Copycat hand — robot hand imitating human motions at high speed and with high accuracy

摘要

We developed a method enabling them to search similar images at high speed with high accuracy and in uniform processing time, even in the case of using a large-scale database, by clustering databases with uniform numbers of data through self-organizing including self-multiplication and self-extinction, and by collating the input image with the data in the database by means of low-order amounts of characteristics of images, while narrowing the search space in accordance with the past history. By estimating the continuous hand finger shape image string by using the method, we succeeded in realizing processing with an estimation error of the joint angle within several degrees, at a processing time of 150–160 f.p.s, and in an operating time without dispersion, in the case of using a PC having a CPU clock frequency of 2.8 GHz and a memory capacity of 1GB. As the image information and the joint angle information are paired in the database, the robot hand, called the 'Copycat hand', was able to reproduce the same motions as those of the hand and fingers of a human being, without any delay in time, by outputting the results of estimation at the robot hand.