelchair to the user. We conducted experiments to study the possibility of utilization of the input interface and the output vibrotactile interface. Experimental results show that the input interface can be successfully used even by users who had not used it before. In the experiments with the vibrotactile interface, users tried to detect distance and angle toward obstacles based on vibration stimuli. Through the experiments, we found that it was difficult for users to detect the exact positions of obstacles, but they were able to detect the direction of the obstacle movement. © 2011 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/RIISS.2011.5945788

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents an approach to extract human walking paths independently from the orientation of the paths in a global coordinate system. Previously, observing human walking, connectivity between the spaces (areas) has been obtained. In this paper, we regard human walking paths as a feature to represent patterns of activities. Observing and describing human activities can be considered as useful information for intelligent environments to enable the environments to provide suitable support to the users corresponding to their actual situations. In this paper, we present an approach to extract human walking paths independently from the orientation of the paths in a global coordinate system. More specifically, we propose a similarity measurement based on AMSS (Angular Metrics for Shape Similarity), then classify human walking paths using a hierarchical clustering method. Experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves rotation invariant extraction of human walking paths.

DOI： 10.1109/HSI.2011.5937379

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents interaction between a user and a smart electric wheelchair. We propose a personal mobility tool (PMT) which integrates autonomous mobile robot navigation technology with intuitive and cognitive interaction between a user and a smart wheelchair. An intuitive and noncontinuous input method to enable a user to specify a direction in which he/she wants to go is proposed. Using an acceleration sensor and a pressure sensor, a user gives direction to the PMT. Then, the PMT determines a goal position in an environmental map based on the direction. Also, to help a user interpret robot behaviors, an output interface to realize informative communication between a user and the PMT is described. In this paper, we present an improved vibrotactile interface to provide environmental information from a smart wheelchair to the user. We conducted experiments to evaluate users' performance using the output vibrotactile interface. In the experiments, users tried to detect distance and angle toward obstacles based on vibration stimuli. Through the experiments, we could confirm that the improved vibrotactile interface could improve users' performance well.

DOI： 10.1109/HSI.2011.5937345

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a monitoring support system in Intelligent Space. Intelligent Space (iSpace) is a space in which many intelligent devices, called distributed intelligent network devices (DINDs), are placed to observe the environment. Communicating with individual DINDs enable iSpace to apprehend and understand events in this space and to activate intelligent agents such as mobile robots, computer devices, and digital equipment to provide information and services to users based on observed information. Using the iSpace observation function, we can obtain multiple humans' positions and postures at the same time, even if the humans are in different places in iSpace. Therefore, in this paper we use the iSpace to monitor daily environments with the purpose of home care support. Also, we apply a mobile robot as a tool to deliver monitoring results to users. For designing human-robot communication to achieve continuous and intuitive communication between a user and a mobile robot, we present an ethologically inspired human-robot communication model involving an experiment and implementation of robot behaviors.

DOI： 10.1109/AIM.2011.6027060

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

This paper presents interaction between a user and a smart electric wheelchair. We proposed a personal mobility tool (PMT) which integrates mobile robot navigation with intuitive and non-continuous input from a user. An input interface to enable a user to specify a direction in which he/she wants to go is proposed. Also, to help a user interpret robot behaviors, an output interface to realize informative communication between a user and PMT. In this paper, we introduce a vibrotactile interface to present environmental information from a smart wheelchair to the user. We conducted experiments to study the possibility of the input interface and the output vibrotactile interface. Experimental results of the input interface show the interface can be used by users even if they had not used it before. In the experiments for the vibrotactile interface, users try to detect distance and orientation of obstacles from vibration stimuli. Through the experiments, we found that users could not detect exact orientation of obstacles, but detect a direction of the obstacle movement. ©2010 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/MHS.2010.5669502

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Intelligent Space (iSpace) we propose as an intelligent environment provides information and physical services to users via intelligent agents such as mobile robots, computer devices, and digital equipment. A suitable human interface is needed to enable users to operate agents in iSpace. For this, we previously proposed spatial memory. Here, we have improved system functions to make it more widely applicable. Specifically, we present four spatial memory problems and discuss solutions, focusing on user authentication, for which we propose a new procedure using spatial memory. By introducing the spatial human interface in iSpace, we also observe human activity in the environment via the history of human interface use involving several experiments.

