As for the robot hand technology, the development of the prosthetic hand who can do it of complicated movement is pushed forward now in the field of welfare. As an actuator of the robot hand, an electric motor, oil pressure/an air pressure cylinder have been used by the present, but the development of carrying and a removable small, new actuator is expected, because the whole device is heavy greatly. In this study, a movement form is fluent, and drive sound is quite, flexible materials, and the output per the unit weight pays is big of shape-memory alloy (shape-memory alloy) and reports it because the development of an actuator having performance equal to a human hand studied it.

車いすの介助で段差や溝の乗り越え時には前輪を持ち上げて通過するが、その際の介助者の負荷は大きいと考えられ、特に介助者が非力である場合は介助者の負担や乗車者の快適性に与える影響は大きいと推測される。今回、前輪持ち上げ時の介助者の負荷軽減を目的に、ティッピングレバーの位置を前後及び上下方向に変えて、介助者が前輪上げ下げ動作を行う際のティッピングレバーと負荷の関係を調べた。その結果、現場のティッピングレバー先端部よりも後輪軸からの距離が大きく、かつ高さが低い場合に身体的負荷の軽減が実現できた。

We have been developing "Smart Suit" as a soft and light-weight wearable power assist system. A prototype for preventing low-back injury in agricultural works and its semi-active assist mechanism have been developed. In this paper, we describe a prototype of smart suit for supporting waist and knee joint, and its control method for preventing the displacement of the adjustable assist force mechanism in order to keep the assist efficiency.

The importance of prevention of dementia is a crucial issue in this aging society. We propose co-imagination method for prevention of dementia. Co-imagination method aims to activate three cognitive functions: episode memory, segmentation of attention, and planning function, which decline at early stage of dementia. Participants of the co-imagination program bring images which represent episode memory and communicate with them. We analyzed the relationship between the topic of sessions and the frequency of comments by self and others.

This paper provides the study on the ticket machine in consideration of the color universal design. Color universal design is an approach to the design of products and environments to be usable by visual disabilities, including persons with color blindness. We determine the color arrangement of the ticket machine's display by means of the results of the questionnaire. We evaluate the usability of the ticket machine using the computer simulation.

In this study we propose a framework using synchronization based control for power assist suit which is integrated with human and provides suitable power for lower limb motion of aged persons in daily activity and rehabilitation. Neural oscillator is introduced for accomplishing the synchronization and entrainment between human and robot motions by making the use of its distinctive feature. The joint torque information measured according to human and robot motions is taken as input signals for neural oscillator, and the neural oscillator generates the desired trajectory of a robot joint angle. The validity and feasibility of proposed method is examined by conducting computer simulations on a 2-DOF human-power assist suit system, assuming that there are human and assist suit knee joints, and both of the two knee joints are controlled by neural oscillators.