教員一覧 List of faculty members

KANO Takeshi 教授

KANO, Takeshi Professor

Research Projects

Autonomous distributed systems, in which individual elements interact to produce a function as a whole, are widely found in nature and social systems. Autonomous distributed systems have the advantage of being able to flexibly adapt to changes in the environment surrounding the system and failures of parts of the system. My research focuses primarily on elucidating the principles that connect the "individual" and "whole" of autonomous distributed systems through mathematical modeling, and further, based on these principles, constructing highly versatile and "rational" autonomous distributed control methods to contribute to the design of new engineering systems.

The appeal of research

My research field is highly interdisciplinary, spanning fields such as phenomenological mathematics, mathematical biology, physics, control engineering, robotics, biology, medicine, social sciences, and sports science. The appeal lies in the opportunity to engage in unique discussions that transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Achievements

Here are two representative research findings.

Earthworm balls crawl forward ~A swarm of shape-shifting creatures that use the uneven ground to their advantage~

https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/2023/08/press20230829-03-worm.html

Tubifex worms, small earthworms about 0.3 mm thick and 10-40 mm long, often twist their flexible bodies, and many individuals intertwine to form ball-like clumps. These clumps of tubifex worms move around, changing shape according to the situation, almost as if they were a single living organism. Through behavioral observation experiments, mathematical modeling, and simulations, we have revealed the mechanism by which these clumps of tubifex worms move by utilizing the unevenness of the ground. This achievement is expected to not only lead to an understanding of how animal groups move around in the complex and uneven natural world, but also to the realization of new engineering systems in which many "soft" robots cooperate and function in a highly adaptable manner.

A mobile robot that can "instantly" adapt to unexpected malfunctions, inspired by brittle stars: Expressing the complex movements of brittle stars with simple mathematical formulas.

http://www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/2017/12/press20171211-01.html

Brittle stars are echinoderms with five flexible arms. Although they lack a central nervous system capable of complex information processing like a "brain," and only possess a simple nervous system called radial nerves, they can instantly coordinate their remaining arms to continue propelling themselves even after losing an arm due to an attack by a predator, regardless of how many arms they have left. In this study, based on observations of the behavior of brittle stars with severed arms, we designed an autonomous distributed control law described by a simple mathematical formula: "Each arm only pushes off the ground when it receives a reaction force from the environment in the direction of movement." When this control law was implemented in a brittle star-shaped robot, it was able to adapt and continue moving within seconds, regardless of how its arms were destroyed. This achievement is expected to pave the way for the realization of mobile robots that can continue to function even if a part of their body malfunctions.

Major publications and papers

• D. Owaki, T. Kano, K. Nagasawa, A. Tero, A. Ishiguro, Simple Robot Suggests Physical Interlimb Communication is Essential for Quadruped Walking, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10 (2013), 20120669
• T. Kano, R. Yoshizawa, A. Ishiguro, Tegotae-based Decentralized Control Scheme for Autonomous Gait Transition of Snake-like Robots, Bioinpiration & Biomimetics, 12 (2017), 046009
• T. Kano, E. Sato, T. Ono, H. Aonuma, Y. Matsuzaka, A. Ishiguro, A Brittle Star-like Robot Capable of Immediately Adapting to Unexpected Physical Damage, Royal Society Open Science, 4 (2017), 171200
• T. Kano, K. Yasui, T. Mikami, M. Asally, A. Ishiguro, An Agent-based Model of the Interrelation between the COVID-19 Outbreak and Economic Activities, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 477 (2021), 20200604
• T. Kano, T. Kanno, T. Mikami, A. Ishiguro, Active-sensing-based Decentralized Control of Autonomous Mobile Agents for Quick and Smooth Collision Avoidance, Frontiers in Robotics and AI 9, (2022), 992716
• R. Thandiackal, K. Melo, L. Paez, J. Herault, T. Kano, K. Akiyama, F. Boyer, D. Ryczko, A. Ishiguro, AJ Ijspeert, Emergence of Robust Self-Organized Undulatory Swimming Based on Local Hydrodynamic Force Sensing, Science Robotics, 6 (2021), eabf6354
• T. Mikami, D. Wakita, R. Kobayashi, A. Ishiguro, T. Kano, Elongating, Entwining, and Dragging: Mechanism for Adaptive Locomotion of Tubificine Worm Blobs in a Confined Environment, Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 17 (2023), 1207374