DOI： 10.20965/jrm.2009.p0515

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IFAC Secretariat  

This paper presents an observation system of human-object interaction. In intelligent environments, describing and recognizing human activity are one of the important issues in order for the environment to provide suitable services for users. To describe user activity in more details, we have focused on objects' information. We can consider that objects' information consists of both static information such as names, size, colors, and shapes of objects and non-static information such as use of frequency, users, locations, and ways to use them. Static information of objects can be given because we can consider that it will not change. Non-static information, however, depends on actual situation in which objects are utilized by people. We therefore focus on obtaining such non-static information via human-object interaction. This paper addresses an improvement of an observation system of humanobject interaction.

DOI： 10.3182/20090909-4-JP-2010.00045

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents an observation system of human-object interaction in the Intelligent Space (iSpace). Object information is necessary to describe events and human activities which happen in environments. Especially, names, colors, size and shapes of objects can be described manually because we can consider that the information will not change. On the other hand, information such as locations of objects, frequency of use of the objects, the users and motion patterns while using the objects can not be described manually because they depend on individuals and contexts when the objects are used. Therefore, we decided to obtain these kinds of object information through observation of human-object interaction. We show an improvement of the observation system and experimental results to verify the system.

DOI： 10.1109/HSI.2009.5091012

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In this paper, we will present an improved system which observes human activities. We have tried to describe the activities by objects usage because there are so many kinds of objects in environments and people use them to accomplish their activities. Therefore, by observing objects we can extract more information about activities of human and this may help us to estimate what people are doing in the space. Methods to obtain objects usage are explained and improved in this paper. We also evaluated the system from experiments. © 2009 SICE.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

We have proposed the spatial memory which is a human interface to operate iSpace agents such as mobile robots, computer displays, etc. Spatial memory enables users to store computerized information ranging from digital files and commands for robots in real space by assigning digital information to a three-dimensional position. Users can retrieve the information by pointing the locations using their own bodies directly. The accessed information will be delivered to a suitable iSpace agent who should execute it. We named information arranged into real space "Spatial-Knowledge-Tag" (SKT). In order to encourage people to share useful information via spatial memory, they need to retrieve pre-arranged SKTs which are arranged by somebody. In this paper, firstly we show possibility of finding SKTs through seeing other users' actions, but not using any display to show locations and content types of SKT. Then, we present two kinds of displays to show users locations and content types of SKTs. Specifically, one is a visualization using computer graphics (we call "graphical display"), the other is a display using vibration (we call "vibration display"). Experiments to compare the efficiency of the methods to find SKTs are shown.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326206

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

In this paper, Intelligent Space based human-object relations observation system is proposed and constructed. Intelligent Space is the environment that has distributed sensors for observing and actuators for acting in the space, in order to provide various services to human. In addition, the verification experiments of proposed system are done and the efficiency of this system is discussed.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a method for multiple objects localization in the Intelligent Space (iSpace). The localization is realized by using two types of information. One is acceleration data which is used to determine whether an object is being operated. Acceleration data is acquired by using sensor network system. The other is hand position information of a nearest user to one object. By combining the information, positions of objects are able to be estimated by corresponding positions of user hands. In this method, determination of objects initial position is a first problem. In order to solve it, we use correlation of acceleration data among user hands and objects. Initial position of each object is given based on user's hand position which is scored high correlation.

