This paper presents a control method to maintain stable mold level for unsteady bulging in high speed casting. The stabilizing mold level is an important factor to get high quality products. But, for various reasons, there are several disturbance factors which make mold level unstable. Bulging is one of disturbance factors and considered for the current stage of study. We design a disturbance observer to attenuate the effect of bulging which is periodic mold level disturbance. Since the period of bulging varies with the casting speed, the parameters of disturbance observer are changed by the casting speed. Simulation is illustrated to demonstrate stable performance of the proposed method in comparison with a previous method in a variable operating frequency.

This paper presents a new continuation-based quasi-steady-state(CQSS) time-domain simulation algorithm incorporating a multiplicative aggregated load model for power systems. The authors' previous paper introduced a CQSS algorithm, which has the robust convergent characteristic near the singularity point due to the application of a continuation method. The previous CQSS algorithm implemented the load restoration in power systems using the exponent-based load recovery model that is derived from the additive dynamic load model. However, the reformulated exponent-based model causes the inappropriate variation of short-term load characteristics when switching actions occur, during time-domain simulation. This paper depicts how to incorporate a multiplicative load restoration model, which does not have the problem of deforming short-term load characteristics, into the time simulation algorithm, and shows an illustrative example with a 39-bus test system.

Recently fishing industry is interested in efficiency and automation to acquire the international competitive power of national fishing industry. As an automation device of fishing boat, there are electric compasses using GPS and terrestrial magnetic sensor. Electric compass can be minimum size, high effectiveness with keeping the characteristic of a magnetic compass. This can be used a heading angle sensor to construct auto-navigation system in a small size ship. This paper develop electronic compass system that has serial output signal in NMEA 0183 and demonstrates the possibility of the electronics compass in navigation system for a small sized ship.

This paper describes a mobile inspection robot with an automatic pipe tracking system for a feeder pipe inspection in a PHWR. The robot is composed of two inch worm mechanisms. One is for a longitudinal motion along a pipe, and the other is for a rotational motion in a circumferential direction to access all of the outer surfaces of a pipe. The proposed mechanism has a stable gripping capability and is easy to install. An automatic pipe tracking system is proposed based on machine vision techniques to make the mobile robot follow an exact outer circumference of a curved feeder pipe as closely as possible, which is one of the requirements of a thickness measurement system for a feeder pipe. The proposed sensing technique is analyzed to attain its feasibility and to develop a calibration method for an accurate measurement. A mobile robot and control system are developed, and the automatic pipe tracking system is tested in a mockup of a feeder pipe.

In this paper, a small and effective attitude estimation system for a humanoid robot was developed. Four small inertial sensors were packed and used for inertial measurements(3D accelerometer and three 1D gyroscopes.) An effective 3D pose estimation algorithm for low cost DSP using an extended Kalman filter was developed and evaluated. The 3D pose estimation algorithm has a very simple structure composed by 3 modules of a linear acceleration estimator, an external acceleration detector and an pseudo-accelerometer output estimator. The algorithm also has an effective switching structure based on probability and simple feedback loop for the extended Kalman filter. A special test equipment using linear motor for the testing of the 3D pose sensor was developed and the experimental results showed its very fast convergence to real values and effective responses. Popular DSP of TMS320F2812 was used to calculate robot's 3D attitude and translated acceleration, and the whole system were packed in a small size for humanoids robots. The output of the 3D sensors(pitch, roll, 3D linear acceleration, and 3D angular rate) can be transmitted to a humanoid robot at 200Hz frequency.

In this paper, we present one approach to achieve safe navigation in indoor dynamic environment. So far, there have been various useful collision avoidance algorithms and path planning schemes. However, those algorithms have a fundamental limitation that the robot can avoid only "visible" obstacles. In real environment, it is not possible to detect all the dynamic obstacles around the robot. There exist a lot of "occluded" regions due to the limitation of field of view. In order to avoid possible collisions, it is desirable to consider visibility information. Then, a robot can reduce the speed or modify a path. This paper proposes a safe navigation scheme to reduce the risk of collision due to unexpected dynamic obstacles. The robot's motion is controlled according to a hybrid control scheme. The possibility of collision is dually reflected to a path planning and a speed control. The proposed scheme clearly indicates the structural procedure on how to model and to exploit the risk of navigation. The proposed scheme is experimentally tested in a real office building. The presented result shows that the robot moves along the safe path to obtain sufficient field of view, while appropriate speed control is carried out.

This paper proposes a method of adaptively generating a gait pattern of biped robot. The gait synthesis is based on human's gait pattern analysis. The proposed method can easily be applied to generate the natural and stable gait pattern of any biped robot. To analyze the human's gait pattern, sequential images of the human's gait on the sagittal plane are acquired from which the gait control values are extracted. The gait pattern of biped robot on the sagittal plane is adaptively generated by a genetic algorithm using the human's gait control values. However, gait trajectories of the biped robot on the sagittal plane are not enough to construct the complete gait pattern because the biped robot moves on 3-dimension space. Therefore, the gait pattern on the frontal plane, generated from Zero Moment Point (ZMP), is added to the gait one acquired on the sagittal plane. Consequently, the natural and stable walking pattern for the biped robot is obtained, as proved by the experiments.

