Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.

Hitoshi Kitano

Tomohiro Ota

Tatsuo Sakai

Katsuhiro Hirata

Tomoharu Nakahara

Tsuyoshi Yamane

Yukihiko Kitano

Hiroyuki Fujii

Yoshikazu Shikata

An autonomously moving robot that drives while evading an obstacle by an environment information acquisitioner. The information acquisitioner includes an imager that takes an image of a circumference on a driving route, an image recognition processor that extracts an area having a property relating to a region of a human body, a ranger that measures a range and an orientation to an object existing in the circumference on the driving route, a range information analyzer that obtains a shape of the object, and an environment recognizer that recognizes the environment information on the driving route. The environment recognizer compares the area extracted in the image recognition processor with the object recognized in the range information analyzer, and recognizes the object as a person when both of them agree with each other.

Autonomously moving robot

A revolution type actuator having a movable member performing a revolution motion includes a movable member capable of revolving with respect to a fixed member, a plurality of conducting paths which are provided on a face parallel to a trajectory face of the above-mentioned revolution motion and through which currents flow in mutually intersecting directions, power supply which flows currents having different phases through the above-mentioned plurality of conducting paths, and a magnetic field generator which forms a magnetic field perpendicular to the above-mentioned conducting path, in which the above-mentioned movable member revolves due to an electromagnetic force generated by an interaction between a current flowing through said conducting path and a magnetic field generated by the above-mentioned magnetic field generator. By this configuration, it is possible to obtain a revolution motion directly as an output without using an output transforming mechanism and also accommodate a high-speed rotation because in principle there is no variation in the magnetic gap between the movable element and the fixed element.

Actuator capable of revolving

Growing community of inventors

Takarazuka, Japan

Hitoshi Kitano