DOI： 10.1109/HSI.2008.4581539

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper describes an observation system of human-objects interactions to extract relations among humans and physical objects in Intelligent Space (iSpace). The purpose is to obtain information of physical objects which can not be described in advance, in other words, depends on usage history of individual users. It is important issue for the iSpace to recognize human activities and design services for humans. In this paper, a method for multiple objects localization in the Intelligent Space is presented. The localization is realized by using two types of information. One is acceleration data which is used to determine whether an object is being operated. Acceleration data is acquired by using sensor network system. The other is hand position information of a nearest user to one object. By combining the information, positions of objects are able to be estimated by corresponding positions of user hands. In this method, determination of objects initial position is a first problem. In order to solve it, we use correlation of acceleration data among user hands and objects. Initial position of each object is given based on user's hand position which is scored high correlation.

DOI： 10.1109/ROMAN.2008.4600719

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper describes enhancement of the spatial memory system in order to improve human activities observation. In previous approach, human activities using the spatial memory in the real world can be observed, but activities using physical objects can not be observed. Therefore, we will focus on interaction among humans and objects. By attaching small sensor nodes to humans' hand and physical objects, the observation will be achieved. In order to realize uniformed methodology for the observation of human activities based on the spatial memory, we introduce Object-based Spatial- Knowledge-Tags (O-SKTs). History of human-object interaction is described by using an O-SKT including 4W1H (who, what, when, where and how) information. This paper presents a system to observe human-object interaction and experimental results of the observation.

DOI： 10.1109/SICE.2008.4655271

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

In this research, we propose a method to localize human hand position. In order to provide many types of services for human in the Intelligent Space, human observation is needed. Many applications, such as Spatial Memory, use human hand position for the indicator and to get hand position, the ultrasound localization system is used. When transceiver inclines, the accuracy decreases. To extend the function of spatial memory to iSpace simulator, the new hand localization is needed. In this paper, we will describe the human band localization system by using inertial sensors and also the evaluation by the ultrasonic system.

DOI： 10.1109/SICE.2008.4654957

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This paper presents a classification of human activities based on usage history of the spatial memory system in order to estimate individual human's intended purpose of an environment. We named the intended purposes for a place 'space-human activity association'. Intended purposes for a place will be different depending on the purpose of activities, even if observed activities are almost the same. Therefore, estimation of space-human activity association is important for intelligent environments to design services provided for individual human according to his/her current situation. The spatial memory system enables human users to store computerized information into the real world by assigning a three-dimensional position to the information, and to retrieve the information by directly indicating the point using their own hands. In the spatial memory system, what associates computerized information with a three-dimensional position is called 'Spatial- Knowledge-Tag (SKT)'. The users actively create SKTs based on their need. As a result, arranged SKTs in a specified environment correspond to activity histories of the users. Also, users' intended purposes for the environment are reflected in the arrangement. Therefore, classification of arranged SKTs leads to classification of human activities, and accordingly estimation of intended purposes for places. In this paper, in order to investigate usefulness of the proposed classification method, SKTs that are arranged through actual activities in a real working environment are classified.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC  

This paper presents the spatial memory that aids human activities in a working environment. The spatial memory enables humans to store computerized information into the real world by assigning a 3-D position as the memory address. By storing computerized information into the real world, users can manipulate the information in similar ways as physical objects. Consequently, we can retrieve stored knowledge by indicating the point using our own arms, which we name "human indicator." This paper shows a prototype of the spatial memory system, which has potential to enhance desk work. The implemented system is evaluated through two types of experiments by using human subjects. Experimental results verify the efficiency and the effectiveness of our spatial memory framework based on a statistical test.

