The parallel slider system can be configured as a parallel robot by combining with other link devices. Therefore, the degree of positioning of the parallel slider would have considerable influence on the smooth operation of the parallel robot. In order to examine the degree of positioning of each slider, the following trajectory is equally presented, and the possibility of tracking the slider trajectory examined by application of the PD and PND control. From the experimental results, the dynamic characteristics of the slider show different responses to differing equivalent frictional forces acting on the slider. The PND control can make the rise time shorter than the PD control, and the PND control and PD control can smoothly follow the same trajectory given to each slider. It is therefore anticipated that the PND control and the PD control could be successfully implemented to follow the trajectory of a parallel robot based on a parallel slider system. It would then be necessary to fabricate slider experimental equipment capable of generating torque of sufficient magnitude to successfully reduce the trajectory error of the slider.

In this paper, two-DOF parallel manipulator has the sliders which execute a linear reciprocating motion depending on parallel guides and the end-effector which can be adjusted arbitrarily. To investigate the dynamic characteristics of the manipulator, the dynamic performance index is used. The index is able to be obtained by the relation between the Jacobian matrix and the inertia matrix. The kinematic and the dynamic analysis find these matrices. Also, the dynamic model of the manipulator is derived from the Lagrange formula. This model represents complicated nonlinear equations of motion. With the simulation results of the dynamic characteristic of the manipulator, we find that the dynamic performance index is based on the selection of the ranges for the continuous movement of the manipulator and the dynamic model derived can be used to the control algorithm development of the manipulator.

Recently, technologies to help the elderly or disabled people who have difficulty in walking are being developed. In order to develop these technologies, it is necessary to construct a system that gathers the gait data of people and analysis of these data is also important. In this research, we constructed the development of sensor system which consists of pressure sensor, three-axis accelerometer and two-axis gyro sensor. We used k-means clustering algorithm to classify the data for characterization, and then calculated the symmetry index with histogram which was produced from each cluster. We collected gait data from sensors attached on two subjects. The experiment was conducted for two kinds of gait status. One is walking with normal gait; the other is walking with abnormal gait (abnormal gait means that the subject walks by dragging the right leg intentionally). With the result from the analysis of acceleration component, we were able to confirm that the analysis technique of this data could be used to determine gait symmetry. In addition, by adding gyro components in the analysis, we could find that the symmetry index was appropriate to express symmetry better.

In this paper, a parallel manipulator is comprised of two sliders and four links. Sliders execute a linear reciprocating motion depending on parallel guides and make the connected links rotate. A couple of links connected by sliders do coupling motion. The end-effector called a link tip has orientation angle. Through the kinematics analysis of this manipulator, we found displacement, velocity and acceleration using direct and inverse kinematics. We used equations that derived from this analysis and determined five constraint conditions. These conditions had much to do with rotation states of links, the relative relation of link length and coupling motion state. To verify those, we suggest a new algorithm regarding constraint conditions of a manipulator. With the result which performed the algorithm, we found out that operation range of coupled links was limited by relative relation of link length and that manipulator was not able to carry out a series of link motion , in case of being the link vertical between two parallel guides.