Toshimitsu Tanaka

Aichi Prefectural University, Nagoya University, Meijo University

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Toshimitsu Tanaka is a researcher whose work bridges robotics, computer vision, and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on enabling machines to perceive and navigate human environments more naturally. His key research areas include mobile robot navigation, visual landmark recognition, and multi-robot collaboration. Tanaka’s most significant contributions center on using signboards and textual cues in real-world scenes as navigational landmarks—a novel approach that allows robots to interpret their surroundings much like humans do. In his 2003 paper "Character-based mobile robot navigation" (7 citations), he introduced a method for robots to detect and follow signboard information, advancing both map generation and human-robot communication. Earlier, in 2000, he developed techniques for extracting and rectifying distorted signboard images from non-orthogonal viewing angles (4 citations), solving a key perceptual challenge. Tanaka also explored social robotics, demonstrating in 2005 (3 citations) how robots with diversified personalities can improve task efficiency through mutual concession and collaboration. Though his citation counts are modest, his work represents an early and thoughtful integration of vision, language, and autonomous behavior—laying groundwork for today’s context-aware robotic systems.