DOI： 10.1109/TIE.2007.892730

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

In this research, we aim to describe objects' properties for designing services of Intelligent Space. Intelligent Space is the environment that has distributed sensors for observing and actuators for acting in the space, in order to provide various services to human. In order to realize that, we focus on physical interaction between human and objects. Physical interaction between human and objects can be observed by attaching sensor nodes to physical objects in a sensor networked environment. In this paper, we estimate an object handled by human based on the acceleration data. In addition, the methods that classify human actions are evaluated

DOI： 10.1109/SICE.2007.4420987

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents an implementation of the spatial memory system for supporting collaboration activity in Intelligent Space. In this paper, a design of the new spatial memory system is described based on three requirements for a collaboration system: (1) sharing information for multi-users and multi-terminals, (2) access privileges for SKTs and (3) user identification. User identification method is one of the most important functions for sharing information systems. Therefore, this paper proposes a new user identification method by using the spatial memory system. More specifically, users create their own key-Spatial-Knowledge-Tags (SKTs) as passwords to use the spatial memory system. The new user identification method is evaluated through user experiments. Experimental results show high effectiveness of the method.

DOI： 10.1109/SICE.2007.4421519

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a classification of human activities based on usage history of the spatial memory system in order to estimate individual human's intended purpose of an environment. We named the intended purposes for a place "space-human activity association". Intended purposes for a place will be different depending on the purpose of activities, even if observed activities are almost the same. Therefore, estimation of space-human activity association is important for intelligent environments to design services provided for individual human according to his/her current situation. The spatial memory system enables human users to store computerized information into the real world by assigning a three-dimensional position to the information, and to retrieve the information by directly indicating the point using their own hands. In the spatial memory system, what associates computerized information with a three-dimensional position is called "Spatial-Knowledge-Tag (SKT). The users actively create SKTs based on their need. As a result, arranged SKTs in a specified environment correspond to activity histories of the users. Also, users' intended purposes for the environment are reflected in the arrangement. Therefore, classification of arranged SKTs leads to classification of human activities, and accordingly estimation of intended purposes for places. In this paper, in order to investigate usefulness of the proposed classification method, we consider two types of environments, and arranged SKTs are classified.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2007.4460249

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a classification of human activities based on usage history of the spatial memory system and a numerical expression of each human activity in order to estimate individual human's intended purpose of an environment. We named the intended purposes for a place "spacehuman activity association". Intended purposes for a place will be different depending on the purpose of activities, even if observed activities are almost the same. Therefore, estimation of space-human activity association is important for intelligent environments to design services provided for individual human according to his/her current situation. The spatial memory system enables human users to store computerized information into the real world by assigning a three-dimensional position to the information, and to retrieve the information by directly indicating the point using their own hands. In the spatial memory system, what associates computerized information with a three-dimensional position is called "Spatial-Knowledge-Tag (SKT)". The users actively create SKTs based on their need. As a result, arranged SKTs in a specified environment correspond to activity histories of the users. Also, users' intended purposes for the environment are reflected in the arrangement. Therefore, classification of arranged SKTs leads to classification of human activities, and accordingly estimation of intended purposes for places. In this paper, we describe two approaches to classify human activities. More specifically, the first approach is a classification of arranged SKTs by using only SKTs' information. The second approach is a classification of arranged SKTs by using both SKTs' information and usage history of the spatial memory system. As a result, the classification based on usage history of the spatial memory system showed multiple activities in the same area. On the other hand, the first approach resulted in a single cluster in the same area. We, then, give numerical values to SKT's content type, and obtained numerical expression of each human activity.

DOI： 10.1109/ROBOT.2007.363585

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：(株)NTTドコモモバイル社会研究所  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents approaches using the spatial memory to classify human activities spatially and characteristically for recognizing "space-human activity association". The spatial memory enables humans to store computerized information such as digital files and commands into the real world by assigning three-dimensional position as the memory addresses. Humans can retrieve and store such information by directly indicating the point using their own body e.g. user's hand and user's head. A virtual tag, which associates a digital data with a spatial location, is called Spatial-Knowledge-Tag (SKT). SKT is created by a human based on his policy and his purpose in an environment. SKTs including locations and contents describe human activities at places. To design and implement services for inhabitants in an intelligent environment, it is required to know purposes which people intend to use the places. This paper applies two approaches to classify human activities spatially and characteristically. More specifically, one is a classification of arranged SKTS by using only spatial memory addresses and the size of accessible regions, the other is a classification of arranged SKT based on observation of human activities and forms of spatial memory data.

