Research Support
SPIRITS

Human-Robot symbiotic collaboration over dynamic and complex fields

Project Gist

Symbiotic machines for assisting human activities

Keywords

human-robot cooperation, soft robotics, symbiosis

Background and Purpose

For human-robot symbiosis in a variety of places and purposes, we need new approaches based on human natures and characteristics. For example, when robots need to walk through crowds, physical contacts such as touching, pushing, tapping, etc. are often inevitable. Tactile interactions need to be positively analyzed, designed, and proper mechanism needs to be embedded into robots. Our joint group of Kyoto University and University of Bristol, challenges for a new approach on this problem toward human-robot symbiosis. More specifically, the research topics are (a) map constructions, sharing, and update in a complex and dynamic environment, (b) design of physical contact among robots and humans. The former aims to map construction through 3D visual sensing and capturing, integration, and presentation of experiences in the environment. The latter aims to the design and realization of safe and comfortable physical contact mechanism using human movement prediction.

Project Achievements

Project members in Kyoto University and University of Bristol mutually visited each other, had seven seminars and meetings, that is, at Kyoto, University of Bristol, and Bristol Robotics lab, and had student exchanges between two universities. Not only information and technology exchange, research collaborations on new topics such as new device design, data acquisition in two countries for delineating differences, distance collaboration experiments, were kicked off, and are continuing now. The followings are two examples that follows initial plans. (1) Based on physical and physiological analysis on muscles, a new device for physical empathy, especially for transmitting sensation of touch, is designed and developed by the collaboration. Experiments transmitting sensation between two universities were conducted. (2) Recording personal experiences by mobile cameras were conducted on the same topic in both universities to find the similarity and the differences between two countries. Summarization of experiences by superimposing multiple videos are provided.

Future Prospects

Good bases for collaboration between two universities are obtained, introducing the team to some foreign researchers in neighboring field such as experimental psychology, or welfare technology. We are planning to continue our collaborations with extending our team. One of the latest plans is to apply for a grant of EU-Japan cooperation project.

Figure

Human-Robot symbiotic collaboration over dynamic and complex fields
Example of devices for Physical Empathy

Principal Investigator

NAKAMURA Yuichi

・NAKAMURA Yuichi
・The Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies
・Yuichi Nakamura received B.E, M.E, and Ph.D degrees in electrical engineering from Kyoto University, in 1985, 1987, and 1992, respectively. From 1990 to 1993, he worked as an instructor at the Department of Electrical Engineering of Kyoto University. From 1993 to 2004, he worked for Institute of Information Sciences and Electronics of University of Tsukuba, Institute of Engineering Mechanics and Systems of University of Tsukuba, as an assistant professor and an associate professor, respectively. Since 2004, he has been a professor of Academic Center of Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University. His research interests are on computer vision, multimedia, human-computer and human-human interaction including distance communication, and multimedia contents production.
http://www.ccm.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yuichi/index.html