arXiv subjects

Yasuhisa Hasegawa

Publications and source records attributed to Yasuhisa Hasegawa.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Elbow Angle Guidance System Based on Surface Haptic Sensations Elicited by Lightweight Wearable Fabric Actuator

The demand for wearable haptic devices has rapidly increased for various applications. However, many haptic devices interfere with the wearer's activities and movements. In addition, several haptic devices fail to elicit intuitive haptic sensations by adjusting to the natural posture of the wearer. To address these issues, we propose an elbow angle guidance system using a lightweight wearable fabric actuator. The proposed actuator is made of fabric and has two McKibben-type artificial muscles attached to it, rendering it extremely lightweight and facilitating the delivery of surface haptic sensations to intuitively induce elbow extension and flexion. The surface haptic sensation elicited by the fabric actuator is adjusted to natural body movements without interfering with the wearer's movements. Moreover, the proposed system measures and guides the elbow angle by changing the intensity of the surface haptic sensation delivered to users in real time. The accuracy of the proposed system is demonstrated through experiments involving human participants.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Intuitive Directional Sense Presentation to the Torso Using McKibben-Based Surface Haptic Sensation in Immersive Space

In recent years, systems that utilize immersive space have been developed in various fields. Immersive spaces often contain considerable amounts of visual information; therefore, users often fail to obtain their desired information. Therefore, various methods have been developed to guide users toward haptic sensations. However, many of these methods have limitations in terms of the intuitive perception of haptic sensation and require practice for familiarization with haptic sensation. Fabric actuators are wearable haptic devices that combine fabric and McKibben artificial muscles to provide wearers with surface haptic sensation. These sensations can be provided to a wide area of the body with intuitive perception, instead of only to a part of the body. This paper presents a novel air pressure adjustment method for whole-body motion guidance using surface haptic sensations provided by a wearable fabric actuator. The proposed system can provide users with a directional sense without visual information in an immersive space. The effectiveness of the proposed system was evaluated through subject experiments and statistical data analysis. Finally, a directional sense presentation was conducted for users performing micromanipulations in a mixed-reality space to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed system for teleoperation.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

An immersive micro-manipulation system using real-time 3D imaging microscope and 3D operation interface for high-speed and accurate micro-manipulation

The use of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), an assisted reproductive technique (ART), is increasing widely. ICSI is currently performed by specially skilled embryologists. However, with the increasing demand for ART, the shortage of skilled embryologists has become a problem. Therefore, we propose an immersive micromanipulation system that requires no special skills for efficient and accurate micromanipulation. Our proposed system is composed of a real-time three-dimensional (3D) imaging microscope and 3D operation interfaces. The 3D operation interfaces are stationary pen-type or wearable glove-type interfaces. In this system, an operator wearing a head-mounted display (HMD) and using 3D operation interfaces is immersed in a virtual micromanipulation space. The operator can move the pipettes by 3D operation interface and freely change the viewpoint. We verified that the proposed system improves the speed and accuracy of operating a pipette through two types of experiments with subjects.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Bio-inspired fine-tuning for selective transfer learning in image classification

Deep learning has significantly advanced image analysis across diverse domains but often depends on large, annotated datasets for success. Transfer learning addresses this challenge by utilizing pre-trained models to tackle new tasks with limited labeled data. However, discrepancies between source and target domains can hinder effective transfer learning. We introduce BioTune, a novel adaptive fine-tuning technique utilizing evolutionary optimization. BioTune enhances transfer learning by optimally choosing which layers to freeze and adjusting learning rates for unfrozen layers. Through extensive evaluation on nine image classification datasets, spanning natural and specialized domains such as medical imaging, BioTune demonstrates superior accuracy and efficiency over state-of-the-art fine-tuning methods, including AutoRGN and LoRA, highlighting its adaptability to various data characteristics and distribution changes. Additionally, BioTune consistently achieves top performance across four different CNN architectures, underscoring its flexibility. Ablation studies provide valuable insights into the impact of BioTune's key components on overall performance. The source code is available at https://github.com/davilac/BioTune.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2025

Development of a Compliant Gripper for Safe Robot-Assisted Trouser Dressing-Undressing