DOI： 10.1109/SICE.2006.315427

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper proposes the spatial memory as an interface between human and Intelligent Space (iSpace). The spatial memory regards three-dimensional space as mass storage of computers, i.e. three-dimensional point is treated as an address of stored digital data such as various documents, images and commands for machines. Consequently, we can access stored digital data by indicating a point using our own arms, which we named "human indicator". In this paper, we implement a prototype of the spatial memory system which is supposed to utilize digital data regarded as externalized knowledge. The implemented system is evaluated through two types of experiments. The tendency to forget and the efficiency of task performance are investigated. By applying the t-test under the level of significance 5%, experimental results of the performance efficiency show significant statistical difference between the results with the spatial memory and without it.

DOI： 10.1109/ROBOT.2006.1642357

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In our previous research we have proposed the spatial memory which aids human activity in a working environment12). The spatial memory regards three dimensional space like mass storage of computers, i.e. three dimensional points are treated as addresses of stored memory such as various data and commands for machines. Consequently, we can access a stored memory by indicating the point using our own arms, which we named "human indicator". In this paper, we develop an augmented interface to facilitate handling of large amounts of data. A method to recognize human's actions and required functions for a specific application are described. An access method using human indicator to the space memory is investigated for designing the interface. In the case of operating the spatial memory during other primary job,human will simultaneously work multiple tasks. Therefore, investigations of human indications in two cases are shown: (i) in the case of only the indication task, (ii) in the case of indication task during other task. © 2005 SICE.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper proposes the spatial memory which aids human activity in a working environment. The spatial memory regards three-dimensional space as mass storage of computers, i.e. three-dimensional point is treated as an address of stored knowledge such as various documents, images and commands for machines. Consequently, we can access a stored knowledge by indicating the point using our own arms, which we named "human indicator". In this paper, we implement a prototype of the spatial memory system which is supposed to be utilized for a desk work. The implemented system is evaluated from the viewpoint of human performances.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2005.1568939

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper describes a user-friendly system to recognize the surrounding obstacles around the elderly using the hand-haptic force feedback, to help the elderly walk safely. The user is able to attain the surrounding recognition by perceiving repulsive force generated in feedback while manipulating the joystick. To build up the System, a virtual potential fields corresponding to the distance and direction to the obstacle is employed. Through the experimental results, it is found that the practice time that the user learns basic operation of the system is sufficiently short. Furthermore, the user feels the sense of security while recognizing the surrounding information through the hand-haptic force.

DOI： 10.1109/icsmc.2005.1571313

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper investigates how the human feels the moving behavior of the onmidirectional mobile robot that follows the human while the robot swingingly moves around the human. To realize the swinging motion, the modified virtual impedance method is implemented on the controller for moving behavior of the robot. The psychological evaluations are examined for the impression of the moving behavior. In the evaluation, the SD (Semantic Differential) method and the RRV (R-R wave variance) method using the electrocardiogram (ECG) as biosignal are employed It is revealed that the the moving behavior makes a certain impression on human. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the RRV method is available in the real time evaluation.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper presents a user-friendly hand force feedback system to recognize surrounding obstacles around the elderly to making walking safer. The system is implemented on a joystick mounted on a walker. The user is able to recognize the surrounding spatial information from the repulsive force generated as feedback on the joystick. The system is based on the generation of a virtual potential field that corresponds to the distance and direction to the obstacle is employed. Through the experimental results, it is found that the practice time of the user to learn basic operation of the system is sufficiently short. Furthermore, the user feels the sense of security while recognizing the surrounding information through the hand force feedback.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper describes the emotional evaluation of a frisky robot that weaves around its human owner; the evaluation is based on the SD (Semantic Differential) method and the RRV(R-R wave variance) method using electrocardiograms (ECG) as the biosignal source. The SD method is effective to measure emotion, and the RRV method is suitable for investigating the physiological state from the heartbeat. The SD method represents that humans show a significant response only when the robot weaves, not when it simply shadows the human. Furthermore, it is confirmed that these methods are correlated and the RRV method is effective in real time evaluation.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

