Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Yuki Kougaku Co., Ltd.

Yoshiaki Sakagami

Nobuo Higaki

Naoaki Sumida

Shinichi Matsunaga

Takamichi Shimada

Ambarish Goswami

Koji Kawabe

Takahiro Oohashi

Seung-kook Yun

Hiroshi Hasegawa

Yoichi Nishimura

Hiroshi Tsujino

Akira Iihoshi

Bernd Heisele

Takaaki Nagai

Christian Goerick

Yuichi Yoshida

Umashankar Nagarajan

Taku Osada

Sachie Hashimoto

Yoko Saito

Kazunori Kanai

Kangkang Yin

Kenji Kadowaki

Youko Saitou

Tomonobu Gotou

Jan Fritsch

Hirokazu Yamashita

Kensuke Ishikawa

Provided is a system capable of further reducing risk such as a contact between a moving body such as a vehicle and a traffic participant present around the moving body. According to an environment recognition system () of the present invention, a database () stores each of a plurality of reference symbol strings describing the state of an environmental element constituting each of a plurality of scenes assumed to be around the moving body. A first arithmetic processing element () detects a scene around the moving body and generates a symbol string describing the state of the environmental element constituting the detected scene. A second arithmetic processing element () evaluates similarity between the symbol string and each of the plurality of reference symbol strings stored in the database ().

Environment recognition system

A vehicle periphery monitoring deviceis equipped with a first recognizing unitwhich recognizes a shape of a road in a traveling direction of a self vehicle C, a second recognizing unitwhich recognizes a position of an object M existing in a periphery of the self vehicle C, an estimating unitwhich estimates a moving direction of the object M from the position recognized by the second recognizing unit, and a contact avoiding process unitwhich determines whether or not to perform an avoiding process for avoiding contact between the self vehicle C and the object M, on the basis of a relationship between the shape of the road recognized by the first recognizing unitand the moving direction of the object M estimated by the estimating unit

Vehicle periphery monitoring device

A system and method is disclosed for controlling a robot having at least two legs, the robot falling down from an upright posture and the robot located near a plurality of surrounding objects. A plurality of predicted fall directions of the robot are determined, where each predicted fall direction is associated with a foot placement strategy, such as taking a step, for avoiding the surrounding objects. The degree to which each predicted fall direction avoids the surrounding objects is determined. A best strategy is selected from the various foot placement strategies based on the degree to which the associated fall direction avoids the surrounding objects. The robot is controlled to implement this best strategy.

Humanoid fall direction change among multiple objects

A system and method is disclosed for controlling a robot that is falling down from an upright posture. Inertia shaping is performed on the robot to avoid an object during the fall. A desired overall toppling angular velocity of the robot is determined. The direction of this velocity is based on the direction from the center of pressure of the robot to the object. A desired composite rigid body inertia of the robot is determined based on the desired overall toppling angular velocity. A desired joint velocity of the robot is determined based on the desired composite rigid body inertia. The desired joint velocity is also determined based on a composite rigid body inertia Jacobian of the robot. An actuator at a joint of the robot is then controlled to implement the desired joint velocity.

Inertia shaping for humanoid fall direction change

A system and method is disclosed for controlling a robot having at least two legs that is falling down from an upright posture. An allowable stepping zone where the robot is able to step while falling is determined. The allowable stepping zone may be determined based on leg Jacobians of the robot and maximum joint velocities of the robot. A stepping location within the allowable stepping zone for avoiding an object is determined. The determined stepping location maximizes an avoidance angle comprising an angle formed by the object to be avoided, a center of pressure of the robot upon stepping to the stepping location, and a reference point of the robot upon stepping to the stepping location. The reference point, which may be a capture point of the robot, indicates the direction of fall of the robot. The robot is controlled to take a step toward the stepping location.

Intelligent stepping for humanoid fall direction change

An optical device ensuring projection of light over a wide range as well as reduction in size, and a mobile apparatus mounted with the optical device are provided. The optical device () includes a light-projecting unit () and a light-receiving unit (). The light-projecting unit () has a projector () and a lenticular sheet () arranged in layers. First and second cylindrical lens arrays having their generatrices orthogonal to each other are formed on the respective surfaces of the sheet (). The light-receiving unit () has a light-receiver (). The light-projecting unit () and the light-receiving unit () are arranged adjacent to each other in an integrated manner so that the light-receiver () can sense the light emitted from the projector () via the sheet () and then reflected from an object.

Optical device and mobile apparatus

A communication system between vehicles of the present invention is equipped in each of the vehicles with an image taking device for taking an image around the vehicle; a moving body detection unit for detecting a moving body from the image taken by the image taking device; a display unit for displaying the image; an image data generation unit for generating image data output to the display unit of the each vehicle; and a transmitting/receiving device for any of transmitting/receiving data, wherein the image data generation unit generates image data for displaying an existence of a moving body, of which an image is taken by said image taking device of one of the vehicles, and outputs the image data to the display unit of other vehicle.