In recent years, many countries, including Japan, have rapidly aging populations, making the preservation of seniors' quality of life a significant concern. For elderly people with impaired physical abilities, support for toileting is one of the most important issues. This paper details the design, development, experimental assessment, and potential application of the gripper system, with a focus on the unique requirements and obstacles involved in aiding elderly or hemiplegic individuals in dressing and undressing trousers. The gripper we propose seeks to find the right balance between compliance and grasping forces, ensuring precise manipulation while maintaining a safe and compliant interaction with the users. The gripper's integration into a custom--built robotic manipulator system provides a comprehensive solution for assisting hemiplegic individuals in their dressing and undressing tasks. Experimental evaluations and comparisons with existing studies demonstrate the gripper's ability to successfully assist in both dressing and dressing of trousers in confined spaces with a high success rate. This research contributes to the advancement of assistive robotics, empowering elderly, and physically impaired individuals to maintain their independence and improve their quality of life.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

Adaptive transfer learning for surgical tool presence detection in laparoscopic videos through gradual freezing fine-tuning

Minimally invasive surgery can benefit significantly from automated surgical tool detection, enabling advanced analysis and assistance. However, the limited availability of annotated data in surgical settings poses a challenge for training robust deep learning models. This paper introduces a novel staged adaptive fine-tuning approach consisting of two steps: a linear probing stage to condition additional classification layers on a pre-trained CNN-based architecture and a gradual freezing stage to dynamically reduce the fine-tunable layers, aiming to regulate adaptation to the surgical domain. This strategy reduces network complexity and improves efficiency, requiring only a single training loop and eliminating the need for multiple iterations. We validated our method on the Cholec80 dataset, employing CNN architectures (ResNet-50 and DenseNet-121) pre-trained on ImageNet for detecting surgical tools in cholecystectomy endoscopic videos. Our results demonstrate that our method improves detection performance compared to existing approaches and established fine-tuning techniques, achieving a mean average precision (mAP) of 96.4%. To assess its broader applicability, the generalizability of the fine-tuning strategy was further confirmed on the CATARACTS dataset, a distinct domain of minimally invasive ophthalmic surgery. These findings suggest that gradual freezing fine-tuning is a promising technique for improving tool presence detection in diverse surgical procedures and may have broader applications in general image classification tasks.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2025

Affordance-Based Disambiguation of Surgical Instructions for Collaborative Robot-Assisted Surgery

Effective human-robot collaboration in surgery is affected by the inherent ambiguity of verbal communication. This paper presents a framework for a robotic surgical assistant that interprets and disambiguates verbal instructions from a surgeon by grounding them in the visual context of the operating field. The system employs a two-level affordance-based reasoning process that first analyzes the surgical scene using a multimodal vision-language model and then reasons about the instruction using a knowledge base of tool capabilities. To ensure patient safety, a dual-set conformal prediction method is used to provide a statistically rigorous confidence measure for robot decisions, allowing it to identify and flag ambiguous commands. We evaluated our framework on a curated dataset of ambiguous surgical requests from cholecystectomy videos, demonstrating a general disambiguation rate of 60% and presenting a method for safer human-robot interaction in the operating room.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

Transfer learning optimization based on evolutionary selective fine tuning

Deep learning has shown substantial progress in image analysis. However, the computational demands of large, fully trained models remain a consideration. Transfer learning offers a strategy for adapting pre-trained models to new tasks. Traditional fine-tuning often involves updating all model parameters, which can potentially lead to overfitting and higher computational costs. This paper introduces BioTune, an evolutionary adaptive fine-tuning technique that selectively fine-tunes layers to enhance transfer learning efficiency. BioTune employs an evolutionary algorithm to identify a focused set of layers for fine-tuning, aiming to optimize model performance on a given target task. Evaluation across nine image classification datasets from various domains indicates that BioTune achieves competitive or improved accuracy and efficiency compared to existing fine-tuning methods such as AutoRGN and LoRA. By concentrating the fine-tuning process on a subset of relevant layers, BioTune reduces the number of trainable parameters, potentially leading to decreased computational cost and facilitating more efficient transfer learning across diverse data characteristics and distributions.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2025

Beyond Single Models: Enhancing LLM Detection of Ambiguity in Requests through Debate

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated significant capabilities in understanding and generating human language, contributing to more natural interactions with complex systems. However, they face challenges such as ambiguity in user requests processed by LLMs. To address these challenges, this paper introduces and evaluates a multi-agent debate framework designed to enhance detection and resolution capabilities beyond single models. The framework consists of three LLM architectures (Llama3-8B, Gemma2-9B, and Mistral-7B variants) and a dataset with diverse ambiguities. The debate framework markedly enhanced the performance of Llama3-8B and Mistral-7B variants over their individual baselines, with Mistral-7B-led debates achieving a notable 76.7% success rate and proving particularly effective for complex ambiguities and efficient consensus. While acknowledging varying model responses to collaborative strategies, these findings underscore the debate framework's value as a targeted method for augmenting LLM capabilities. This work offers important insights for developing more robust and adaptive language understanding systems by showing how structured debates can lead to improved clarity in interactive systems.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