The Spatial Human Interface (SHI) is a relatively new system that enables us to facilitate human activity in a working environment. The SHI stores human activity data as knowledge and activity history of human into the Spatial Memory in a working environment as three-dimensional space where one acts, and loads them with the Spatial-Knowledge-Tags(SKT) by supporting the enhancement of human activity. To realize this, the SHI purpose is to construct a new relationship among human and distributed networks computers and sensors that is based on intuitive and simultaneous interactions. In this paper, the specified functions of SKT and the realization method of SKT are explained. The experimental results using SKT are shown.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2004.1431761

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper purposes to improve accuracy of positioning control within nano-scale of the linear stage made of fine-ceramics. In this control, the disturbance as the vibration of the tip and the friction transition between the tips and the guide causes the position vibration of the stage, and then the position error is increased. Positioning control of the linear stage is examined by two control strategies, i.e., a PID control (PID type) and a PID control with the disturbance observer (PID+DO type). Comparing the experimental results, it is found that the position error of PlD+DO type is less than that of PID type. The considerations in the comparison for the experimental data are shown.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2004.1432120

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：SPRINGER-VERLAG TOKYO  

This paper proposes the movement model of multiple mobile robots. This model is based on the servo system to advance to the destination while receiving inertia force. Furthermore, the model has Coulomb force to show the avoidance action. It is shown that the simulation result of robots progressing to one exit.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本時計学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

<p>To work smoothly in a virtual space, it is necessary to recognize the space exactly and interact 3D information intuitively. In this study, we created a VR game environment that integrated stereoscopic vision based on a binocular parallax by a HMD with body motion measurement by a range image sensor. Also, to enhance immersion and operation feeling, we presented tactile information by using a vibro tactile globe and we verified usefulness of the operation by real-scale body motions, the stereoscopic vision and the tactile information. From the results of experiments, we could confirm that the operation by real-scale body motions and the stereoscopic vision are useful in the VR game environment created, and the tactile information is effective assistance for the operation by real-scale body motions.</p>

DOI： 10.1299/jsmermd.2017.2A1-J11

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

&lt;p&gt;To work smoothly in a virtual space, it is necessary to recognize the space exactly and interact 3D information intuitively. In this study, we created a VR game environment that integrated stereoscopic vision based on a binocular parallax by a HMD with body motion measurement by a range image sensor. Also, to enhance immersion and operation feeling, we presented tactile information by using a vibro tactile globe and we verified usefulness of the operation by real-scale body motions, the stereoscopic vision and the tactile information. From the results of experiments, we could confirm that the operation by real-scale body motions and the stereoscopic vision are useful in the VR game environment created, and the tactile information is effective assistance for the operation by real-scale body motions.&lt;/p&gt;

DOI： 10.1299/jsmermd.2017.2A1-J11

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Meeting report   Publisher：日本知能情報ファジィ学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

Recently the studies of autonomous mobile robot are increasing. As a task of these robots, navigation of humans is considered. Such a robot needs to find people who need a navigation service. In this paper, we propose two methods to distinguish humans who need navigation services from other people. The first one is using an environment map that presents history of human activity to find humans who stand in not-often used areas. The second method is based on evaluations of human walking paths. An experiment is conducted to evaluate the usefulness of the first method at a public space. To evaluate the usefulness of the first method experiments are conducted using the proposed environment maps that are built on three different times of a day. In addition, the accuracy of the second method is also evaluated.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

To use the spatial memory system through human activities it is necessary to observe human behaviors in addition to the information on the usage of space. In this paper, we propose a method of motion recognition based on the time-series data of human posture. Similarity of motions is calculated by using the cosine similarity. This method can recognize motion regardless of individual difference of physical description. Humans are observed without any markers. Template data for motion recognition is generated based on the observation result.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

This paper describes a wristband-type tactile interface as a user interface for industrial robot remote monitoring systems. When operating a remote monitoring system, information delivery from a local site to an operator at a remote site is important. Visual and auditory information is often used. However, perception of the information might be limited if different types of information, are delivered at the same time. To solve this problem, we propose an interface that uses an illusion phenomenon called the phantom sensation. We present a preliminary experiment of the phantom sensation for the design of a wristband-type tactile interface.

