This paper presents a novel fingertip system with a two-layer structure for robotic hands. The outer part of the structure consists of a rubber bag filled with fluid, called the “fluid fingertip,” while the inner part consists of a rigid link mechanism called a “microgripper.” The fingertip thus is a rigid/fluid hybrid system. The fluid fingertip is effective for grasping delicate objects, that is, it can decrease the impulsive force upon contact, and absorb uncertainties in object shapes and contact force. However, it can only apply a small grasping force such that holding a heavy object with a robotic hand with fluid fingertips is difficult. Additionally, contact uncertainties including inaccuracies in the contact position control cannot be avoided. In contrast, rigid fingertips can apply considerable grasping forces and thus grasp heavy objects effectively, although this makes delicate grasping difficult. To maintain the benefits of the fluid fingertip while overcoming its disadvantages, the present study examines passively operable microgripper-embedded fluid fingertips. Our goal is to use the gripper to enhance the positioning accuracy and increase the grasping force by adding geometrical constraints to the existing mechanical constraints. Grasping tests showed that the gripper with the developed fingertips can grasp a wide variety of objects, both fragile and heavy.

Tofu shows the following compression behavior. First, the behavior is non-linear; subsequently, the behavior becomes elastic/linear, followed by yielding and fracture. A linear behavior indicates that there is no fracture, but further increase of compression can cause yielding or fracture. The compression in the region of linear behavior then can be regarded as maximum. With this in mind, this paper presented a grasping condition of controlling the amount of compression so that the compression behavior can be linear. This condition is applied to the previously proposed fluid fingertip that utilizes a rubber bag filled with a viscoelastic fluid and having a rigid layer inside the fluid. In addition, this paper presents a methodology for checking whether the grasping condition is held, based on our previously developed phase change detection method of comparing the fitting accuracies of different approximation models. Additionally, this paper presents the reason behind the behavioral change of fluid pressure. Before phase change, the fluid fingertip behaves like a rigid fingertip, while after phase change, the contact pressure is transmitted to the fluid pressure and can be observed by the fluid pressure. The validity of the approach was shown through experiments.

This study examines how the registration of certain agricultural regions affects the sales of vegetables classified as traditional. We focused on the sales trends of traditional vegetables from the Noto region, one of the first designated sites of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). We compared the sales of recognized traditional vegetables to those of similar traditional vegetables from nearby areas and vegetables labeled with the same place names as the traditional vegetables but without elements of traditionality in branding. The study analyzed the sale and relevant trends of four categories of vegetable: Kaga vegetables, vegetables labeled “Kaga”, Noto vegetables, and vegetables labeled “Noto”. We further analyzed the trends by applying Convention Theory to understand the underpinning “orders of worth” in the purchase and sale of the items. Both Noto vegetables and place-labeled vegetables increased in overall sales since GIAHS registration in 2011. The recent increases in sales volume and number of items, however, were largely due to the production of lettuce, a crop from a vegetable factory. By applying Convention Theory, we identified that in the agriculture of the region, industrial farming impacted even the GIAHS registered site. Thus, careful collection and analysis of evidence is necessary to evaluate the effects of GIAHS registration and draft an action plan for further evidence-based policy making.

In recent years, the need for piping inspection has been increasing, and various in-pipe inspection robots have been studied and developed by several research and educational institutes and companies so far. However, there are few verification examples of moving mechanisms considering the run-through performance of pipe fitting (bent pipes and branch pipes). We have proposed an omnidirectional mobile mechanism for pipe-inspection robot in small diameter pipes. A movement control method in the pipe by omnidirectional movement mechanism equipped with four independent rotary wheels has been discussed. It was shown that the approach of movement control of vehicles was applicable. The straight, spiral and rotary movements can be confirmed by modeling of the omnidirectional mechanism and simulation using proposed method.

Inspection inside small-diameter pipelines is difficult because the narrow interior space limits the field of view of onboard cameras. Even when a crack is successfully detected, it may still appear near the image boundary rather than in a suitable position for observation. To address this issue, this study proposes a vision-guided active crack alignment framework for small-diameter pipe inspection robots. The proposed framework uses a YOLOv5s detector to identify the crack region and extract the center of the detected bounding box. The positional difference between the crack center and the image center is defined as the image-plane alignment error. After low-pass filtering, this error is converted into actuator-side reference input through a pixel-to-motor mapping, and a PID-based closed-loop controller is used to regulate a local camera adjustment mechanism so that the detected crack region moves toward the image center. The framework is evaluated mainly through simulation, including controller comparison, different initial offset conditions, parameter sensitivity analysis, robustness tests under visual fluctuation and mapping uncertainty, and an ablation study. The controller comparison shows that all tested PID-based controllers achieve stable convergence, while the fuzzy PID controller provides the best overall performance among the tested cases in terms of settling time, steady-state error, and RMS error. The framework also remains stable under different crack positions and moderate uncertainty conditions. In addition, a preliminary laboratory-scale physical consistency test is conducted to examine whether the convergence tendency observed in simulation can also be reproduced under real visual feedback and actuator response. The preliminary physical results show a convergence tendency consistent with the simulation trend, thereby providing initial support for the practical implementability of the proposed detection-driven alignment concept. Complete integration with an in-pipe robot platform and validation under realistic pipe environments remain future work.