OPC is the preferred communication standard for sharing process control data at all levels of the enterprise and becomes the global standard, sends/receives the data with PLC programs of inspection system via network, and manages various data using OPC server. In this paper, we introduce the developed OPC client system for FPD inspection system with OPC server. To control inspection system through OPC server, we have developed libraries which consist of stage driver, switch driver, microscope driver, image processing, alignment, and task management modules. Also we have developed the test program to verify all functions precisely. We describe the mechanism of inspection system, OPC connection method, and programs.

Detecting and correcting defects on LCD glasses early in the manufacturing process becomes important for panel makers to reduce the manufacturing costs and to improve productivity. Many attempts have been made and were successfully applied to detect and identify simple defects such as scratches, dents, and foreign objects on glasses. However, it is still difficult to robustly detect low-contrast defect region, called Mura or blemish area on glasses. Typically, these defect areas are roughly defined as relatively large, several millimeters of diameter, and relatively dark and/or bright region of low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) against background of low-frequency signal. The aim of this article is to present a robust algorithm to segment these blemish defects. Early 90's, a highly robust estimator, known as the Model-Fitting (MF) estimator was developed by X. Zhuang et. al. and have been successfully used in many computer vision application. Compared to the conventional Least-Square (LS) estimator the MF estimator can successfully estimate model parameters from a dataset of contaminated Gaussian mixture. Such a noise model is defined as a regular white Gaussian noise model with probability $1-\varepsilon$ plus an outlier process with probability $varepsilon$. In the sense of robust estimation, the blemish defect in images can be considered as being a group of outliers in the process of estimating image background model parameters. The algorithm developed in this paper uses a modified MF estimator to robustly estimate the background model and as a by-product to segment the blemish defects, the outliers.

PMMA light guiding plate with nano-sized pattern was fabricated using anodized aluminum oxide membrane as a template for nano imprint lithography. Nano-sized pore arrays were prepared by the self-organization processes of the anodic oxidation using the aluminum plate with 99.999% purity. Since the aluminum plate has a rough surface, the aluminum plate with thickness of 1mm was anodized after the pre-treatments of chemical polishing, and electrochemical polishing. The surface morphology of the alumina obtained by the first anodization process was controlled by the concentration of electrochemical solution during the first anodization. The surface morphology of the alumina was also changed according to temperature of the solution during chemical polishing performed after first anodization. The pore widening process was employed for obtaining the one-channel with flat surface and height of the channel because the pores of the alumina membrane prepared by the fixed voltage method shows the structure of two-channel with rough surface. It is shown from SPM results that the nano-sized pattern on PMMA light guiding plate fabricated by nano imprint lithography method was well transferred from that of anodized aluminum oxide template.

In this paper, an improved AE system for digital still camera is proposed. AE system is auto exposure system to maintain optimized brightness of output image. But there is limitation for mobile devices to get high quality image with the conventional AE algorithm, because of organizational restriction of system. The conventional research has been studied only electronic shutter and AGC on the AE algorithm. In this paper, we suggest new AE algorithm included target setting, frame delay, Gamma Correction as well as electronic shutter and AGC to get high quality image. The proposed algorithm show improved result at control speed and ability of luminance expression.

This paper proposes a defect cell extraction algorithm for TFT-LCD auto-repair system. Auto defect search algorithm and automatic defect cell extraction method are very important for TFT-LCD auto repair system. In the previous literature[1], we proposed an automatic visual inspection algorithm of TFT-LCD. Based on the inspected information(defect size and defect axis, if defect exists) by the automatic search algorithm, defect cells should be extracted from the input image for the auto repair system. For automatic extraction of defect cells, we used a novel block matching algorithm and a simple filtering process in order to find a given reference point in the LCD cell. The proposed defect cell extraction algorithm can be used in all kinds of TFT-LCD devices by changing a stored template which includes a given reference point. Various experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, segmenting and classifying low contrast defects on flat panel display is one of the key problems for automatic inspection system in practice. Problems become more complicated when the quality of acquired image is degraded by the illumination irregularity. Many algorithms are developed and implemented successfully for the defects segmentation. However, vision algorithms are inherently prone to be dependent on parameters to be set manually. In this paper, one morphological segmentation algorithm is chosen and a technique using frequency domain analysis of input images is developed for automatically selection the morphological parameter. An extensive statistical performance analysis is performed to compare the developed algorithms.

This paper presents an overall image processing approach of defect inspection of patterned TFT-LCD panels for the real manufacturing process. A prototype of AOI(Automatic Optical Inspection) system which is composed of air floating stage and multi line scan cameras is developed. Adjacent pattern comparison algorithm is enhanced and used for pattern elimination to extract defects in the patterned image of TFT-LCD panels. New region merging algorithm which is based on border expansion is proposed to identify defects from the pattern eliminated defect image. Experimental results show that a developed AOI system has acceptable performance and the proposed algorithm reduces environmental effects and processing time effectively for applying to the real manufacturing process.

