This paper investigated the organization of the postural control system in human upright stance. To this aim the shared variance between joint and 3D total body center of mass (COM) motions was analyzed using multivariate canonical correlation analysis (CCA). The CCA was performed as a function of established models of postural control that varied in their joint degrees of freedom (DOF), namely...

Current door-opening methods are mainly developed on tracked, wheeled and biped robots by applying multi-DOF manipulators and vision systems. However, door-opening methods for six-legged robots are seldom studied, especially using 0-DOF tools to operate and only force sensing to detect. A novel door-opening method for six-legged robots is developed and implemented to the six-parallel-legged rob...

A multi-DOF ultrasonic motor developed by the authors can generate multi-DOF rotation of a spherical rotor using three orthogonal natural vibrations of a bar-shaped stator. The ultrasonic motor is suitable for making small, lightweight and simple multi-DOF motion unit. In the present paper, a control methodology for the multi-DOF ultrasonic motor is proposed and a motion control test using the ...

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 m...

Whenever a tuned-mass damper is attached to a primary system, motion of the absorber body in more than one degree of freedom (DOF) relative to the primary system can be used to attenuate vibration of the primary system. In this paper, we propose that more than one mode of vibration of an absorber body relative to a primary system be tuned to suppress single-mode vibration of a primary system. W...

A multi-DOF ultrasonic motor developed by the authors is capable of generating multi-DOF rotation of a spherical rotor using three orthogonal natural vibrations of a bar-shaped stator. The ultrasonic motor is suitable for making small, light weight and simple multi-DOF motion unit. In the present paper, a control methodology for the multi-DOF ultrasonic motor is proposed and a motion control te...

We have been developing an advanced general-purpose computational mechanics system, named ADVENTURE, which is designed to be able to analyze a three-dimensional (3D) finite element model of arbitrary shape with a 10–100 million degrees of freedom (DOF) mesh. Module-based architecture of the system with standardized I/O format and libraries are developed and employed to attain flexibility, porta...

A three-dimensional model of the human body is used to simulate a maximal vertical jump. The body is modeled as a 10-segment, 23 degree-of-freedom (dof), mechanical linkage, actuated by 54 muscles. Six generalized coordinates describe the position and orientation of the pelvis relative to the ground; the remaining nine segments branch in an open chain from the pelvis. The head, arms, and torso ...

A multi-degree of freedom (multi-DOF) ultrasonic motor is anticipated as an actuator for the next generation because it can drive three-DOF motion with high torque and low noise. Before a multi-DOF ultrasonic motor can be used as a servomotor in actual robots, we have to develop a proper pre-loading mechanism and control algorithm for quick multi-DOF motion. This paper proposes a pre-loading me...