Assessing the Value of Visual Input: A Benchmark of Multimodal Large Language Models for Robotic Path Planning

Large Language Models (LLMs) show potential for enhancing robotic path planning. This paper assesses visual input's utility for multimodal LLMs in such tasks via a comprehensive benchmark. We evaluated 15 multimodal LLMs on generating valid and optimal paths in 2D grid environments, simulating simplified robotic planning, comparing text-only versus text-plus-visual inputs across varying model sizes and grid complexities. Our results indicate moderate success rates on simpler small grids, where visual input or few-shot text prompting offered some benefits. However, performance significantly degraded on larger grids, highlighting a scalability challenge. While larger models generally achieved higher average success, the visual modality was not universally dominant over well-structured text for these multimodal systems, and successful paths on simpler grids were generally of high quality. These results indicate current limitations in robust spatial reasoning, constraint adherence, and scalable multimodal integration, identifying areas for future LLM development in robotic path planning.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

Human-Robot collaboration in surgery: Advances and challenges towards autonomous surgical assistants

Human-robot collaboration in surgery represents a significant area of research, driven by the increasing capability of autonomous robotic systems to assist surgeons in complex procedures. This systematic review examines the advancements and persistent challenges in the development of autonomous surgical robotic assistants (ASARs), focusing specifically on scenarios where robots provide meaningful and active support to human surgeons. Adhering to the PRISMA guidelines, a comprehensive literature search was conducted across the IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, resulting in the selection of 32 studies for detailed analysis. Two primary collaborative setups were identified: teleoperation-based assistance and direct hands-on interaction. The findings reveal a growing research emphasis on ASARs, with predominant applications currently in endoscope guidance, alongside emerging progress in autonomous tool manipulation. Several key challenges hinder wider adoption, including the alignment of robotic actions with human surgeon preferences, the necessity for procedural awareness within autonomous systems, the establishment of seamless human-robot information exchange, and the complexities of skill acquisition in shared workspaces. This review synthesizes current trends, identifies critical limitations, and outlines future research directions essential to improve the reliability, safety, and effectiveness of human-robot collaboration in surgical environments.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

LLM-based ambiguity detection in natural language instructions for collaborative surgical robots

Ambiguity in natural language instructions poses significant risks in safety-critical human-robot interaction, particularly in domains such as surgery. To address this, we propose a framework that uses Large Language Models (LLMs) for ambiguity detection specifically designed for collaborative surgical scenarios. Our method employs an ensemble of LLM evaluators, each configured with distinct prompting techniques to identify linguistic, contextual, procedural, and critical ambiguities. A chain-of-thought evaluator is included to systematically analyze instruction structure for potential issues. Individual evaluator assessments are synthesized through conformal prediction, which yields non-conformity scores based on comparison to a labeled calibration dataset. Evaluating Llama 3.2 11B and Gemma 3 12B, we observed classification accuracy exceeding 60% in differentiating ambiguous from unambiguous surgical instructions. Our approach improves the safety and reliability of human-robot collaboration in surgery by offering a mechanism to identify potentially ambiguous instructions before robot action.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Integrating and Evaluating Visuo-tactile Sensing with Haptic Feedback for Teleoperated Robot Manipulation

Telerobotics enables humans to overcome spatial constraints and physically interact with the environment in remote locations. However, the sensory feedback provided by the system to the user is often purely visual, limiting the user's dexterity in manipulation tasks. This work addresses this issue by equipping the robot's end-effector with high-resolution visuotactile GelSight sensors. Using low-cost MANUS-Gloves, we provide the user with haptic feedback about forces acting at the points of contact in the form of vibration signals. We employ two different methods for estimating these forces; one based on estimating the movement of markers on the sensor surface and one deep-learning approach. Additionally, we integrate our system into a virtual-reality teleoperation pipeline in which a human user controls both arms of a Tiago robot while receiving visual and haptic feedback. Lastly, we present a novel setup to evaluate normal force, shear force, and slip. We believe that integrating haptic feedback is a crucial step towards dexterous manipulation in teleoperated robotic systems.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

