This paper deals with a scheme for fault-tolerance improvement of real-time embedded systems, which engages an equidistant checkpointing technique to tolerate transient errors. Transient errors are caused by transient faults which are the most significant type of fault in reliable computer systems. Transient faults are assumed to occur according to a Poisson process and to be detected in a non-concurrent manner (e.g., checked periodically). The probability of the successful real-time task completion in the presence of transient errors is derived with the consideration of the possible effects of the transient errors. Based on this, a condition under which inserting checkpoints improves the fault-tolerance of the system is introduced and an optimal equidistant checkpointing strategy that achieves the highest fault tolerance is presented.

This paper presents the hardware implementation of nonlinear PID controllers for the ROBOKER humanoid robot arms. To design the nonlinear PID controller on an FPGA chip, nonlinear functions as well as the conventional PID control algorithm have to be implemented by the hardware description language. Therefore, nonlinear functions such as trigonometric or exponential functions are designed on an FPGA chip. Simulation studies of the position control of humanoid arms are conducted and results are compared. Superior performances by the nonlinear PID controllers are confirmed when disturbances are present. Experiments of humanoid robot arm control tasks are conducted to confirm the performance of our hardware design and the simulation results.

This paper presents the design and implementation of an embedded image stabilization control system for a mobile phone with a built-in camera. Image stabilization is a family of techniques for reducing image blur resulting from minute camera shake due to hand-held shooting, thereby allowing the use of shutter speeds slower than values normally required to obtain sharp images. A mechanical image stabilizer mechanism developed for a camera mobile phone is introduced and a digital control system as a part of the image stabilization system is designed and implemented on an 8-bit microcontroller with integer arithmetic in C. This paper focuses primarily on issues that need to be taken into consideration for fixed-point implementation of the digital controller. Several experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the implemented image stabilization control system.

The existing building control and automation systems which have been applied to buildings are provided by many different vendors and each vendor has its own proprietary protocol. There are many problems in system integration since those building control and automation systems belong to each vendor. Also, the problems of cost and space increase, due to the usage of personal computers as the control servers of DDC(Direct Digital Control) in each facility. Those problems mentioned above can be effectively resolved by using XML Web Services and Embedded Web Server. Embedded Web Server and XML Web Services are technologies emerging out of the IT industries and there are many researches to apply them into many fields. In this paper, Embedded Web Server and XML Web Services are proposed to be used in building control and automation system to resolve problems in building system integration.

Ubiquitous sensor network (USN) is composed of many sensor nodes which are one of the simplest form of embedded system. In developing the sensor network system, a debugging tool is necessary to test and verify the system. Recently, a so-called packet analyzer has been developed for this purpose, and it supports IEEE 802.15.4 which is considered as the standard for the sensor network protocols. The major function of the packet analyzer is to take RF packets from sensor nodes and show the structure and the data of the packets graphically to the user. However, the conventional packet analyzers do not support remote control because they require a USB interface along with a personal computer. To make it available for remote control, we propose a new packet analyzer based on a server-client scheme in which a server program is implemented on embedded Linux and a client program is implemented on Windows for convenient use.

This paper presents a new approach to automotive embedded systems development and validation. Recently automotive embedded systems become even more complex and the product life cycle is getting reduced. To overcome these problems AUTOSAR, a standardized software platform and component based approach, was introduced. Model-based approach has been widely applied in the development of embedded systems and has strong benefits such as early validation and automated testing. In this paper cooperative development and validation of AUTOSAR and model-based approach are introduced and automated testing techniques are proposed. With the proposed techniques we can improve complexity management through increased reuse and exchangeability of software module and automated testing is realized.

Human driver monitoring system is one of the most important systems for the safety in driving vehicles, and therefore driver assistance system has gained much attention during the last decade. This paper proposed an intelligent driver assistance system which monitors human driver's states from bio-signals such as ECG and Blood Pressure. The proposed system used mamdani fuzzy inference to evaluate the driver's mental strain and generated warning signals to the driver. The approach using bio-signals in driver assistance system is the main issue of the related systems and the preliminary results showed the possibility of further research topics in developing more intelligent embedded systems with bio-signal feedback.

This study proposes an automated pegboard utilizing the RFID system with multiple reader antennas for the rehabilitation services and the occupational therapy. The system automates the scoring by detecting the plugging correctness as well as the plugging status. It also aims to increase the patient's interest and the functional intelligence. The system was prototyped and the RFID read rate (over 99.998%) was confirmed. The system was also tested for the automatic capability of the scoring the session. The proposed system will be served as the typical example for the ubiquitous rehabilitation devices.

