This paper discusses haptic display for grasping a virtual object by two fingers. Much research has been done on fundamental analysis for stability of haptic display. But it is difficult to apply the results immediately to grasping situations by two fingers, since the studies usually deal with a single device and a single object and the fingertip force in grasping situations has two components, internal and external components. The conventional methods, which specify the coupling impedance at each contact point separately, have no other alternative but to specify the impedance for the sum of the internal and external components. So even if only the impedance for the external force should be changed, the impedance for the internal force is also changed at the same time. In this paper, a new method, in which the coupling impedance is specified separately for the internal and external forces, is proposed and the stability of the proposed method is discussed using passivity analysis for 1 -DOF(Degree-Of-Freedom) system. Finally, some experiments are performed to study the effects of the proposed method.

In this paper, we intend to demonstrate a new intuitive force-feedback device for advanced VR applications. Force feed-back for the device is tension based and is characterized by 7 degrees of freedom (DOF); 3 DOF for translation, 3 DOF for rotation, and 1 DOF for grasp). The SPIDAR-G (Space Interface Device for Artificial Reality with Grip) will allow users to interact with virtual objects naturally by manipulating two hemispherical grips located in the center of the device frame. We will show how to connect the strings between each vertex of grip and each extremity of the frame in order to achieve force feedback. In addition, methodologies will be discussed for calculating translation, orientation and grasp using the length of 8 strings connected to the motors and encoders on the frame. The SPIDAR-G exhibits smooth force feedback, minimized inertia, no backlash, scalability and safety. Such features are attributed to strategic string arrangement and control that results in stable haptic rendering. The design and control of the SPIDAR-G will be described in detail and the Space Graphic User Interface system based on the proposed SPIDAR-G system will be demonstrated. Experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed device and reveal its application to virtual reality.

Endoscopes for industrial and medical fields are expected to have multi degree-of-freedom (DOF) motions. A multi-DOF ultrasonic motor we developed consists of a spherical rotor and a bar-shaped stator, and the rotor rotates around three perpendicular axes using three natural vibration modes of the stator. In this study, a multi-DOF unilateral master-slave system for active endoscope using the multi-DOF ultrasonic motor is developed. The configurations of master and slave arms for active endoscope are similar, so that an operator can easily handle the master-slave system. First, driving characteristics of the multi-DOF ultrasonic motor are measured in order to design the slave arm and its controller. Next, the master arm and the slave arm are designed. Then, the unilateral feedback controller for the master-slave system is developed. Finally, the motion control tests of rotor are conducted. As a result, the possibility of the endoscope is confirmed.

We proposed a concept of a desktop micro device factory for visually servoed teleoperated microassembly assisted by a virtual reality (VR) interface. It is composed of two micromanipulators equipped with micro tools operating under a light microscope. First a manipulator, control method for the micro object to follow a planned trajectory in pushing operation is proposed undo. vision based-position control. Then, we present the cooperation control strategy of the micro handling operation under vision-based force control integrating a sensor fusion framework approach. A guiding-system based on virtual micro-world exactly reconstructed from the CAD-CAM databases of the real environment being considered is presented for the imprecisely calibrated micro world. Finally, some experimental results of microassembly tasks performed on millimeter-sized components are provided.

Applications of scaled telemanipulation into micro or nano world that shows many different features from directly human interfaced tools have been increased continuously. Here, we have to consider many aspects of scaling such as force, position, and impedance. For instance, what will be the possible range of force and position scaling with a specific level of performance and stability\ulcorner This knowledge of feasible staling region can be critical to human operator safety. In this paper, we show the upper bound of the product of force and position scaling and simulation results of 1DOF scaled system by using the Llewellyn's unconditional stability in continuous and discrete domain showing the effect of sampling rate.

Conditions are discussed for operating a dissymmetric human master-small (or micro) slave system in best (large position gain-small velocity gain) conditions allowing higher operator dexterity when real effects (joint compliance, link flexion delay and transmission distortion) are taken into account. It is shown that position PD feedback law advantage for ideal case no longer holds, and that more complicated feedback law depending on real effects has to be implemented with adapted transmission line. Drawback is slowdown of master slave interaction, suggesting to use more advanced predictive methods for the master and more intelligent control law for the slave.

We show that humans execute the postural control ingeniously by regulating the impedance properties of the musculo-skeletal system as the motor command against the alteration of the environment. Adjusting muscle activity can control the impedance properties of the musculo-skeletal system. To quantify the changes in human arm viscoelasticity on the vertical plane during interaction with the environment, we asked our subject to hold an object. By utilizing surface electromyographic(EMG) studies, we determined a relationship between the perturbation and a time-varying muscle co-activation. Our study showed when the subject lifts the object by himself the muscle stiffness increases while the torque remains the same just before the lift-off. These results suggest that the central nervous system(CNS) simultaneously controls not only the equilibrium point(EP) and the torque, but also the muscle stiffness as themotor command in posture control during the contact task.

