Ryuma Niiyama's research while affiliated with Meiji University and other places
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Publications (115)
Adopting the concept of the tactile wheel, which considers the interaction between the wheel and the ground, this paper simulates reinforcement learning to show the usefulness of tactile sensing for autonomous wheeled robots on irregular terrain and to clarify the characteristics of the information to be acquired. A wheeled robot model with a wheel...
In this study, the passive jumping mechanism based on the jumping principle of click beetles is proposed. The proposed mechanism consists of two links, a peg made from viscoelastic material, and springs. When an external force is applied to extend the joint, the joint is temporarily fixed in an extend state. Then, If the mechanism is placed on the...
Flexible manipulators have advantages such as collision safety, the ability to complete subtasks, and the realization of rational motion patterns. However, their mechanisms are too complicated to be controlled. The use of an underactuated drive system is a common solution to overcome such a problem. However, an underactuated manipulator hardly real...
Moving through soil is challenging for robots, particularly for soft robots. Herein, we propose a support structure, based on the hydrostatic skeleton of earthworms, to overcome this problem. To create extremely flexible, thin-walled, worm-sized deformed segments, a specialized 3D printer for low-hardness rubber was utilized. To obtain large radial...
Purpose of Review
We aimed to reveal the impact of soft robotics, which has developed in the last decade, on humanoid robotics research. Although humanoid robots are usually classified as hard robotics, softness should be integrated because soft materials and mechanisms are used extensively in the human body.
Recent Findings
In recent years, new s...
In robotics, soft continuum robot arms are a promising prospect owing to their redundancy and passivity; however, no comprehensive study exists that examines their characteristics compared to rigid manipulators. In this study, we examined the advantages of a continuum robot arm as compared to a typical and rigid seven-degree-of-freedom (7-DoF) robo...
Meta avatar robot cafe is a cafe that fuses cyberspace and physical space to create new encounters with people. We create a place where people with disabilities who have difficulty going out can freely switch between their physical bodies and virtual bodies, and communicate their presence and warmth to each other.
Meta avatar robot cafe is a cafe that fuses cyberspace and physical space to create new encounters with people. We create a place where people with disabilities who have difficulty going out can freely switch between their physical bodies and virtual bodies, and communicate their presence and warmth to each other.
The science of soft robots, or soft robotics, is currently one of the most active fields in robotics. While traditional robots consist of rigid bodies, powerful servomotors, and carefully coded programs to realize power, precision, and reliability, soft robots consist of soft and flexible bodies, actuators, and intelligence for adaptability. They a...
We propose a wire-driven robotic arm inspired by the ostrich neck. It can pick up a small piece of feed from the ground while colliding with it. This arm is named robostrich arm (shortened form of robotic ostrich arm). It consists of a serial chain of 18 rigid bodies connected by free rotational joints that are designed to have angle limitations si...
Fabricating a soft robot using conventional molding methods is difficult and time-consuming. Moreover, the types of materials used in the process are limited, and the elasticity cannot be changed incrementally. In this paper, we explain the detailed process of manufacturing molds for silicone joints. We construct a prototype molded silicone joint....
![Fig. 2. Flexibility and generating moments of animals [1-3] and...](profile/Megu-Gunji/publication/358181872/figure/fig1/AS:1125391016173571@1645325535950/Flexibility-and-generating-moments-of-animals-1-3-and-previously-developed-robots_Q320.jpg)
The neck of a giraffe has excellent characteristics that can serve as a good alternative for designing a large robotic mechanism. For example, the neck can rapidly move when performing necking, a motion where the giraffes strike each other’s necks. Furthermore, the neck of a giraffe helps prevent impacts and adapts to the shape and hardness of the...
In recent years, swimming robots have been developed to achieve efficient propulsion and high maneuverability. Previous researches have tried to achieve fish-like swimming by control based on physical models and top-down architectures, but have encountered problems due to high complexity of the underwater environment. Other researches have tried to...
Necks of giraffes have excellent characteristics as a robot mechanism. In order to gather knowledge to realize power-soft robots that have both powerfulness and flexibility, we focus on necks of giraffes from the point of view of robotics We develop a half sized musculoskeletal robot with vertebrae, disks, a nuchal ligament and thin McKibben pneuma...
