Wire-free robotics and robot skin
Taking wires and batteries out of robots. Wireless power is built into the body of a snake robot and into the surface a wall-running camera robot drives on, so cable tangles and battery swaps no longer limit what the robot can do.
What holds a robot back is often not its motors but its wiring and batteries. Cables that cross a joint tangle and break as the body bends, and batteries cap both the weight and the operating time. The idea here is to turn the robot's skin, and the surface it moves on, into a wireless power line.
In the snake robot, motor-driven joints travel along rack gears inside the body, so no wire can follow them. A soft robot skin powers those joints wirelessly instead, giving a 1.3 kg, 7.6 W robot that bends like a multi-joint snake with only a few joints (IEEE RA-L Best Paper Award).
The wall-running camera robot draws power while it drives over meander coils laid on the wall. It never has to stop or return to charge, so a small robot can keep watching a wide indoor area for long periods.
Publications12
Journal2
🏆Joint-repositionable Inner-wireless Planar Snake Robot
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 4994-5001 (May 2025).
Best Paper Award
@article{Kanada_2025,
title={Joint-Repositionable Inner-Wireless Planar Snake Robot},
volume={10},
ISSN={2377-3774},
url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2025.3555394},
DOI={10.1109/lra.2025.3555394},
number={5},
journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
publisher={Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)},
author={Kanada, Ayato and Takahashi, Ryo and Hayashi, Keito and Hosaka, Ryusuke and Yukita, Wakako and Nakashima, Yasutaka and Yokota, Tomoyuki and Someya, Takao and Kamezaki, Mitsuhiro and Kawahara, Yoshihiro and Yamamoto, Motoji},
year={2025},
month=May,
pages={4994–5001}
}Surface Routing for Wireless Power Transfer using 2-D Relay Resonator Arrays
IEEE Access, Vol. 9, pp. 133102 - 133110 (September 2021).
@article{Morita_2021,
title={Surface Routing for Wireless Power Transfer Using 2-D Relay Resonator Arrays},
volume={9},
ISSN={2169-3536},
url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3115143},
DOI={10.1109/access.2021.3115143},
journal={IEEE Access},
publisher={Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)},
author={Morita, Masahiro and Sasatani, Takuya and Takahashi, Ryo and Kawahara, Yoshihiro},
year={2021},
pages={133102–133110}
}Conference2
Dense-Joint-Based Obstacle-Aided Locomotion with a Joint-Repositionable Snake Robot
2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), To appear, Pittsburgh, USA (October 2026).
@inproceedings{minomo2026densejointbased,
title = {Dense-Joint-Based Obstacle-Aided Locomotion with a Joint-Repositionable Snake Robot},
author = {K. Minomo and R. Takahashi and K. Yasui and Y. Nakashima and M. Yamamoto and A. Kanada},
booktitle = {2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
note = {To appear},
address = {Pittsburgh, USA},
year = {2026},
month = oct
}Topology Construction Protocol for Wireless Power Transfer System with a 2-D Relay Resonator Array
Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics 2020 (ICCE), pp.1-5, Las Vegas, US (January 2020).
@inproceedings{Morita_2020,
title={Topology Construction Protocol for Wireless Power Transfer System with a 2-D Relay Resonator Array},
url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICCE46568.2020.9043052},
DOI={10.1109/icce46568.2020.9043052},
booktitle={2020 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)},
publisher={IEEE},
author={Morita, Masahiro and Sasatani, Takuya and Takahashi, Ryo and Kawahara, Yoshihiro},
year={2020},
month=Jan,
pages={1–5}
}Domestic8
メアンダコイル上の小型移動ロボットの走行中無線給電における給電効率を考慮した探索的経路生成手法
ROBOMECH, 1P1-H09, 福岡 (June 2026).
@inproceedings{韓燦2026x,
title = {メアンダコイル上の小型移動ロボットの走行中無線給電における給電効率を考慮した探索的経路生成手法},
author = {韓燦教 and 高橋亮 and 横田知之 and 川原圭博},
booktitle = {ROBOMECH},
note = {1P1-H09},
address = {福岡},
year = {2026},
month = jun
}関節の高密度化がヘビ型ロボットの障害物利用推進に与える影響の調査
ROBOMECH 2026, 2A1-I09, 福岡 (June 2026).
