Navigation system for an autonomous robot using an ocellus camera in an indoor environment

Autonomous and mobile robots are being expected to provide various services in human living environments. However, many problems remain to be solved in the development of autonomous robots that can work like humans. When a robot moves, it is important that it be able to have self-localization abilities and recognize obstacles. For a human, the present location can be correctly checked through a comparison between memorized information assuming, it is correct, and the present situation. In addition, the distance to an object and the perception of its size can be estimated by a sense of distance based on memory or experience. Therefore, the environment for robotic activity assumed in this study was a finite-space such as a family room, an office, or a hospital room. Because an accurate estimation of position is important to the success of a robot, we have developed a navigation system with self-localization ability which uses only a CCD camera that can detect whether the robot is moving accurately in a room or corridor. This article describes how this system has been implemented and tested with our developed robot.     

Detection of environmental changes from network structure

We studied the networks of the temperature record in the atmosphere. They are made by the strength of the synchronization, including the delay between temperatures at locations on Earth. We consider these locations as nodes, and we consider a pair of locations as a link if the synchronization between them is stronger than a threshold. The network is scale-free, which is thought to contribute to the stability of the climate. This work was presented in part at the 12th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 25–27, 2007     

Compact electrostatic levitator for diffraction measurements with a two axis diffractometer and a laboratory x-ray source

A compact electrostatic levitator was developed for the structural analysis of high-temperature liquids by x-ray diffraction methods. The size of the levitator was 200 mm in diameter and 200 mm in height and can be set up on a two axis diffractometer with a laboratory x-ray source, which is very convenient in performing structural measurements of high-temperature liquids. In particular, since the laboratory x-ray source allows a great amount of user time, preliminary or challenging experiments can be performed with trial and error, which prepares and complements synchrotron x-ray experiments. The present small apparatus also provides the advantage of portability and facility of setting. To demonstrate the capability of this electrostatic levitator, the static structure factors of alumina and silicon samples in their liquid phases were successfully measured.     

Japanese/English Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Exploration of Query Translation and Transliteration

Cross-language information retrieval (CLIR), where queriesand documents are in different languages, has of late become one ofthe major topics within the information retrieval community. Thispaper proposes a Japanese/English CLIR system, where we combine aquery translation and retrieval modules. We currently target theretrieval of technical documents, and therefore the performance of oursystem is highly dependent on the quality of the translation oftechnical terms. However, the technical term translation is stillproblematic in that technical terms are often compound words, and thusnew terms are progressively created by combining existing basewords. In addition, Japanese often represents loanwords based on itsspecial phonogram. Consequently, existing dictionaries find itdifficult to achieve sufficient coverage. To counter the firstproblem, we produce a Japanese/English dictionary for base words, andtranslate compound words on a word-by-word basis. We also use aprobabilistic method to resolve translation ambiguity. For the secondproblem, we use a transliteration method, which corresponds wordsunlisted in the base word dictionary to their phonetic equivalents inthe target language. We evaluate our system using a test collectionfor CLIR, and show that both the compound word translation andtransliteration methods improve the system performance.     

The influence of carboxylate ions on the growth of β-FeOOH particles

Colloidal -FeOOH particles were produced by hydrolysis of FeCl₃ solutions doped with varied amounts of formate, lactate, oxalate, tartarate, pyromellitate and EDTA ions at 100 °C. The resulting particles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and the adsorption of nitrogen and water. With increasing concentration of added carboxylate ions, the mean modal size of the particles formed increased at low concentrations and decreased after passing the maximum. The crystallite sizes also revealed a maximum on adding EDTA, oxalate and lactate ions, while they monotonically decreased with the addition of other ions. Doping with tartarate and pyromellitate ions by more than 7 and 10 mol%, respectively, produced amorphous particles containing a large amount of these ions. The particles formed with 20 mol% tartarate ions adsorbed water selectively.     

A counterexample to a proposed dynamic programming algorithm for optimal bid construction in an auction-based fully distributed manufacturing system

The paper by Veeramani and Wang (Int J Adv Manuf Technol 28:541–550, 2006) published in this journal offers a general bid construction scheme for minimizing the job flow time in auction-based manufacturing control and claims the optimality of the procedure. The purpose of this note is to provide a small example, in which their proposed new method fails to produce an optimal solution. We also address efficient correct algorithms so as to protect the readers from mistakenly believing that their new procedure is a better way of computing solutions.     

Helium gas permeability of montmorillonite/epoxy nanocomposites

Helium gas permeability of silicate clay (montmorillonite) particles/epoxy nanocomposites was examined. The incorporation of increasing amounts of montmorillonite particles reduced the helium gas permeability. Based on Fick’s law, gas permeation behavior of the nanocomposite was evaluated. With the increase of montmorillonite loading, gas diffusivity decreased, while gas solubility increased. Helium diffusion behavior is in agreement to the numerical results based on the Hatta–Taya–Eshelby theory. It has been revealed that dispersion of nanoscale platelets in polymer is effective in improving gas barrier property.     

Ion-velocity dependence of high-density electronic excitation effects in oxide superconductors

Thin films of EuBa₂Cu₃O_y oxide superconductor have been irradiated with high energy heavy ions (80 MeV I, 125 MeV Br, 1.1 GeV Mo and 3.5 GeV Xe) having same electronic stopping power, S_e, in order to investigate the ion-velocity dependence of the electronic excitation effects under the constant electronic energy deposition. Although S_e is constant, a strong reduction in the irradiation effect on lattice parameter with increasing ion-velocity is observed in the low ion-velocity region around E  1 MeV/nucleon, while the ion-velocity dependence is hardly observed in the high ion-velocity region of E > 10 MeV/nucleon. If the observed velocity-dependence is assumed to be due to the change in the fraction of S_e contributing to defect creation, the fraction in the low velocity region (E  0.6 MeV/nucleon) is estimated to be about two times larger than that in the high velocity region (E > 10 MeV/nucleon).     

感应电机无速度传感器矢量控制系统的定子电阻在线辨识

该文针对利用磁通观测器推算转子磁通的感应电机无速度传感器矢量控制系统，提出了定子电阻在线辨识法。在利用q轴磁通推算转速的基础上，该系统利用d轴磁通误差实现定子电阻在线辨识，该方案的优点是系统简单，解决了低速运行时电压模型的定子电阻变化对系统稳定性和速度控制精度的影响问题。数字仿真和实验结果验证了定子电阻在线辨识的必要性和该方案的有效性。     

Narrow-beam divergence 1.3-μm multiple-quantum-well laser diodeswith monolithically integrated tapered thickness waveguide

This paper describes the optimum design, fabrication, and performance of a 1.3-μm multiple-quantum-well (MQW) laser diode monolithically integrated with a tapered thickness spot-size transformer. The dependence of the lasing characteristics on the thickness distribution of the core layer and on the current injection profile of the device were analyzed. This integrated laser with its optimized structure performed at a low threshold current of 22.2 mA, even at 85°C. The integrated spot-size transformer effectively reduced the lateral and vertical far-field FWHM's to 8° and 9°, respectively. A very long lifetime of over 1×10⁵ h was estimated at 85°C and 8 mW under CW operation