Insects have acquired various types of wings over their course of evolution and have become the most successful terrestrial animals. Consequently, the essence of their excellent environmental adaptability and locomotive ability should be clarified; a simple and versatile method to artificially reproduce the complex structure and various functions o...
The need for cable connection with soft robotic systems suppresses the benefits granted by their softness and flexibility. Such systems can be untethered by equipping batteries or by relying on non-electrical actuation mechanisms. However, these approaches cannot simultaneously support long-term and intelligent operations. This research examines a...
Inflatables are safe and lightweight structures even at the human scale. Inflatable robots are expected to be applied to physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). Although active joint mechanisms are essential for developing inflatable robots, the existing mechanisms are complex in structure and it is difficult to integrate actuators, which diminish...
This letter focuses on the jump-and-hit motion of a humanoid robot, wherein a robot instantaneously jumps forward and hits a flying ball in the air, similar to how human players behave in volleyball games. We propose a Immediate Motion generation using a Lookup table of learned dynamics (IMoLo) for generating the motions of a pneumatic humanoid rob...
In recent years, swimming robots have been developed to achieve efficient propulsion and high maneuverability that are possessed naturally by fish. Previous studies have attempted to achieve swimming similar to fish by control based on physical models and top-down architectures, but have encountered problems due to the high complexity of the underw...
Though there are a lot of researches about Physical Human-robot Interaction (pHRI) using prediction, few researches work on inducing the opponent’s action or outwitting the opponent. We made the push-hand game environment in order to focus on generating strategic actions and tried to make reinforcement learning agents to learn these actions by addi...
The neck of Giraffe has excellent characteristics as a long robot mechanism. The neck of giraffe can move violently represented in necking, a motion striking necks each other. Further, in a necking motion, a neck of a giraffe wards off impacts and adapts to the shape of the opponent. On the other hand, conventional robot mechanisms have hardly achi...
Previous research on reinforcement learning for continuum robot arms have been dealt with a relatively small number of active degrees of freedom and made experiments of simple tasks such as reaching. We aimed to learn to throw a ball by reinforcement learning in a pneumatically-controlled continuum robot arm that has nine actuators. We adopt Cost-r...
Personal mobility devices (PMDs) are gaining ground as a modern form of transportation that can seamlessly connect the first and the last miles to public transportation. The batteries installed in these devices are currently charged via wires, which enforce unnecessary charging mainly done by humans and exposed electrodes that limit durability in o...
We present the first demonstration of a battery-free untethered wirelessly powered sub-gram jumping robot on an insect-scale. In order to operate the insect-sized robot autonomously, the limitation in battery use emphasizes the need for a wireless power transmission system as an onboard power solution. We designed a wireless power transmission syst...
Despite the recent growth in popularity of personal mobility devices (e.g., e-scooters and e-skateboards), they still suffer from limited safety and narrow design form factors, due to their rigid structures. On the other hand, inflatable interfaces studied in human-computer interaction can achieve large volume change by simple inflation/deflation....
Significance
We report a geometrical drawing method enabling to reproduce the complex wing-folding pattern of earwigs. Although the earwig wing has unique properties with an outstanding potential for engineering, such as an extreme compactness when fully creased or self-folding behavior, its design process had not been resolved, which limited pract...
We envision "Soft Mobility," which is a new type of personal mobility made of soft, lightweight, and inflatable materials. A soft body enables safer user interactions with pedestrians and drivers; the lightweight and inflatable properties allow the users to easily carry it as a "portable device," by deflating, folding, and packing it into, for exam...
There are structural challenges in increasing the softness of conventional soft tactile sensors because rigid electrical elements have to be installed around the sensing areas, which should be compressive, stretchable, and durable. To solve these issues, we propose an inductive tactile sensor whose silicone-rubber body has only two liquid-metal res...
Conventional planar pneumatic actuators have not been able to make the most of their thin, lightweight, and flexible nature due to tubes and pumps inevitably connected to them. In this article, we build upon our prior work and propose Liquid Pouch Motors, a family of printable soft actuators that consist of one or more gas-tight bladders (called po...
