This paper discusses those study themes considered essential in responding to the expectations that are mostly likely to be generated by Japanese society in regard to robots in the coming one or two decades.

First, for the purpose of understanding the current structure and status of research and development concerning robotics, statistical data based on the responses obtained from universities and national and public research institutes will be shown together with an illustration of the recent patent trends related to industrial robots. Then, an overview on the results of forecasts regarding robot technology by governmental bodies will be presented in an effort to predict the technological as well as social needs surrounding robots. Lastly, tasks of high contribution value for society requiring large-scale research and development systems will be both identified and clarified.

This paper describes a project that addressed teaching a miniature robotic manipulator to play chess. This task was accomplished by interfacing a Microbot Minimover 5 robot and its Radio Shack TRS-80 control computer to a set of chessboard contacts and a Fidelity Electronics Chess Challenger 7 microcomputer. An extensive control program and interface circuitry were designed to enable each of the major components of the system to electronically communicate with one another.

A new method for calculating the Jacobian for a general n degree-of-freedom robot manipulator is presented and compared with some known other methods. The computational efficiency of the method is estimated in terms of the number of multiplications, additions/subtractions, trigonometric functions required, and the execution time on a VAX 11/750 computer. It is shown that the new method proposed in this paper is one of the most efficient when applied on a robot manipulator with successively parallel or rectangular joint rotations.

Vibrations in robot action, both in the arm control system and arm itself, and in the transported load, are a serious problem in the development of high speed systems. The paper discusses the typical causes of vibration resulting from the motion command in path controlled robots and those due to the failure of a system to meet the specified command through power and performance limitations. Experimental results illustrating such phenomena are presented. Methods of reducing the magnitude or occurrence of such vibrations through the improved design of motion commands, which take account of the vibratory nature of the system and load, are presented.

The tactile sensor is constructed as a part of the finger of a parallel jaw hand; it is of the size of a finger and allows for a large displacement of the sensor element in response to force. The structure of the tactile sensor incorporates 20 successively and closely aligned elements, which allow for a 2.5 mm maximum displacement for each element. In the described experiments we present the capabilities of the tactile sensor. The tactile sensor has the functions of: 1) discriminating the shape of the partial surface of an object; and 2) tracing by finger on the surface along the profile of an object.

This paper presents an intelligent robot vision system using TOSPIX which has been newly developed to realize frequently-used and time-consuming image processing functions at low-cost and high-speed. The vision system has been studied for use in observing surface information about electric parts (dry batteries), inspecting them and then placing good ones into a given box. Three major robot vision functions are implemented here: object recognition, inspection and position determination by binary and gray-scale image processing techniques. While binary image techniques are used in battery terminal inspection and box position determination gray-scale image processing functions are performed in a label pattern check on a battery surface, front or rear surface determination, and surface defect inspection.

Minimum distance algorithms allow users of robot simulation programs to maneuver manipulation arms around and between workspace obstacles. Additionally, they can be used to generate configuration maps for path planning of the manipulator “point” through a more abstract configuration space. This paper summarizes an algorithm for determining minimum distances between two polyhedral elements. Examples of configuration space maps and Cartesian stepping techniques demonstrate algorithmic utility for robot path planning. A number of accelerating strategies which depend on a heirarchical spatial representation of manipulator and workspace elements maintain reasonable CPU times for the simulation user.

This note describes a new class of devices, corrugated polyvinylidene fluoride bimorphs. It describes the fabrication, testing and analysis of one simple configuration and discusses the general potential of the devices. As actuators, they offer promise for applications involving relatively large amplitude displacements and small forces with ease of control. As tactile sensors, the devices offer considerable promise due to their potentially high resolution, selectable compliance, sensitivity and durability.