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This paper presents a concept of personal mobility vehicles for indoor use by PERSONs WITH WALKING DIFFICULTY and its development approach. In recent years, many persons with walking difficulty desire to live independently in the house as long as possible. Especially, existing means of personal mobility vehicles (e.g. electric-powered wheelchairs) face a lot of problems of obstacles in the house such as there exist many steps, furniture, narrow corridors and aisles and so on. In order to live in house independently, the persons with walking difficulty try to do light working. For these purposes, a new type of mobility vehicles for such persons are required to live independently in the house. In this paper, we investigate the new concept of personal mobility vehicles for persons with walking difficulty living independently in the house and its feasibility of development. The required specifications of the proposed personal mobility vehicles are to have compact size, light weight, and omni-directionality. Furthermore, this personal mobility vehicle has the elevation seat and the softness of the seat to change the person’s position for light working.

In order to estimate the position of a quad-rotor in GPS-denied environment such as under bridges, we developed a position estimation system using ultra-wide band (UWB), inertial measurement unit (IMU), and distance sensor for the quad-rotor. The accuracy of UWB is tens of centimeters and the UWB is several times better than traditional positioning systems based on WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS signals. In addition, a distance sensor is mounted to the quad-rotor to improve the estimation accuracy of the altitude. This paper presents experimented results using the quad-rotor equipped with the developed system in order to evaluate the estimation accuracy. The experimental results show that an altitude accuracy of 0.03 m can be achieved.

This paper describes concepts and required ability for a new inspection robot to locomote on H-shaped structures. And we present a concept model satisfied the concepts and explain the motion of the robot on the structure. In addition, the paper discusses feasibility of the robot through a numerical simulation based on specification of an available servomotor.

For rapid information gathering in case of disaster, various unmanned search/rescue robots have been developed. It is difficult to respond to complex condition of a field where requires some locomotion strategies for most robots having only one kind of locomotion mechanism. To increase search routes in a such condition to aim gathering information more rapidly, we proposed the legged air vehicle: This vehicle has four legs to walk and two rotors to fly. The feature of the vehicle is fewer actuators than sum of those of a quadrupedal walking robot and a tandem rotor type helicopter. This paper presents a model and an attitude control system using leg motion of the vehicle, and simulations of the motion when attitude controlling by Multibody Dynamics software.

This paper proposes an aerial robot that can land on and cling to a steel structure using electric permanent magnets to be- have as a vibration sensor probe for use in vibration-based structural health monitoring. In the last decade, structural health monitoring techniques have been studied intensively to tackle with serious social issues that most of the infrastructures in advanced countries are being deteriorated. In the typical concept of the structural health monitoring, vibration sensors like accelerometers are installed in the structure to continuously collect the dynamical response of the operating structure to find a symptom of the structural damage. It is unreasonable, however, to permanently deploy the sensors to numerous infrastructures because most of the infrastructures except for those of primary importance do not need continuous measurement and evaluation. In this study, the aerial robot plays a role of a mobile detachable sensor unit. The design guidelines of the aerial robot that performs the vibration measurement from the analysis model of the robot is shown. Experiments to evaluate the frequency response function of the acceleration measured by the robot with respect to the acceleration at the point where the robot adheres are carried out. And the experimental results show that the prototype robot can measure the acceleration of the host structure accurately up to 150 Hz.

In this study, we present an aerial robot which equipped with EPM (Electro Permanent Magnet) and two camera arms to conduct a visual inspection of the steel bridges instead of humans. Since bottom surfaces of steel bridges are complicated, robot equipped with typical camera gimbals cannot shoot the entire area of the bridge. Hence, we developed a light and long camera arm for the aerial robot It is possible to shoot the intricate parts of the bridges by mounting these camera arms to the robot. And, we carried out close-up shooting experiment using a structure which stimulates the H-shaped steel in order to evaluate the High performance and the shooting ability. Key words: Aerial Inspection Robot, EPM, Quad-copter, Maintenance Robot

This paper presents an experimental study on the development of a cyclogyro-based flying robot with a new variable angle of attack mechanism. A cyclogyro is a flying machine supported in the air by power-driven rotors that rotate about a horizontal axis, like the paddle-wheels of a steamboat. Machines of this type have been designed by some companies but there has been no record of any successful flights. Our design starts with a new variable angle of attack mechanism with an eccentric (rotational) point in addition to a rotational point connecting to a motor. The main feature of the mechanism with the eccentric rotational point is the ability to change attack of angles in accordance with the wing positions (as determined by the rotational angles of the cyclogyro) without actuators. The design parameters (wing span, the number of wings, and eccentric distance) of the flying robot are determined through a series of experiments. Experimental results show that the cyclogyro-based flying robot with the new variable angle of attack mechanism is capable of generating sufficient lift force for flying.

