This paper considers theoretically and experimentally the control problem of the biped locomotion system on the double support phase. The motion on the double support phase is described by the constrained dynamic system with two static constraints. The reduced order equations are derived by eliminating Lagrange's multiplier from the constrained equations, and a control algorithm for stabilizing the motion is obtained in reduced space. Finally, this algorithm is applied to an actual robot constructed in our laboratory and its usefulness is shown.

A robot simulation system has been developed to assist in the design of robots, layouts and robot task planning. A general type of robot manipulator can be stimulated taking into consideration the geometrical and kinematical model of the robot. The work cell with multiple robots and its industrial environment is displayed on CRT by a 3-D computer graphic system. Examples and a description of the mathematical algorithm for the kinematic modelling are also included.

A method that has been proposed for the design of a control system of a muti-link arm is the optimum approach applied to the system linearized around its nominal trajectory, i.e. the dynamic trajectory that the manipulator should follow. This method works, in as much as the initial deviation from the reference trajectory is small enough. When such is not the case, it is necessary to take into account the quadratic term in the approximation, and the paper proposes a small parameter technique to solve the corresponding optimum control problem which otherwise involves cumbersome calculations.

Sufficient conditions are derived for the relative controllability of nonlinear perturbations of linear systems with distributed delays in control variable. The results are a generalization of previous results and are obtained by using Schauder's fixed point theorem.

Increasing productivity in manufacturing industry leads to a continuing shift in the balance between employment in ‘productive’ and in ‘service’ industries, the latter providing more employment at present in a ratio of about 70:30. This paper is primarily concerned with employment in manufacturing industry. Some have seen automation as a means of de-skilling jobs, but there is evidence of a gradual ‘upward’ shift of skill requirements in manufacturing industry: the unskilled workers are being eliminated and the skilled manual workers replaced by technicians with mental skills. This introduces the need for re-training and raises the question whether one can have a society in which there are no unskilled persons.

There can be little doubt that we are seeing a rapid acceleration in the pace of technological change as we approach the 1990s. In manufacturing industry this move towards automation is seen as a key element in preserving and improving competitiveness - the ‘fitter’ part of the well-known ‘leaner and fitter’ prescription for the revival of British industry.

It is, however, important to remember that technology is only one term in the equation and that, for the prescription to work, consideration must be made of the social and economic implications of change. This paper explores some of these implications from both a national and a company-level perspective and concludes that the benefits of advanced automation will only be realised if a total systems approach is taken to its implementation.