Dynamic robots with advanced control systems and high-performance mechanical designs are leaving the laboratory and entering the world. They operate in rough terrain, where existing wheeled and tracked vehicles can not go, as well as inside offices and homes. These robots move dynamically, balance as they go, perceive their environments and use their mobile structures to enhance and extend manipulation. The presentation will give a status report on the work Boston Dynamics is doing to help develop advanced mobile-manipulation robots

Marc Raibert is CEO and founder of Boston Dynamics, a company that creates some of the world’s most advanced robots, such as BigDog, Atlas, Spot and Handle. These robots are inspired by the remarkable ability of animals to move with agility, dexterity, perception and intelligence. A key ingredient of these robots is their dynamic behavior, which contributes to their life-like qualities and their effectiveness performing real tasks in the real-world. Before starting Boston Dynamics, Raibert was professor of EE&CS and Robotics at MIT from 1986-1995 and at Carnegie Mellon University from 1980-1986. There he founded the Leg Laboratory, a lab that helped establish the scientific basis for highly dynamic robots. Raibert is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Many companies are making full efforts for their digital transformation. It is indispensable for reforming their business and creating new business to utilize digital technologies such as AI, IoT, and robotics.
In this session, we will introduce the cutting-edged technology Fujitsu offers with some examples.

In 1984, Mr Hara joined Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. He was engaged in fundamental research related to software and AI.
In June 2015, he assumed office as a director of the company. He was responsible for a wide range of fields including big data, media processing, and knowledge information processing.
In April 2017, he assumed office as Executive Officer of Fujitsu Ltd and he has been in charge of AI service business.

We are facing one of the biggest problems, the trade-off problem: food production and environmental conservation toward the global population 9 Billion time. Robotic technologies including sensing technologies may be a hope to solve the problem, if we can successfully develop them with collaborations with Asian and African people who are growing rapidly. Several robotic technologies for food production will be introduced and solution ways will be discussed in this presentation.

1984: Graduated from Graduate school of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan
After graduatation, Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Okayama University, Japan
2000: Manager, Department of Technology Development, Ishii Industry Co., Ltd., Japan
2006: Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Ehime University, Japan
2007: Professor, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University
2017: President, Japanese Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers
Research activities are automation and sensing systems for Precision Agriculture, Precision Livestock and Aquaculture. He published 28 books on the robotic technologies including translation versions and was given Japan Prize of Agricultural Science April 5, 2017.

The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami occurred in 2011, and the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant occurred. Utilization of remote-controlled machine technology including robot technology was essential for the response against the accident to accomplish various tasks in the high-radiation environment. In this presentation, the robot technologies which have been developed and utilized for the disaster response and the decommissioning are introduced, and technologies and its societal dissemination, which are demanded for disaster prevention and disaster response in the future, are discussed.

Hajime Asama received his M. S. and Dr. Eng. in Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1984 and 1989. He worked in RIKEN Japan from 1986 to 2002 as a research scientist, etc. He became a professor of RACE and School of Engineering of the University of Tokyo in 2002 and 2009. Currently, He is the president-elect of IFAC, and council member of Science Council of Japan. He is a Fellow of JSME and RSJ. His main research interests are distributed autonomous robotic systems, service robotics, etc.

”e-kakashi”, which consists of IoT, Big Data, AI and CPS, has been developed for the purpose of supporting farmers in cultivation. Our system focuses more on utilizing data for cultivation and enables cultivation navigation just like car navigation. In our session, we will introduce our way of overcoming the problems often occurred in agricultural sector and talk about advanced technology in agriculture in the near future. Additionally, we will report the application example of our system in real agricultural site.

PS Solutions Corp.

Norio Yamaguchi

After being involved in applied research on artificial intelligence at KDD Laboratory, Norio consulted on the development of new services at HP Japan. He was involved in setting up Disney Mobile as a business manager at SOFTBANK, after which he used an internal venture system to start an agricultural IoT project, e-kakashi (good scarecrow) from PS Solutions Co., Ltd. Norio has a Ph.D. in information system.

PS Solutions Corp.

Takashi Togami

Takashi graduated with a degree in applied sciences from Australia New South Wales Charles Stuart University. He subsequently studied at Mie University and engaged in research on agricultural ICT. He obtained a doctorate (academic) in 2012 in research related to sensor networks and information utilization on farms. In December 2012 Takashi received an honorable mention at the CIGR subcommittee of the Science Council of Japan. He joined Softbank Mobile in January 2013 where he leads technology development projects based on agricultural IoT technology and know-how.

PS Solutions Corp.

Kyosuke Yamamoto

In 2015 Kyosuke received a masters in agriculture from the University of Tokyo Graduate School. Kyosuke specializes in the application of information science and technology in agricultural fields such as image analysis, machine learning, and data mining, and is currently in charge of research and development of ”e-kakashi”m an agricultural IoT. Kyosuke has a Ph.D in agriculure.

ispace is spearheading a private lunar resource exploration, with a focus on micro-robotics. Ispace will provide lunar transportation at much lower cost and higher frequency than the government-led space missions.

Takeshi studied Aerospace Engineering and received his M.S. degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology. After graduation, Takeshi joined the consulting industry where he developed team management skills and led multiple successful cost reduction projects. In 2010, he founded ispace, inc., the managing company of Team HAKUTO, competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE.

There are many real-time simulators for the public road running test for the European market, which may not match the needs of the Japanese market because of low resolution and low freedom setting avoiding delay calculation. MSC Software is promoting projects to integrate the real dynamics solution for Vehicle Design and Testing ”Adams Car” with Vires’s ”Virtual Test Drive”, a public road simulator of the German national project. In this presentation, we will introduce the challenges we have seen and the future endeavor.

Katsumi Ijichi is currently Director of Business Development Department, responsible for Multibody Dynamics, Real-Time OS and ADAS solution. Katsumi joined MSC Software in 2003, and has served in consulting service and business development roles in mainly Multibody Dynamics solution and Nonlinear FEM integration project.