To determine the arterial distribution and ischemic effects of various particle sizes after transcatheter embolization of the small bowel in a dog model.In 10 dogs, selective microsphere embolization was performed in six branches of the superior mesenteric artery. Microspheres were allocated into three size ranges (100-300 μm, 300-500 μm, and 500-700 μm) and four volume concentrations (0.625%, 1.25%, 2.5%, and 5%). For each size and volume concentration, embolization was performed of five branches at the origin of the last arcade. The distribution of microspheres and the range of ischemic changes of mucosa were evaluated histologically. Angiograms were categorized into two groups: group A, only the vasa recta nonopacified; group B, the last arcade or more proximal branches nonopacified.Microspheres sized 100-300 μm penetrated into intramural arteries and 500-700 μm microspheres mainly blocked arteries in the mesentery. There was a significant difference among three sizes in terms of the locations within the vasculature (P.0001). The larger volume and the smaller size resulted in more ischemia. The range of ischemic changes among three sizes and among four volume concentrations was significantly different (P = .004 and P.0001, respectively). The range of ischemic changes with 500-700 μm microspheres in group B was significantly greater than in group A (0% in group A vs 83% in group B, P = .001).In a dog model, embolization of the small bowel limited to the vasa recta with the use if 500-700 μm microspheres reduced the range of ischemic changes.

Purpose To investigate the pharmacokinetics and chemoembolization efficacy of irinotecan-loaded QuadraSphere microspheres (QSMs) in a rabbit VX2 liver tumor model. Materials and Methods Fourteen rabbits with VX2 liver tumors were divided into two groups. In the irinotecan-loaded QSM group (n = 7), 3 mg of QSMs (30–60 μm) containing 12 mg of irinotecan (0.6 mL; 20 mg/mL) were injected into the left hepatic artery. In the control group (hepatic arterial infusion [HAI] and QSMs; n=7), 3 mg of QSMs suspended in ioxaglic acid were injected following a bolus injection of 0.6 mL of irinotecan solution (20 mg/mL). Sequential irinotecan, SN-38, and SN-38G concentration changes were measured in plasma within 24 hours and at 1 week and in tissues at 1 week. The VX2 tumor growth rates at 1 and 2 weeks were calculated from computed tomographic images. Results All rabbits underwent successful embolization. Plasma irinotecan, SN-38, and SN-38G concentrations in the irinotecan-loaded QSM group showed significantly sustained release compared with the control group ( P = .01). Compared with the control group, the irinotecan-loaded QSM group had significantly higher irinotecan concentration in liver tumors ( P = .03) and a tendency toward higher SN-38 concentration in liver tumors ( P = .29). The SN-38G tissue concentrations were below the limits of quantification. The tumor growth rate was significantly lower and the tumor necrosis rate significantly higher in the irinotecan-loaded QSM group ( P = .02 and P = .01, respectively). Conclusion Chemoembolization via irinotecan-loaded QSMs more effectively suppresses tumor growth than chemoembolization with unloaded QSMs after HAI. A clinical feasibility study is warranted.

This paper describes a simple and cost effective countermeasure to prevent carbody vibration of railway vehicles due to rotation of wheelset(s) with small mass imbalance by applying a displacement-dependent rubber bush in traction links. The displacement-dependent property is realized by introducing a small gap between the rubber and the inner fixture, and transmission of the excitation force from bogie to carbody is isolated by the gap. Excitation tests using a full-scale test vehicle to verify the vibration isolation performance, and running stability testing with a bogie are carried out in the rolling stock testing plant at Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI). Then a series of running tests on a commercial line is conducted and the effectiveness of the displacement-dependent rubber bush has been confirmed.

To gather information rapidly in disaster sites, a lot of search/rescue robots have been developed. It is difficult to correspond to the complicated environment composed of fields requiring various locomotion strategies, because most of these robots have only one type of locomotion device. To increase the available search routes under such conditions with the aim of gathering information more efficiently, we have previously proposed a legged aerial vehicle. The vehicle has tandem rotors to fly in the air and four legs to walk on the ground. The particular feature of this robot is that it has fewer actuators than the sum of those required for controlling a quadrupedal robot and a tandem-rotor helicopter individually. This paper presents modeling of the robot and development of an attitude control system that uses the leg motions. The behavior of the vehicle with the proposed attitude control is simulated using Multibody Dynamics (MBD) simulation software.

2006