About Mizuuchi Lab.

Policies, etc.

Research on vast aspects and topics of intelligent machines, including design principles, building methodologies, controlling methodologies, and so on. Main targets includes humanoid robots and home robots.
Vast and deep knowledge, skills, thoughts, and discussions. Aiming at acquiring multiple disciplines (each, thoroughly) including mechanical engineering, information science and technology, electrics and electronics, cognitive science, mathematics, ...
Both viewpoints: analysis and synthesis, top-down and bottom-up
Create 'great things'. Aim at it.
Have what I want to do, what I want to realize. Have dream(s).
To begin is most important. The most important thing for cleaning a room is to start cleaning.
Out of the counsel of three comes wisdom. Do brain-stormings.
Do not wait instructions. Find what you should do.
Think. Avoid only thinking.

Lab. life

Regular meetings (once a week). Research presentations (once a month a person). Paper introduction seminars (once a semester a person).
Build.14 room#208 is the main experiment room. There is another room for machining, etc.
Google Calendar for schedule management

A year of the Lab.

Dec : Decision of next school-year members. Those who want to start can start¹.
Jan : Completion of graduations theses, master's theses, and PhD theses.
Feb : Completion of graduations theses, master's theses, and PhD theses. Presentations and defences for the theses. Party. Submit papers for Robomec³.
Mar : No classes, no reports, and no grad. theses. Sped full of your time for your research. M1 have to prepare mid-term presentations. How about going to snow mountains as well?
Apr : New school-year starts. All members' engines start. Beginning is crucial. Make your brains and hands work full. New members may have a training project¹ as well.
May : New members finish their training project and all members progress their own research. ICRA⁴ is held.
Jun : Robomec³ is held. Think about what to present at the RSJ conference² in autumn.
Jul : Submit papers for RSJ². Undergraduates also should think about the submission.
Aug : The entrance exam of graduate school. Those without the exam should work hard as there are no classes in this period.
Sep : RSJ² is held. Mid-term presentations of graduation theses.
Oct : New semester starts. IROS⁵ is held. Large parts of theses will be based on efforts during this period.
Nov : Lab tours for 3rd year students who are selecting which lab to join. Each lab member shows his/her demonstration.
Dec : Humanoids⁶ is held. Abstract shapes of theses are gradually appear. Bounen-kai as well

Notes:

It's good for a new member of the Lab. to decide a short-term project which can be completed in a few weeks, in which he/she can learn the Lab environments, what robots are like, that moving hands makes him/her find things that couldn't be known only by moving the brain, and so on. If you start before April, you can boot your own research earlier. You can start when your participation to our Lab is decided. You will think and decide the direction of your research based on discussions with the adviser. You may also find what you want to do during the start-up project.

Robomech means JSME (Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering) Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics. It is annualy held around May or June. All the presentations are by posters, so you can check all the presentations. Questions and discussions are easier than aural presentation style. Some people bring their results and carry out demonstrations. 2017 in Koriyama. 2018 in Kokura. 2019 in Hiroshima. 2020,2021 online. 2022 in Sapporo.

RSJ suggests the Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan, which is the largest domestic conference of robotics in Japan. In RSJ2009 in Yokohama, there were 18 parallel sessions in 3 days. More than 500 people participated in the banquet at the 2nd night rooms and all foods ran out in the first 10 minutes. RSJ is the acronym of The Robotics Society of Japan, which means originally an academic society itself. But the annual conferences of the society are called RSJ or RSJ2010. 2017 in Toyo Univ. 2018 in Chubu Univ. 2019 in Waseda Univ. 2020,2021 online. 2022 in Univ. of Tokyo.

ICRA is IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. IEEE is The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which is the biggest society in the world and covers almost all fields of engineering. IEEE's conferences are known as somewhat authoritative conferences. ICRA is the most statusy conference in the field of robotics. Accept ratio is comparatively low; about 800 papers are accepted from more than 2000 submitted papers. There are 13 to 15 parallel technical sessions in 3 days and workshops and turorials for extra 2 days. Usually there are some papers which persons not attending should also check. 2018Brisbane. 2019Montreal. 2020~~Paris~~online. 2021Xian(hybrid). 2022Philadelphia

IROS is IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. This conference is jointly held by IEEE and RSJ. IROS has been known as 2nd statusy conference in robotics. Recently IROS is as statusy as ICRA. ICRA in springs and IROS in autumns are the two beg conference in world robotics research community. 2018 in Madrid. 2019 in Macau. 2020~~LasVegas~~. 2021~~Prague~~. 2022 in Kyoto

IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots. IEEE-RAS is the Robotics and Automation Society of IEEE. This conference began in 2000 and we felt a kind of impression that there could be an individual conference only for Humanoid Robots. 2018 in Beijin. 2019 in Toronto. 2020~~Munich~~(online in 2021). 2022 in Okinawa.

Overview

Prof. Mizuuchi joined the faculty of this Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in 2009, and the Lab. is new. The research in the Lab is roughly said as: thinking about how we can build new machines with learning from human beings and animals in various aspects. Building a humanoid is an example. The Lab. covers vast fields and aspects such as mechanics of robot bodies, recognition and decision (intelligence), controlling algorithms, actuators and sensors; it means that our research covers from software to hardware, and from dynamics to biology. You can find detail subjects in Research.

Who is Mizuuchi?

This photo is a snapshot of him.