Humanoids09
9th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots

By Yoshihiko Nakamura
University of Tokyo

Optimization or variational theories have explained various physical phenomena of Mother Nature. Can optimization theories still play an essential roll in explaining biological sensory-motor systems including humans? Robotics has developed algorithms of kinematics, dynamics, and optimization. The efficient dynamics computation algorithms developed for multibody systems are applied to inverse and forward dynamics of "human figures", namely humans and humanoids. The same linear or quadratic programing developed for contact force modeling of multi-fingered robot hands, is now applied to invasive estimation of skeletal muscle activities of the human wholebody with or without myoelectrical measurements. Our currently focus is on modeling neuromuscular network including somatic reflex based on hypothetic optimality conditions. This talk will introduce the methods and current status of our study. Robotic optimization and algorithms will model the sensory-motor network of human wholebody and then offer, in the future, a pathway to study human mind-and-body problems using the mathematical model.

About the speaker

Yoshihiko NAKAMURA received Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University in 1985. He is currently a professor at the Department of Mechano-Informatics, the University of Tokyo. Dr. Nakamura's research stems from the foundation of kinematics, dynamics, and control. Humanoid robotics, cognitive robotics, neuromusculoskeletal human model, biomedical systems applications, and their computational algorithms and software are the current fields of his research. He conducted a CREST Project "Brain-like Information Processing for Humanoid Robots" (1998-2003) supported by the Japan Science and Technology Corporation. His book publication includes Advanced Robotics: Redundancy and Optimization (1991 Addison-Wesley), Building the Robot Brain (2003 Iwanami), and Robot Motion (coauthored with M. Uchiyama, 2004 Iwanami) for which the Publication Award was presented by the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers in 2005. Dr. Nakamura received the excellent paper awards from the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers in 1985, from the Artificial Intelligence Society of Japan in 2003, and from the Robotics Society of Japan in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2007 respectively. He also received the International 3D Award for Technological Innovation in 2003. Dr. Nakamura was a recipient of King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Transactions Paper Award, IEEE Transaction of Robotics and Automation in 2001 and 2002. He was appointed as the Distinguished Lecture for 2006-2008 of the Robotics and Automation Society of IEEE and received the Most Active Distinguished Lecture Award in 2007. He is a member of academic societies including IEEE. He is also the Vice President of International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM), and the Chairman of the Japan Council of IFToMM. Dr. Nakamura is a Foreign Member of Academy of Engineering Science of Serbia, and a Fellow of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Robotics Society of Japan, and the World Academy of Art and Science.