This paper describes a novel personal robot to support active human life by assisting transportation. The proposed robot is able to follow a person with bringing the luggage. Therefore, the robot encourages the elder people to go to outside for shopping, visiting friends and so on. In order to realize these requested specifications, the robot has to achieve both small footprint for coexistence with people and high traveling performance to follow a person.In this paper, the method for tracking and following a person are proposed to realize robust person following at speed as ordinary walkers. The proposed tracking method based on extended Kalman filter is able to track peoples around the personal robot using the data from laser range finder and the robot velocity as inputs. The following controller is based on direct following. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is verified through the experiment using the new prototype robot.

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The present paper introduces a novel posture control approach using feedback compensation with an unstable pole. A narrow and small personal mobility robot (PMR) requires control of its posture in order to achieve quick turning and high acceleration. However, in the conventional control approach that uses the posture angle as a controlled variable, the zero moment point (ZMP) cannot be set to the desired point if an unknown disturbance force acts on the PMR, if the center of gravity of the PMR fluctuates, or if the conditions between the tires and the road surface change. In the present paper, a novel control method using feedback compensation with an unstable pole is proposed in order to achieve the desired ZMP at the steady state. The proposed controller changes the control input for the actuator of the posture control to zero in order to achieve the desired posture angle. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified experimentally using a prototype PMR.

SUMMARYThis paper presents a novel posture control approach using feedback compensation with an unstable pole. For a narrow and small personal mobility robot (PMR), this is needed in order to control its posture for achieving quick turning and high acceleration. However, in the conventional control approach that uses the posture angle as a controlled variable, the zero moment point (ZMP) does not settle to the desired point in the following cases: an unknown disturbance force given to the PMR, a fluctuation in the center of gravity of the PMR, and a change in the conditions between the tires and the road surface. In this paper, a novel control method using feedback compensation with an unstable pole is proposed to achieve the desired ZMP in the steady state. The proposed controller changes the control input for the actuator of posture control to zero in order to achieve the desired posture angle. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified through experiments using a prototype of the PMR. C⃝ 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 193(1): 33-42, 2015; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

SUMMARY This paper presents a novel posture control approach using feedback compensation with an unstable pole. For a narrow and small personal mobility robot (PMR), this is needed in order to control its posture for achieving quick turning and high acceleration. However, in the conventional control approach that uses the posture angle as a controlled variable, the zero moment point (ZMP) does not settle to the desired point in the following cases: an unknown disturbance force given to the PMR, a fluctuation in the center of gravity of the PMR, and a change in the conditions between the tires and the road surface. In this paper, a novel control method using feedback compensation with an unstable pole is proposed to achieve the desired ZMP in the steady state. The proposed controller changes the control input for the actuator of posture control to zero in order to achieve the desired posture angle. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified through experiments using a prototype of the PMR.