JP

Organization

Research Division

Risk Evaluation and Disaster Mitigation Research Division
Disaster Robotics Lab
Associate Professor
Tough Cyberphysical AI Research Center
Research Subject(s)
Research on tracked and aerial robots operating in challenging real-world environments, including disaster sites and social infrastructure: motion planning, control, simulation, and field deployment.
Key Words
Disaster Response Robots / Infrastructure Inspection Robots / Tracked Robots / Flying Robots (Drones) / Tough Robotics
Website
Research Activities

We develop tracked and wheeled robots for information gathering and rescue in challenging environments, including disaster sites, rubble, and underground tunnels. Our work integrates motion planning, control, teleoperation, contact-aware simulation, autonomous active-flipper control, and map-free navigation and anomaly detection using 3D LiDAR, RGB cameras, and vision-language models, to achieve reliable field deployment.

To advance infrastructure inspection of bridges and other structures, we develop aerial robots that combine flight capability with close-proximity operations. Multicopters equipped with original mechanisms, including passive rotating shells, enable safe imaging near complex structures and real-time image restoration, contributing to more efficient and safer inspection work.

We develop HueCode, a color-based meta-marker, and drone-landing support technologies for windy environments. By enabling robots to reliably recognize environmental information and flexibly use marker functions and embedded data, we advance autonomous and remote operation for disaster response and infrastructure inspection.

Selected Works

Yoshiki Yokota, Yoshito Okada, Ranulfo Bezerra, Kazunori Ohno, Kenjiro Tadakuma, Satoshi Tadokoro, "Universal HueCode: Embedding Additional Markers Into Monochrome Markers Using an Optimized Color Scheme and Training-Free Recognition," IEEE Access, vol. 14, pp. 79211–79226, 2026. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3695318.

Iuri Barros, Yoshito Okada, Kenjiro Tadakuma, Masahiro Watanabe, Masashi Konyo, Kazunori Ohno, Yoshiki Yokota, Ranulfo Bezerra, Satoshi Tadokoro, "Drone Landing Performance in Windy Conditions: Comparing the Vertical and Horizontal Landing Approaches With the EAGLES Port," IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 76–92, 2026. DOI: 10.1109/MRA.2025.3577158.

Yoshito Okada, Daiki Fujikura, Yu Ozawa, Kenjiro Tadakuma, Kazunori Ohno, Satoshi Tadokoro, "HueCode: A Meta-marker Exposing Relative Pose and Additional Information in Different Colored Layers," 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 5928–5934, 2021. DOI: 10.1109/ICRA48506.2021.9561783.

Yoshito Okada, Shotaro Kojima, Kazunori Ohno, Satoshi Tadokoro, "Real-time Simulation of Non-Deformable Continuous Tracks with Explicit Consideration of Friction and Grouser Geometry," 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 948–954, 2020.

Yoshito Okada, Takuma Ishii, Kazunori Ohno, Satoshi Tadokoro, "Real-time Restoration of Aerial Inspection Images by Recognizing and Removing Passive Rotating Shell of a UAV," 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 5006–5012, 2016. DOI: 10.1109/IROS.2016.7759735.

Selected Memberships
  • The Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ)
  • The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME)
  • The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE)
Selected Awards
  • The 39th Journal Paper Award, The Robotics Society of Japan, 2025
  • IEEE ICRA 2019 Best Paper Award on Mechanisms and Design, 2019
  • IROS 2009 RoboCup Best Paper Award, 2009