@inproceedings{蓑毛2026x,
title = {関節の高密度化がヘビ型ロボットの障害物利用推進に与える影響の調査},
author = {蓑毛響介 and 高橋亮 and 安井浩太郎 and 山本元司 and 中島康貴 and 金田礼人},
booktitle = {ROBOMECH 2026},
note = {2A1-I09},
address = {福岡},
year = {2026},
month = jun
}Roam beyond Battery: 長期的な屋内広範囲運用に向けた無線給電対応の小型移動ロボットネットワーク
ROBOMECH2025, 2A1-J10, 山形 (June 2025).
ROBOMECH2025 ベストデモンストレーション表彰
@inproceedings{韓燦2025roam,
title = {Roam beyond Battery: 長期的な屋内広範囲運用に向けた無線給電対応の小型移動ロボットネットワーク},
author = {韓燦教 and 高橋亮 and 野田聡人 and 川原圭博},
booktitle = {ROBOMECH2025},
note = {2A1-J10},
address = {山形},
year = {2025},
month = jun
}移動関節ヘビ型ロボット:任意の体幹位置を能動屈曲可能なヘビ型ロボットによるセンサレス狭路推進制御の検討
ROBOMECH2025, 2A1-R01, 山形 (June 2025).
@inproceedings{保坂2025x,
title = {移動関節ヘビ型ロボット:任意の体幹位置を能動屈曲可能なヘビ型ロボットによるセンサレス狭路推進制御の検討},
author = {保坂琉介 and 金田礼人 and 林渓人 and 中島康貴 and 高橋亮 and 雪田和歌子 and 横田知之 and 染谷隆夫 and 亀﨑允啓 and 川原圭博 and 佐藤峻 and 来見田淳也 and 岩瀬英治 and 山本元司},
booktitle = {ROBOMECH2025},
note = {2A1-R01},
address = {山形},
year = {2025},
month = jun
}強化学習による移動関節ヘビ型ロボットの移動パターン獲得
情報処理学会 総合大会, 5J-05, 大阪 (March 2025).
@inproceedings{黒田2025x,
title = {強化学習による移動関節ヘビ型ロボットの移動パターン獲得},
author = {黒田楓馬 and 金田礼人 and 高橋亮 and 亀﨑允啓 and 川原圭博},
booktitle = {情報処理学会 総合大会},
note = {5J-05},
address = {大阪},
year = {2025},
month = mar
}自在関節索状ロボットのインナーワイヤレス化に向けた無線給電ソフトロボットスキンの検討
第42回日本ロボット学会学術講演会, 1C2-02, 大阪 (September 2024).
@inproceedings{黒田2024x,
title = {自在関節索状ロボットのインナーワイヤレス化に向けた無線給電ソフトロボットスキンの検討},
author = {黒田楓馬 and 高橋亮 and 金田礼人 and 佐藤峻 and 亀﨑允啓 and 川原圭博},
booktitle = {第42回日本ロボット学会学術講演会},
note = {1C2-02},
address = {大阪},
year = {2024},
month = sep
}マルチモード準静空洞共振器を用いた無線給電における中継器の構成についての検討
信学総大 2020, B-20-11, 広島,日本 (March 2020).
@inproceedings{平井2020x,
title = {マルチモード準静空洞共振器を用いた無線給電における中継器の構成についての検討},
author = {平井雄太 and 笹谷拓也 and 高橋亮 and 川原圭博},
booktitle = {信学総大 2020},
note = {B-20-11},
address = {広島,日本},
year = {2020},
month = mar
}1MHz磁界共振結合方式を用いた無線給電プラレールの設計と製作 依頼講演
信学技報, Vol. 118, No. 227, WPT2018-50, pp. 111-114, 京都 (October 2018).
@inproceedings{角谷2018mhz,
title = {1MHz磁界共振結合方式を用いた無線給電プラレールの設計と製作},
author = {角谷和宣 and 西澤勇輝 and 笹谷拓也 and 高橋亮 and 成末義哲 and 川原圭博},
booktitle = {信学技報},
note = {Vol. 118, No. 227, WPT2018-50, pp. 111-114},
address = {京都},
year = {2018},
month = oct
}