Wireless power transfer (WPT) has the significant potential for soft-bodied continuum robots to extend the operational time limitlessly and reduce weight. However, rigid power receiver coils, widely used in WPT, hinder the continuum deformation of the robot, and as a result, the function realization using the continuum deformation (e.g., locomotion...
Untethered control of soft-bodied robots is attractive for interactions in a variety of unstructured and dynamic environments. However, soft robotics systems are currently limited in terms of wireless, selective, and scalable control of multiple actuators. Therefore, we propose a method to wirelessly drive multiple soft actuators by laser projectio...
Hands-on exploration with robotics has been developed as a tool for creativity, but there are limitations with regard to accessibility. As a new method of creative and pervasive exploration for children and students, we propose a workshop using inflatable soft robots with short video recipes and onomatopoeia as a prompt. This method does not requir...
Representation and modeling of flexible objects is relatively difficult because these objects are deformed by external forces. When robots handle these objects, it is crucial to predict the deformation caused by external forces they add during manipulation. Somatosensory information has essential information to predict the deformation, but a method...
In table tennis robots, a spinning ball is difficult to be returned to the opponent court because its direction of bound is dependent on the spinning direction and amount. We aimed to solve this problem by swing motion that is robust over a large range of spinning pattern without accurate recognition of spinning. Specifically, we examined the relat...
We present and demonstrate a length sensor that can be used for extensible soft pneumatic actuators. Since conventional length sensors detect changes in electrical resistance and capacitance owing to the deformation of the actuator, destruction and deterioration occur when they are used with an actuator that has a large expansion ratio. In addition...
We describe the development of a robot configured to play badminton, a dynamic sport that requires high accuracy. We used pneumatic-electric hybrid actuators, each combining a pneumatic actuator, with high-speed and lightweight attributes, and an electric motor with good controllability. Our first objective was to develop hybrid actuators that are...
We introduce MorphIO, entirely soft sensing and actuation modules for programming by demonstration of soft robots and shape-changing interfaces.MorphIO's hardware consists of a soft pneumatic actuator containing a conductive sponge sensor.This allows both input and output of three-dimensional deformation of a soft material.Leveraging this capabilit...
We propose BlowFab, a prototyping method used to create a 2.5- dimensional prototype in a short time by combining laser cutting and blow molding techniques. The user creates adhesive areas and inflatable areas by engraving and cutting multilayered plastic sheets using a laser cutter. These adhesive areas are fused automatically by overlapping two c...
The dolphin kick is the swimming style with an undulation of a body conducted after start and turn. Practicing dolphin kick is one of the effective way for improving swimmers' record. It has been researched using real swimmers, simulation and robots. Dolphin kick research requires a combination of these methods. However, existing robots have inadeq...
In recent years, reinforcement learning has developed rapidly with deep learning and achieves great performance not only in the game playing but also in the continuous control of robots. Reinforcement learning requires exploratory behavior, and action noise is widely used to realize it. Recent researches have tackled exploration problems in deep re...
In this paper, we propose a method to create 3D inflatable objects by laminating plastic layers. AccordionFab is a fabrication method in which the user can prototype multi-layered inflatable structures rapidly with a common laser cutter. Our key finding is that it is possible to selectively weld the two uppermost plastic sheets out of the stacked s...
This paper proposes an exploration method for deep reinforcement learning based on parameter space noise. Recent studies have experimentally shown that parameter space noise results in better exploration than the commonly used action space noise. Previous methods devised a way to update the diagonal covariance matrix of a noise distribution and did...
We present a biped robot which can move agiler than conventional robots. Our robot can generate bipedal walking motion automatically using the proposed method. By using a quadrotor for balance and movement it is possible to make an agiler movement, and generate a gait interactively and in real time according to the motion of the quadrotor using the...
Sports, especially badminton, require participants to perform dynamic and skillful motions. Previous robots have had difficulty in performing like a human because of their severe limitations of low operating speed, heavy bodies, and simplistic mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a new robot design that consists of a structure integrated with pneu...
It is difficult to design agile soft-bodied robots owing to their inherent softness. To overcome this problem, we propose a structure-integrated bistable module that uses snapthrough buckling for agile motions. First, we confirmed that a 0.05-m-long module was able to jump to 0.13 m high. Through investigation, we found a range of command parameter...