In this paper, new inspection method is proposed for the surfaces of lead frame and IC's. Optimal optical system and the accurate algorithm for the surface inspection are needed in machine vision area. The proposed optical system is composed of rectangular oblique light illumination and coaxial light illumination for the higher contrast and the results shows the better performances through experiments. The markings of IC surface are inspected using the accurate proposed method using the partitioned correlation coefficient, and the result shows reduction of under kill ratio compared to the previous method.

This paper proposes a stable gain scheduling method of linear time invariant controllers for tracking servo system. In order to read and write the data on the optical disc, the pick-up head should be moved to the exact track quickly and follow the track immediately. Two different controllers are used for each moving and track-following. In pull-in period, a transition period from moving to track-following, the head might slip and miss the target track. This brings on another searching process and increases the total time. One way to avoid slipping is to extend the bandwidth of the track-following controller. But, extending the bandwidth could degrade the following performance. More prevalent way is to use one more controller in this pull-in period and switch to the following controller. In general, however, switching or scheduling of stable controllers cannot guarantee the stability. This paper suggests an scheduling method guaranteeing the overall stability not only in a generalized form but also in special form for SISO system. The sufficient condition is derived from the fact that Q factor of a stable controller should be stay in $RH_{\infty}$ space. In the experiment, the proposed method shows better performance than the switching method such as shorter time and lower current consumption.

In this paper, we design, implement and apply network physical layer to 100 BaseFx optical cable interface module based on industrial ethernet protocol which is physical layer of EtherCAT that has ensure its open standard ethernet compatibility which having been provided with real time of control in network of intelligent service robot, can be process numerous data to sensor and motor control system. Through BLDC motor control performance tests, we try to propose suitability as internal network of intelligent service robot and automation system.

In this paper we propose an expert system for content-based image retrieval with object database. The proposed system finds keyword by using knowledge-base and feature of extracted object, and retrieves image by using keyword based image retrieval method. The system can decrease error of image retrieval and save running time. The system also checks whether similar objects exist or not. If not, user can store information of object in object database. Proposed system is flexible and extensible, enabling experts to incrementally add more knowledge and information. Experimental results show that the proposed system is more effective than existing content-based image retrieval method in running time and precision.

An active omni-directional raging system using an omni-directional vision with structured light has many advantages compared to the conventional ranging systems: robustness against external illumination noise because of the laser structured light and computational efficiency because of one shot image containing $360^{\circ}$ environment information from the omni-directional vision. The omni-directional range data represents a local distance map at a certain position in the workspace. In this paper, we propose a matching algorithm for the local distance map with the given global map database, thereby to localize a mobile robot in the global workspace. Since the global map database consists of line segments representing edges of environment object in general, the matching algorithm is based on relative position and orientation of line segments in the local map and the global map. The effectiveness of the proposed omni-directional ranging system and the matching are verified through experiments.

This paper offers a practical control scheme for driving mode transformation of a rescue robot already developed. The rescue robot, VSTR(Variable Single-Tracked Robot), has two driving modes, so can traverse untidy terrain and overcome obstacles such as stairs easily by use of timely driving mode transformation. Classical PI control scheme was used firstly for driving mode transformation, but stationary phenomenon, which might have a bad effect on the performance in real situation, came into existence. Therefore, we suggest a new controller, PI-based feedforward controller, which should be a good alternative for the problem, and compare it with other nonlinear control scheme.

Recently, many automotive companies tend to apply an air quality system (AQS), which prevents polluted air such as smoke or dust by controlling air intake actuator of vehicle, to satisfy the consumer's need for agreeable in-vehicle environment. However, performance of the traditional AQS is not satisfactory because a polluted air may enter into the inside of vehicle through the breaks of windows. Especially, the commercial vehicles such as bus or truck need to be prevented polluted air from the breaks of vehicle. Hence, as an alternative to the traditional AQS, this paper presents the architecture of smart AQS for commercial vehicle and implementation of the smart AQS. Also, the performance of the suggested system is evaluated through an experimental testbed.

UAVs(Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) have many applications in military and commercial areas. The flight control system of UAVs is more important than manned aircraft's because the mission of UAVs must be operated without a human pilot. But very heavy and expensive navigation system makes it difficult to develop UAV flight control system. In this research, GPS/IMU integrated navigation filter was developed for light weight/low cost flight control system of small UAVs. With this navigation filter, full flight control system which has real time operating capability has been developed. The performance of the flight control system is basically checked by HILSIM (Hardware In the Loop SIMulation). Finally, the flight control system is verified by showing performance test result under real flight environment.