Communication system between vehicles

A mobile robot that is fitted with a camera and can be controlled from a remote terminal such as a mobile phone moves about in an event site to detect and track a moving object such as a visitor and entertainer. Because the camera along with the robot itself can change its position freely autonomously and/or according to a command from the mobile terminal, a desired frame layout can be accomplished by moving the position of the robot. Therefore, the operator is not required to execute a complex image trimming process or other adjustment of the obtained picture image so that a desired picture can be obtained quickly and without any difficulty. If the user is allowed access the managing server, the user can download the desired picture images and have them printed out at will. Also, because the selected picture images can be transmitted to the managing server, the robot is prevented from running out of memory for storing the picture images.

Picture taking mobile robot

To automate the work of recognizing a guest, check the appointment, notify a host of the arrival of the guest and conduct the guest to a designated place, a robot having a function to autonomously travel is equipped with camera/microphone for recognizing a guest at least according to image information. The system comprises management database adapted to communicate with the robot and equipped with an information database for identifying the recognized guest, and identifies the guest according to the information obtained from the camera/microphone and management database. The robot recognizes the guest from the image thereof, and the recognized guest is identified and verified by comparing the image of the visitor with the information contained in the database so that the robot can automatically conduct the guest to the designated meeting room according to the information of the appointment stored in the database.

Receptionist robot system

In an event site or the like, a visitor may waste time and effort trying to find a spot where an event of interest may be taking place because the visitor is unable to look through the entire site from any particular spot. An information gathering robot roams in such an event site typically along a prescribed route, and notes spots of interest to transmit this information to a data server. The visitor can access the data server to find a spot of interest of his or her choice substantially on a real time basis.

Information gathering robot

An apparatusfor controlling a movable robot recognizes the person to be followed up from an image taken by a camera C by an image processing portion, controls leg portions Rof a movable robot A so as to keep a prescribed interval between the movable robot A and the person by a portionfor detecting an action, and notify the degree of the distance between the movable robot A and the person to the person by a voice from a voice outputting portion

Apparatus, process, and program for controlling movable robot control

An autonomous robot is controlled by the local robot information controller which is connected to a robot application network to which the transceiver to communicate with the autonomous robot is attached. The robot application network, a user LAN adaptive controller an information distribution manager and the third party information provider subsystem are linked with a public network. The information distribution manager acquires the information from the third party information provider subsystem on the schedule which is set by the user LAN adaptive controller. The local robot information controller receives the information distribution manager and convert it into the data that generates robot gestures. The robot performs actions in accordance to the gesture data received from the local robot information controller.

Autonomously moving robot management system

An information distribution system capable of presenting an image photographed by a moving body, such as a robot or vehicle, selected by a user. The information distribution system includes moving bodies, local managers, and a global manager. When a user requests a connection with one of the moving bodies to the global manager through a portable terminal such as a portable phone, a menu generation section of the global manager generates a menu screen, and sends it to the portable terminal. The user selects one from the moving bodies through the menu screen, so that the portable terminal of the user connects with the selected moving body. An image photographed by a camera of the moving body is sent to the local manager, and information related to the image is superimposed on the image. Consequently, the superimposed image is sent to the portable terminal.

Image distribution system

A posture recognition apparatus recognizes instructions signified by postures of persons present in the surroundings, from images obtained with an image capture device. The posture recognition apparatus includes an outline extraction device that extracts an outline of a body which is a candidate for a person from the images; a distance calculation device that calculates a distance to the body being the candidate, from distance information of each pixel within the outline in the image; a search device that searches for a candidate for a hand of a person based on the outline and the distance to the body represented by the outline; and a posture determination device that determines an instruction corresponding to the relative position of the candidate for a hand and the outline, and outputs this determination result as a posture determination result.

Posture recognition apparatus and autonomous robot

A position detection apparatus that is able to easily detect self-position during autonomous movement by a humanoid robot that moves by the use of legs or automobile. The position detection apparatus detects the position of a moving object, said position detection apparatus being provided with a brightness image acquisition device that acquires a brightness image of the forward field of view of the moving object, a distance image acquisition device having the same field of view as the brightness image acquisition device that acquires a distance image simultaneous to acquisition of a brightness image by the brightness image acquisition device, a characteristic point extraction device that extracts respective characteristic points from the brightness images of at least two consecutive frames, and a reference characteristic point selection device that calculates the amount of displacement of a position between two frames of a characteristic point extracted by the characteristic point extraction device based on a distance image, and selects a reference characteristic point for calculating self-position according to said amount of displacement.

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Wako, Japan

Yoshiaki Sakagami