Badminton needs dynamic and high speed motion, so previous humanoid robots were difficult to perform like human. For entertaining or training humanoid badminton robot in the future, we propose new robot arm which consists of structure integrated pneumatic cable cylinder and noninterfering many DoFs joints. We made a real robot arm with high acceler...
In the real world, robots have to adapt to the change of their body properties and environment. Coupled chaotic field was proposed for dynamic emergence and adaptation of embodied behavior reflecting the current body-environment dynamics. This model is suitable for soft robotics. However, the system had not been adopted into soft robotics. We appli...
Humanoid robots must execute situation-adaptive whole-body dynamic movements to protect humans. However, design of such robots have been unclear. Thus, our aim is to clarifying a design method of a robot executing a jump-hit motion representing these movements. For such a robot, we developed a light, high power and large stroke pneumatic actuation...
Some actual creatures calculate not only on their brain but also on their body itself. This is called morphological computation. Physical reservoir computing, which uses body itself as a neural network like system, is one approach of the way of morphological computation. The purpose of this research is to understand the effect of body structure and...
The continuous motion composed of rolling and jumping such as continuous handspring is useful as the locomotion of robots. In order to realize the continuous handspring, we propose a multi-link robot model composed of two limbs and a body and the control law for the model. We verified the controller using the combination of attack angle control and...
This study proposes BlowFab, a prototyping method used to create a 2.5-dimensional prototype in a short time by combining laser cutting and blow molding techniques. The user creates adhesive areas and inflatable areas by engraving and cutting multilayered plastic sheets using a laser cutter. These adhesive areas are fused automatically by overlappi...
Here we report the new soft sensor "FoamSense" that can measure the deformation state of a volumetric soft object such as compressed, bent, twisted and sheared (Figure 1). This sensor is made by impregnating a porous soft object with conductive ink. The design process of FoamSense is explained. We then summarized the features and basic characterist...
This study primarily proposes a procedure to design a crease pattern for beetle-inspired deployable wings based on the hindwings in relatively large-sized beetles like horn beetle or chafer. First, we discuss the representative patterns of wing supports and crease lines based on previous entomological research and propose a basic geometry for the a...
Soft robots are becoming increasingly popular because they are adaptable and safe. However, soft robot behaviors are extremely complex, so they can be hard to manually design. To resolve this, researchers have investigated automatic design processes for soft robots. Previous work has proposed evolution techniques targeted to single tasks. However,...
We propose a new framework for making insect-inspired robots using micro-focus X-ray computed tomography (micro CT). Micro CT system used in this study is originally for non-invasive inspection for industrial and medical applications, not for robotics. The CT data provides three-dimensional information of the complex structure of animal body in mic...
Recent studies have demonstrated that active gait training can recover voluntary locomotive ability of paralyzed rats. Rehabilitation devices used for studying spinal cord injury to date are usually fixed on a treadmill, but they have been used only slightly for active training. To process active rehabilitation, a wearable, lightweight device with...
Self-assembling robots can be transported and deployed inexpensively and autonomously in remote and dangerous environments. In this paper, we introduce a novel self-assembling method with a planar pneumatic system. Inflation of pouches translate into shape changes, turning a sheet of composite material into a complex robotic structure. This new met...
We propose soft planar actuators enhanced by free-form fabrication that are suitable for making everyday objects move. The actuator consists of one or more inflatable pouches with an adhesive back. We have developed a machine for the fabrication of free-from pouches; squares, circles and ribbons are all possible. The deformation of the pouches can...
Many robots and machines advance into our society recently, and the necessity of making sure of improving safety is more and more increasing. We develop a new shape-changing robotic exterior. This robotic exterior is made of air bladders, and able to change its shape via inflation and deflation. It is soft, light, economical, and not disturbing pri...
In real world, modification and generation of locomotion are important for autonomous moving robots as well as animals. Many studies show that central pattern generators (CPGs) allow robots to produce robust periodic motions. However, generating substantially new locomotor behaviors is still difficult because methods such as CPGs require parameter...
