Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Toyota Jidosah Kabushki Kaisha

Kazuhiro Mima

Takahiro Nakayama

Hidenori Yabushita

Yoshiaki Asahara

Hiroshi Bito

Hitoshi Yamada

Norimasa Kobori

Koji Terada

Takemitsu Mori

Provided is a manipulator including: a link; a joint unit configured to rotate the link; and a distance sensor configured to detect an obstacle entering in a monitoring space that is determined so as to include at least a rotating direction side of the link, the distance sensor being installed so that a sensing direction faces a direction parallel to a surface of the link. Further, provided is a moving robot including the aforementioned manipulator.

Manipulator and moving robot

A program writing method in which a program is written into a flash ROM that a microcomputer includes therein includes: a generating step for generating a version representative value indicating a version of a source directory from predetermined types of files included in the source directory; an additionally writing step for additionally writing the version representative value into a source file included in the source directory; and a program writing step for writing a program corresponding to the source directory generated by compiling the source file into which the version representative value has been additionally written into the flash ROM.

Program writing method, control method of apparatus, program for program writing, and control program of apparatus

A posture angle calculation apparatusincludes an acquisition unitconfigured to acquire an output of an acceleration sensorinstalled to output acceleration of a moving apparatus that moves along a moving surface in a vertical axis direction with respect to the moving surface and to acquire an output of a gyro sensorinstalled to output an angular velocity about the vertical axis. The posture angle calculation apparatusfurther includes a calculation unitconfigured to assume, when the acceleration is larger than reference acceleration Rg, and the angular velocity is smaller than a preset reference angular velocity Rw, the angular velocity &#x3c9;is zero and calculate a posture angle of the moving apparatus about the vertical axis. The posture angle calculation apparatusfurther includes an output unitconfigured to output data of the calculated posture angle.

Posture angle calculation apparatus, moving apparatus, posture angle calculation method, and program

Provided is a storage device including: a first storage region comprising a plurality of sensor regions for the plurality of the sensors; a second storage region into which a data set is written, the data set being generated by reading, from the respective plurality of sensor regions, sampling data of a sensor having a longest sampling period among the plurality of sensors for one period and sampling data of other sensors for a period corresponding to the period in which the sampling data of the sensor for the one period is generated and integrating the sampling data; and a control unit configured to write the sampling data of the plurality of sensors into the plurality of sensor regions, respectively, in a ring buffer format and generate the data set at a predetermined timing and write the data set into the second storage region in the ring buffer format.

Storage device, mobile robot, storage method, and storage program

To improve the accuracy of the self position estimation of a mobile robot. A robot measures a distance to an object in the mobile environment by using a range sensor. An environmental map storage unit stores an environmental map containing a plurality of map data each corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of measurement directions from which a point in the mobile environment is to be observed. A self position estimation unit selects a map data corresponding to a measurement direction in which a distance to the object is measured by the range sensor from the plurality of map data. Then, the self position estimation unit estimates a self position of the mobile robot based on the selected map data and range data obtained by the range sensor.

Autonomous mobile robot, self position estimation method, environmental map generation method, environmental map generation apparatus, and data structure for environmental map

To provide an autonomous moving body capable of moving with efficiency along a path toward a travel end point while avoiding a collision with a moving obstacle, its control method, and its control system. An autonomous moving body in accordance with the present invention includes means to create a traveling path of the autonomous moving body that extends from a travel start point to a travel end point, means to calculate a point at which a moving obstacle located within the moving area crosses the created traveling path of the autonomous moving body as a collision prediction point, means to calculate a first passage time period during which the moving obstacle passes through the collision prediction point, and means to calculate a second passage time period during which the autonomous moving body passes through the collision prediction point. Further, if at least a part of the second passage time period overlaps the first passage time period, the traveling speed of the autonomous moving body is adjusted so that the second passage time period does not overlap the first passage time period.

Autonomous moving body, its control method, and control system

A getting-on/off determination apparatus determines rider's getting-on/off for an inverted two-wheel vehicle that travels while maintaining the inverted state. The getting-on/off determination apparatus includes an optical fiber laid in a step portion that a rider gets on/off, a light emitting unit that emits detection light and is connected to one end of the optical fiber, a light receiving unit that receives the detection light emitted from the light emitting unit and is connected to another end of the optical fiber, at least one transmitted light varying portion that varies an amount of transmitted light of the detection light passing through the optical fiber in conjunction with a vertical displacement of the step portion that occurs when the rider gets on/off the inverted two-wheel vehicle, and a determination unit that determines getting-on/off of the rider based on an amount of the detection light received by the light receiving unit.

Getting-on/off determination apparatus and getting-on/off determination method

A trajectory tracking control system according to the invention controls a robot () to track a target path (). In this system, the target path () is approximated to an arc, and the curvature of the arc is calculated. At this time, the curvature is calculated in accordance with the moving speed of the robot (). Then, the control of the robot () is set in accordance with the calculated curvature.

Trajectory tracking control system and method for mobile unit

To generate an optimal path in a search space represented by a grid. A path search device includes: an edge generation section that generates edges extending to neighboring nodes located at least forward and diagonally forward right and left of a focus node, assuming that each grid point is a node and that a minimum cost node among end nodes each located at an end of the edges is the focus node, when a cost from a start point to a given node is a cost of the given node; an edge cost calculation/readout section that reads out a shortest distance from a reference node to the neighboring node (first distance) and a shortest distance from the reference node to the focus node (second distance) from a database, assuming that a node obtained by tracing back a predetermined number of nodes from the focus node in a direction toward the start point along the path is the reference node; a path cost calculation section that calculates a cost of a path from the start point to the neighboring node as a sum of costs of edges constituting the path; and a path determination section that selects a path having a minimum cost from the start point to the end point.

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Kazuhiro Mima