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

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Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：一般社団法人 日本機械学会  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (international conference)  

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Robotics Society of Japan  

DOI： 10.7210/jrsj.30.1030

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

This paper proposes a vibrotactile glove interface that enables a user to perceive tactile information of virtual object. We also evaluate mental imagery provided from vibrotactile stimuli using the proposed interface. The vibrotactile interface is required to be simple to use, has a high portability and be light. We therefore propose a glove-type vibrotactile interface. In addition, active touch might be useful to realize informative tactile communication. To provide tactile stimuli based on movement of the fingers, five bending sensors are installed on the glove. In this paper, we investigate tactile mental imagery of users caused by vibration to design vibration stimuli. After that, we apply the vibration stimuli model to active touch. We evaluate tactile mental imagery of users in both cases of passive touch and active touch.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

We focus on communication from a smart electric wheelchair to the user to help the user understand surrounding environment. To realize this, we previously proposed a vibrotactile seat interface to provide environmental information to the user. Through experiments, we found several problems in interface use. This paper therefore presents improvement of the vibrotactile seat interface. We show experiments to confirm how users can detect activated motors correctly when using the proposed vibrotactile seat interface.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日揮・実吉奨学会  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other)   Publisher：富士技術出版  

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (scientific journal)   Publisher：日本設計工学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Meeting report  

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本知能情報ファジィ学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本機械学会  

This paper presents a method to build a map including mobile objects&#039; movement for mobile robot navigation in living environments. If a robot can generate a path to move a destination taking humans&#039; working areas into account, the robot can reduce crossing the areas. Then, it can be expected that the robot can get to the destination efficiently and people&#039;s activities will not be disturbed. We conducted experiments to evaluate performance for detecting moving objects using the proposed method by comparing with a background subtraction method. Maps describing both static and moving objects are also shown.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

This paper describes a simple but robust human interface for smart environments which are spaces with many distributed and networked sensors and actuators. Smart environments have to recognize requests from users to provide the desired services and it is desirable that the user can request the services through natural interfaces. Therefore, a suitable human-smart environment interface is needed. In this paper, since a sound can be easily detected by using distributed microphones, we focus on a sound based human interface and utilize the pitch information of the sound. The frequency of sounds is considered as a trigger to call a service, i.e. a service is provided when the system detects a sound which has the corresponding frequency. The proposed approach is tested using various sound sources. The experimental results show that the developed system is able to recognize the sound robustly even in the presence of environmental noise.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

This paper describes a simple but robust human interface for smart environments which are spaces with many distributed and networked sensors and actuators. Smart environments have to recognize requests from users to provide the desired services and it is desirable that the user can request the services through natural interfaces. Therefore, a suitable human-smart environment interface is needed. In this paper, since a sound can be easily detected by using distributed microphones, we focus on a sound based human interface and utilize the pitch information of the sound. The frequency of sounds is considered as a trigger to call a service, i.e. a service is provided when the system detects a sound which has the corresponding frequency. The proposed approach is tested using various sound sources. The experimental results show that the developed system is able to recognize the sound robustly even in the presence of environmental noise.