A decrease in the birthrate and aging are progressing in Japan and several countries. In that society, it is important that physically weak persons such as elderly persons are able to take care of themselves. We have been developing exoskeletal robots for human (especially for physically weak persons) motion support. In this study, the controller controls the angular position and impedance of the exoskeltal robot system using multiple fuzzy-neuro controllers based on biological signals that reflect the human subject's intention. Skin surface electromyogram (EMG) signals and the generated wrist force by the human subject during the elbow motion have been used as input information of the controller. Since the activation level of working muscles tends to vary in accordance with the flexion angle of elbow, multiple fuzzy-neuro controllers are applied in the proposed method. The multiple fuzzy-neuro controllers are moderately switched in accordance with the elbow flexion angle. Because of the adaptation ability of the fuzzy-neuro controllers, the exoskeletal robot is flexible enough to deal with biological signal such as EMG. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

In this paper we describe an approach to coordinating the motion of a human with a mobile robot moving in a populated, continuously changing. natural environment. Our test application is a wheelchair accompanying a person through the concourse of a railway station moving side by side with the person. Our approach is based on a method for motion planning amongst moving obstacles known as Velocity Obstacle approach. We extend this method by a method for tracking a virtual target which allows us to vary the robot's heading and velocity with the locomotion of the accompanied person and the state of the surrounding environment.

The tracking of a reference temperature trajectory in a polymerization batch reactor is a common problem and has critical importance because the quality control of a batch reactor is usually achieved by implementing the trajectory precisely. In this study, only energy balances around a reactor are considered as a design model for control synthesis, and material balances describing concentration variations of involved components are treated as unknown disturbances, of which the effects appear as time-varying parameters in the design model. For the synthesis of a tracking controller, a method combining the input-output linearization of a time-variant system with the parameter estimation is proposed. The parameter estimation method provides parameter estimates such that the estimated outputs asymptotically follow the measured outputs in a specified way. Since other unknown external disturbances or uncertainties can be lumped into existing parameters or considered as another separate parameters, the method is useful in practices exposed to diverse uncertainties and disturbances, and the designed controller becomes robust. And the design procedure and setting of tuning parameters are simple and clear due to the resulted linear design equations. The performances and the effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated via simulation studies.

Stability theorem for nonlinear systems with slowly varying inputs is extended to systems with slowly varying and small jump inputs.

In this paper, we propose a sliding mode controller for a robot manipulator with passive joints. A robot manipulator with passive joints which are not equipped with any actuators is a kind of underactuated system. Underactuated systems have some advantages compared to fully-actuated ones. For example, they weigh less and consume less energy because they have smaller number of components than fully-actuated ones. However the control of an underactuated manipulator is much more difficult than that of fully- actuated robot manipulator. In this paper a complex dynamic model of a manipulator with passive joints is manipulated for sliding mode control. Sliding mode controllers are designed for this complex system and the stability of the controllers is proved mathematically. Finally a simulation for this control system is executed for evaluating the effectiveness of the designed sliding mode controller.

A new composite control method for a carriage balancing single inverted pendulum system is proposed and applied to swing up the pendulum and to stabilize it under the state constraint. The target inverted pendulum system has an extremely limited length of the cart(below 16cm). The proposed swing-up controller comprises a sliding mode control algorithm and an optimal control algorithm based on two regions: the region near the inverted unstable equilibrium position and the rest of the state space including the downward stable equilibrium position. The sliding mode controller uses a switching control action to converge along the specified path(hyperplane) derived from energy equation from a state around the path to desired state(standing position). An optimal control method is also used to guarantee the stability at unstable equilibrium position. Compared with the reported controllers, it is simpler and easier to implement. Experimental results are given to show the effectiveness of this controller.

To obtain visual information of a target object, a camera should be placed within the visibility region. As the visibility region is dependent on the relative position of the target object and the surrounding object, the position change of the surrounding object during a task requires recalculation of the visibility region. For a fast computation of the visibility region so as to modify the camera position to be located within the visibility region, we propose a spherical projection method. After being projected onto the sphere the visibility region is represented in $\theta$-$\psi$ spaces of the spherical coordinates. The reduction of calculation space enables a fast modification of the camera location according to the motion of the surrounding objects so that the continuous observation of the target object during the task is possible.

The advanced bilateral control algorithm, which can enlarge a reflected force by combining force reflection and compliance control, greatly enhances workability in teleoperation. In this scheme the maximum boundaries of a compliance controller and a force reflection gain guaranteeing stability and good task performance greatly depend upon characteristics of a slave arm, a master arm, and an environment. These characteristics, however, are generally unknown in teleoperation. It is, therefore, very difficult to determine such maximum boundary of the gain. The paper presented a novel method for design of an advanced bilateral controller. The factors affecting task performance and stability in the advanced bilateral controller were analyzed and a design guideline was presented. The neurofuzzy compliance model (NFCM)-based bilateral control proposed herein is an algorithm designed to automatically determine the suitable compliance for a given task or environment. The NFCM, composed of a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) and a rule-learning mechanism, is used as a compliance controller. The FLC generates compliant motions according to contact forces. The rule-learning mechanism, which is based upon the reinforcement learning algorithm, trains the rule-base of the FLC until the given task is done successfully. Since the scheme allows the use of large force reflection gain, it can assure good task performance. Moreover, the scheme does not require any priori knowledge on a slave arm dynamics, a slave arm controller and an environment, and thus, it can be easily applied to the control of any telerobot systems. Through a series of experiments effectiveness of the proposed algorithm has been verified.