It is common to use PC or Digital picture frame in stand-alone fashion to view images, movies, or to listen MP3 musics which are considered as multimedia contents, However, such existing methods have weakness for expanding network requirements or augmenting extra data, in such case inevitably requiring external devices. With keeping in mind for such expansion, in this study, we have suggested a new concepts of network module which may utilize an image server for data transmission, in the proposed module, data alarm packet was defined for alerting incoming data from the image server and it became possible to synchronize between the image server and device not only in wired but also in wireless environments through UART. The method consists of a control module for an image server and a synchronization module between the server and the device. We have also tested the feasibility for future commercial usages such as advertisements through performance evaluations.

We propose a haptic interface algorithm for joystick operators working in remote control systems of unmanned vehicles. The haptic interface algorithm is implemented using a force-feedback joystick, which is equipped with low price DC motors without encoders. Generating specific amounts of forces on the joystick pole according to the distance between a remote controlled vehicle and obstacles, the haptic interface enables the operator to perceive the distance information by the sense of touch. For the case of no joystick operation or no obstacles in the working area, we propose an origin control algorithm, which positions the joystick pole at the origin. The origin control algorithm prevents the false movement of the remote vehicles and provides the operator with a realistic force resisting the joystick pole's movement. The experiment results obtained under various scenarios exemplify the validity of the proposed haptic interface algorithm and the origin control algorithm.

In most case of previous research about vehicle control system, external error occurred by unexpected environmental situation was hardly considered. However, in this paper, to have more accurate position control of differential derive vehicle, we separate the error as an internal error and external error. To calculate the vehicle position in real time, we introduced the Dead-Reckoning algorithms and the simulation result show that the proposed internal and external error control system has fast and accurate position tracking with remarkable diminishment of orientation error. The results reported here can easily be extended to the control of similar type vehicle.

In this paper, we propose a new obstacle negotiation method for the rescue robot. The rescue robot has a variable geometry single-tracked mechanism, so it can maximize a contact length with ground for the adaptability to off-road and pursue a stable system due to the lower center of gravity. In this research, we add the basis of autonomous navigation, driving mode control based on obstacle detection, to the robot to realize automation of mode transformation. Obstacle detection using PSD(Position Sensitive Device) infrared sensors gives active transformation of the track shape. Finally, experimental results about mentioned are presented.

This paper describes an IIR/FIR fusion filter for a nonlinear system, and analyzes the stability of the fusion filter. The fusion filter is applied to INS/GPS integrated system, and the performance is verified by simulation and experiment. In the fusion filter, an IIR-type filter (SPKF) and FIR-type filter (MRHKF filter) are processed independently, then the two filters are merged using the mixing probability calculated using the residuals and residual covariance information of the two filters. The merits of the SPKF and the MRHKF filter are embossed and the demerits of the filters are diminished via the filter fusion. Consequently, the proposed fusion filter has robustness against to model uncertainty, temporary disturbing noise, large initial estimation error, etc. The stability of the fusion filter is verified by showing the closeness of the states of the two sub filters in the mixing/redistribution process and the upper bound of the error covariance matrices. This fusion filter is applied into INS/GPS integrated system, and important factors for filter processing are presented. The performance of the INS/GPS integrated system designed using the fusion filter is verified by simulation under various error environments and is confirmed by experiment.

In this paper a study on the simplified observability analysis of GPS/INS is introduced. Errors for the position, velocity, attitude, gyro and accelerometer biases, and lever arm between GPS antenna and inertial sensors are considered in the observablity analysis. From the error dynamics model in which relatively small terms are neglected, simple observability conditions are obtained such that the observability of GPS/INS is determined by the test on the attutude, gyro bias, and lever arm. Unobservable errors for the position, velocity, and accelerometer bias are determined by those for the attitude, gyro bias, and lever arm. The simplified observability conditions are applied to a constant speed horizontal motion. It is shown that there are seven unobservable modes for the motion including the vertical component of gyro bias. The analytic observability analysis results are confirmed with a covariance simulation.

U-learning (ubiquitous learning) systems, which deliver learning materials anytime and anywhere, allow learners to watch live lectures on PDAs, tablet PCs and notebook computers via broadband and wireless Internet. These systems have various problems; first, terminal devices are expensive, and it is difficult to maintain their efficiencies. Secondly, Internet does not guarantee quality of service (QoS), and in general it does not provide real-time services. Finally, the security of these systems is weaker in a local network than in an external network. The USB-based terminal system based on the OSGi service platform was designed as a ubiquitous system, in order to solve those problems. The USB terminals, used in this system, are inexpensive, and it is easy to maintain their performances. Also, this system solves the problems of security in a local network and provides guaranteed QoS. To accomplish this, the number of USB terminals connected to the system has to be limited according to the formula proposed in our paper. This system uses the OSGi specification as a middleware. It supports the discovery mechanism of the USB terminals, maintenance and administration of the system. Finally, this paper shows a driver's license testing system as an example u-learning application1.