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (scientific journal)   Publisher：計測自動制御学会  

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Language：English   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

This paper discusses the simulation of sensor arrangements in Intelligent Space. Because there are many kinds of sensors in Intelligent Space, the optimal arrangements of sensor are important. So we are doing simulation to make arrangements more intelligent. OpenGL is used to simulate the 3D model of the indoor environment and the effective distance of sensor can be seen clearly in the simulation so that we can make arrangements easier. This simulation is expected to make the Intelligent Space visible and further research connected to actual observation is ongoing.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

In this paper, Intelligent Space based human-object relations observation system is proposed and constructed. Intelligent Space is an environment that has distributed sensors for observing and actuators for acting in the space, in order to provide various services to human. There are a lot of objects in Intelligent Space and in order to offer appropriate services using these objects, not only the physical information about the object but also the object&#039;s information that occurred by interaction with human is needed. We try to define human-object relations based on the use history of objects and discuss the method of observing it.

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DOI： 10.9746/ve.sicetr1965.43.180

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

This paper presents information display system using active projector in Intelligent Space. Active projector provides interactive informative services for user. The system based on RT-Middleware is realized by combination of distributed sensors, applications and actuators. Therefore, by making independently each function into components and connecting these components, flexible and easy integration of the system was achieved. In this paper, we are aiming proposed system at the integration of Intelligent Space.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

In this research, we aim to describe objects&#039; properties for designing services of Intelligent Space. In order to realize this, we focus on physical interaction between human and objects. Physical interaction is observed by using wireless sensor network, and described by acceleration data. In this paper, we estimate an object handled by human based on the acceleration data.

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The spatial memory regards three-dimensional space as mass storage of computers, i.e. three-dimensional point is treated as an address of stored digital data such as various documents, images and commands for machines. Consequently, we can access stored digital data by indicating a point using our own arms, which we named "human indicator". In this paper, the improved spatial memory system and a design of the spatial memory arrangement are shown. Usage history of the spatial memory is equivalent to part of human activity. Moreover, tracking of the activity can be utilized for extraction of spatial meaning which people implicitly suppose.

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DOI： 10.9746/sicetr1965.42.367

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Language：English   Publisher：Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan  

This paper describes the emotional evaluation of a frisky robot that weaves around its human owner
the evaluation is based on the SD (Semantic Differential) method and the RRV(R-R wave variance) method using electrocardiograms (ECG) as the biosignal source. The SD method is effective to measure emotion, and the RRV method is suitable for investigating the physiological state from the heartbeat. The SD method shows that humans show a significant response only when the robot weaves, not when it simply shadows the human. Furthermore, we revealed that these methods are correlated which suggests that the RB.V method supports real time evaluation.

DOI： 10.1541/ieejeiss.126.83

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other)   Publisher：(株)NTTドコモモバイル社会研究所  

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DOI： 10.7210/jrsj.23.674

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Robotics Society of Japan  

DOI： 10.7210/jrsj.23.674

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

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This paper proposes a movement model of a human walking behavior in order to investigate walking behavior of crowd human. This model contains functions of the collision avoidance and the trajectory decision of cach humar. taking one's own inertia into account. The trajectory decisition is realized aw a servo system. Collision avoidauoe is attained by quasi Coulomb force generated among humans and also between a human and a wall. Simulation results that humans simultaneously advance to the destination are shown. © 2003, The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1541/ieejias.123.1

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Publisher：The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers  

This paper reports a walking behavior of crowd in a narrow passageway using the walking model based on the servo system. To measure the crowd density, the passageway is divided into the unit region and the number of humans in each region is examined. Through simulations that crowd advances to one exit in the straight passageway, the crowd density in each unit region is shown in two cases of the total number of humans, 500 and 1500.

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Language：English   Publisher：IEEE  

This paper proposes a movement model of crowd mobile robots in order to investigate movement behavior of crowd robots. This model contains functions of the collision avoidance and the trajectory decision of each robot taking one&apos;s own inertia into account. The trajectory decision is realized as a servo system. Collision avoidance is attained by quasi Coulomb force generated among robots and also between a robot and a wall. It is shown that simulation results of crowd robots progressing to one exit in two cases of passageway configurations, straight and a right angle.

DOI： 10.1109/IECON.2002.1185513

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