A hierarchical framework for collision avoidance in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) procedures benefit significantly from robotic systems due to their improved precision and dexterity. However, ensuring safety in these dynamic and cluttered environments is an ongoing challenge. This paper proposes a novel hierarchical framework for collision avoidance in MIS. This framework integrates multiple tasks, including maintaining the Remote Center of Motion (RCM) constraint, tracking desired tool poses, avoiding collisions, optimizing manipulability, and adhering to joint limits. The proposed approach utilizes Hierarchical Quadratic Programming (HQP) to seamlessly manage these constraints while enabling smooth transitions between task priorities for collision avoidance. Experimental validation through simulated scenarios demonstrates the framework's robustness and effectiveness in handling diverse scenarios involving static and dynamic obstacles, as well as inter-tool collisions.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Embedded Image-to-Image Translation for Efficient Sim-to-Real Transfer in Learning-based Robot-Assisted Soft Manipulation

Recent advances in robotic learning in simulation have shown impressive results in accelerating learning complex manipulation skills. However, the sim-to-real gap, caused by discrepancies between simulation and reality, poses significant challenges for the effective deployment of autonomous surgical systems. We propose a novel approach utilizing image translation models to mitigate domain mismatches and facilitate efficient robot skill learning in a simulated environment. Our method involves the use of contrastive unpaired Image-to-image translation, allowing for the acquisition of embedded representations from these transformed images. Subsequently, these embeddings are used to improve the efficiency of training surgical manipulation models. We conducted experiments to evaluate the performance of our approach, demonstrating that it significantly enhances task success rates and reduces the steps required for task completion compared to traditional methods. The results indicate that our proposed system effectively bridges the sim-to-real gap, providing a robust framework for advancing the autonomy of surgical robots in minimally invasive procedures.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Voice control interface for surgical robot assistants

Traditional control interfaces for robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery impose a significant cognitive load on surgeons. To improve surgical efficiency, surgeon-robot collaboration capabilities, and reduce surgeon burden, we present a novel voice control interface for surgical robotic assistants. Our system integrates Whisper, state-of-the-art speech recognition, within the ROS framework to enable real-time interpretation and execution of voice commands for surgical manipulator control. The proposed system consists of a speech recognition module, an action mapping module, and a robot control module. Experimental results demonstrate the system's high accuracy and inference speed, and demonstrates its feasibility for surgical applications in a tissue triangulation task. Future work will focus on further improving its robustness and clinical applicability.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Enhancing the LLM-Based Robot Manipulation Through Human-Robot Collaboration

Large Language Models (LLMs) are gaining popularity in the field of robotics. However, LLM-based robots are limited to simple, repetitive motions due to the poor integration between language models, robots, and the environment. This paper proposes a novel approach to enhance the performance of LLM-based autonomous manipulation through Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC). The approach involves using a prompted GPT-4 language model to decompose high-level language commands into sequences of motions that can be executed by the robot. The system also employs a YOLO-based perception algorithm, providing visual cues to the LLM, which aids in planning feasible motions within the specific environment. Additionally, an HRC method is proposed by combining teleoperation and Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMP), allowing the LLM-based robot to learn from human guidance. Real-world experiments have been conducted using the Toyota Human Support Robot for manipulation tasks. The outcomes indicate that tasks requiring complex trajectory planning and reasoning over environments can be efficiently accomplished through the incorporation of human demonstrations.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Comparison of fine-tuning strategies for transfer learning in medical image classification

In the context of medical imaging and machine learning, one of the most pressing challenges is the effective adaptation of pre-trained models to specialized medical contexts. Despite the availability of advanced pre-trained models, their direct application to the highly specialized and diverse field of medical imaging often falls short due to the unique characteristics of medical data. This study provides a comprehensive analysis on the performance of various fine-tuning methods applied to pre-trained models across a spectrum of medical imaging domains, including X-ray, MRI, Histology, Dermoscopy, and Endoscopic surgery. We evaluated eight fine-tuning strategies, including standard techniques such as fine-tuning all layers or fine-tuning only the classifier layers, alongside methods such as gradually unfreezing layers, regularization based fine-tuning and adaptive learning rates. We selected three well-established CNN architectures (ResNet-50, DenseNet-121, and VGG-19) to cover a range of learning and feature extraction scenarios. Although our results indicate that the efficacy of these fine-tuning methods significantly varies depending on both the architecture and the medical imaging type, strategies such as combining Linear Probing with Full Fine-tuning resulted in notable improvements in over 50% of the evaluated cases, demonstrating general effectiveness across medical domains. Moreover, Auto-RGN, which dynamically adjusts learning rates, led to performance enhancements of up to 11% for specific modalities. Additionally, the DenseNet architecture showed more pronounced benefits from alternative fine-tuning approaches compared to traditional full fine-tuning. This work not only provides valuable insights for optimizing pre-trained models in medical image analysis but also suggests the potential for future research into more advanced architectures and fine-tuning methods.

cs.CV↗