Tomoya Kamimura, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan.
Email: kamimura.tomoya[at]nitech.ac.jp
Biography
Tomoya Kamimura received the B.S., M. S., and Ph. D. (Eng.) degree from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan in 2014, 2016, and 2020, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan. His research interests include quadruped locomotion, biped locomotion, passive walking and running, and legged robots. He is a member of IEEE, the Society of Instruments and Control Engineers, and Robotics Society of Japan.
Animals use many degrees of freedom of their entire body to perform efficient and sophisticated locomotion. Understanding animal locomotion and applying it to robot design and control can facilitate the development of better robots. However, animal locomotion is a complex dynamic phenomenon resulting from interactions between the body, nervous system, and environment. Therefore, understanding the entire dynamic principles of locomotion from observation alone is difficult.
So far, to overcome the limitation, we are using simple dynamical models to reveal and understand the mechanisms under which animals achieve such fascinating locomotion. Futhermore, we are trying to develop completely new legged robot based on the findings from simple models.
We have investigated the principle of the cheetah's high-speed running by utilizing the motion of its spine using a simple dynamical model. The model consists of rigid bodies and springs. Two rigid bodies are connected by a springy joint to represent the flexibility of the cheetah torso.
From the simple model, we have revealed that the proper spine bending motion enables efficient and high-speed running by reducing the ground reaction force.
Tomoya Kamimura, Shinya Aoi, Kazuo Tsuchiya, and Fumitoshi Matsuno, "Body flexibility effects on foot loading in quadruped bounding based on a simple analytical model", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 2830―2837, 2018.
Tomoya Kamimura, Shinya Aoi, Yasuo Higurashi, Naomi Wada, Kazuo Tsuchiya, and Fumitoshi Matsuno, "Dynamical determinants enabling two different types of flight in cheetah gallop to enhance speed through spine movement," Scientific Reports, Vol. 11, 9631, 2021.
Tomoya Kamimura, Kaho Sato, Shinya Aoi, Yasuo Higurashi, Naomi Wada, Kazuo Tsuchiya, Akihito Sano, and Fumitoshi Matsuno, "Three characteristics of cheetah galloping improve running performance through spinal movement: a modeling study", Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Vol. 10, 825638, 2022.
We are also interested in bipeds, especially in human locomotion. Bipedal gait is classified into walking and running. They are typically treated as different dynamical models, the former is inverted pendulum, and the latter is inverted spring. However, humans achieve two types of gaits through their single body. Using simple dynamical models, we are searching common and specific features of two gaits.
Currently we are focusing on the dynamics of upper body. A wobbling mass, which represents the effect of upper body, is attached to the simple models. It has been revealed that the vertical and horizontal wobbling mass improved the performances of running and walking, respectively.
Tomoya Kamimura, Koudai Sato, Daiki Murayama, Nanako Kawase, and Akihito Sano, “Dynamical effect of elastically supported wobbling mass on biped running,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2021 (IROS 2021), Prague (Online), Sep., 2021.
Tomoya Kamimura, Akihito Sano, "Effect of the dynamics of a horizontally wobbling mass on biped walking performance," 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2023), arXiv:2209.14515 [cs.RO], London, Jun., 2023.
Yusuke Sakurai, Tomoya Kamimura, Yuki Sakamoto, Shohei Nishii, Kodai Sato, Yuta Fujiwara, and Akihito Sano, "Bipedal Robot Running: Human-like Actuation Timing Using Fast and Slow Adaptations," Advanced Robotics, Vol. 38, No. 8, pp. 561–572, 2024. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/01691864.2024.2336255 (arXiv:2303.00910 [cs.RO]).
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