A localization system to estimate the position as well as movement direction of mobile robots is proposed in this paper. This system implements a camera fixed on a robot and color patches evenly distributed and mounted on the planar ceiling. Different permutations of patch colors code information about robot localization. Thus, extraction of color information from patch images leads to estimation of robot position. Additionally, simple geometric indicators are combined with patch colors to estimate robot's movement direction. Since only the distribution of patch colors has to be known, the analysis of patch images to is relatively fast and simple. The proposed robot localization system has been successfully tested for navigation of sample mobile robot. Obtained test results indicate the robustness and reliability of proposed technique for robot navigation.

This article describes the methods of a decision of the location which user points to move by an optical device like a laser pointer and a moving to that location. Using a conic mirror and CCD camera sensor, a robot observes a spot of user wanted point among an initiative, computes the location and azimuth and moves to that position. This system offers the brief data to a processor with simple devices. In these reason, we can reduce the time of a calculation to process of images and find the target by user point for carrying a robot. User points a laser spot on a point to be moved so that this sensor system in the robot, detecting the laser spot point with a conic mirror, laid on the robot, showing a camera. The camera is attached on the robot upper body and fixed parallel to the ground and the conic mirror.

Path finding is a key element in the navigation of a mobile robot. To find a path, robot should know their position exactly, since the position error exposes a robot to many dangerous conditions. It could make a robot move to a wrong direction so that it may have damage by collision by the surrounding obstacles. We propose a method obtaining an accurate robot position. The localization of a mobile robot in its working environment performs by using a vision system and Virtual Reality Modeling Language(VRML). The robot identifies landmarks located in the environment. An image processing and neural network pattern matching techniques have been applied to find location of the robot. After the self-positioning procedure, the 2-D scene of the vision is overlaid onto a VRML scene. This paper describes how to realize the self-positioning, and shows the overlay between the 2-D and VRML scenes. The suggested method defines a robot's path successfully. An experiment using the suggested algorithm apply to a mobile robot has been performed and the result shows a good path tracking.

Human motion analysis is researched as a new method for human-robot interaction (HRI) because it concerns with the key techniques of HRI such as motion tracking and pose recognition. To analysis human motion, extracting features of human body from sequential images plays an important role. After finding the silhouette of human body from the sequential images obtained by CCD color camera, the skeleton model is frequently used in order to represent the human motion. In this paper, using the silhouette of human body, we propose the feature extraction method based on hybrid skeleton for detecting human motion. Finally, we show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method through some experiments.

This paper describes a message model based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language) to present real-time data from sensors and instruments at manufacturing processes for web service. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is inadequate for describing real-time data from process control plants while it is suitable for displaying non-real-time multimedia data on web. For XML-based web service of process data, XML format for the data presentation was proposed after investigating data of various instruments at steel-making plants. Considering transmission delay inevitably caused from increased message length and processing delay from transformation of raw data into defined format, which was critical for operation of a real-time system, its performance was evaluated by simulation. In the simulation, we assumed two implementation models for conducting the transformation function. In one model, transformation was done at an SCC (Supervisory Control Computer) after receiving real-time data from instruments. In the other model, transformation had been carried out at instruments before the data were transmitted to the SCC. Various tests had been conducted under different conditions of offered loads and data lengths and their results were described.

This paper proposes a cooling stop temperature control(CSTC) concept which aims at obtaining the uniform temperature and quality of the material along the longitudinal and lateral direction of the strip. The CSTC is designed using the experimental CCT(Continuous Cooling Transformation), TTT(Time Temperature Transformation) curves and the temperature control model by the heat transfer governing equation, and the temperature control simulator. The cooling pattern and the rolling speed can be solved by the CSTC. It is shown through the field test of the hot strip mill of POSCO that the phase transformation ratio of the high carbon steel is considerably improved by the proposed temperature control.

The purpose of this paper was to develop a rehabilitation training system which is controlled by electric currents to the Magneto-Rheological dampers system. This system provided the function for the training of the unbalance of the lower extremities. 10 subjects executed the tracing and moving exercises which are presented through the display monitor and confirmed own the capability of performance on the task. The electromyographies of the four muscles in lower extremities were recorded and analyzed in the time and frequency domain the muscles of interest were rectus femoris, biceps femoris, gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior. The experimental results showed that subjects had a task under feedback mode then subjects improve the capability of performance, increasing the in time, decreasing the out time and the distance of body shift. The moving average EMG, spectral energy of four muscle is lower the feedback mode than the constant mode. This could aid the hemiplegic patients to train more easily.

This paper describes the method aimed at establishing the equipment measuring the parameter of Cable Network by Best proper Cable Modem and PDA through RS232 interface. In this paper, we propose our creative experimental configuration and develope the Cable Modem (DOCSIS 2.0) superior more performing than the referred Cable Modem (DOCSIS 1.0, 1.1) and the measuring equipment of HFC network compositing of Cable Modem and PDA through RS232 interface. This equipment analyzes Upstream (U/S) and Downstream (D/S) Signal quality and generates the signal of Upstream by CW signal. The paper also provides the experimental results to check the Best Proper Cable Modem and the displayed screen for parameters for SNR, BER and the demodulated IQ diagram of 256QAM through LCD of PDA. Henceforth, it'll be possible to support a variety of the functions for E-mail, Internet, the speed test of WEB connection and the transmission of the measured result real time by PDA.