In this paper, we propose a novel concept foran unmanned delivery service using a cooperative heterogeneous unmanned system consisting of a self-driving car and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The proposed concept is suitable to deliver parcels in high-density and high-rise urban or residential areas. In order to achieve the proposed concept, we will develop acooperative heterogeneous unmanned system. Customers can order goods using a smartphone application and the order information, including the position of the customer and the order time, and the package is transported automatically by the unmanned systems. The system assigns the tasks suitable for each unmanned vehicle by analyzing it based on map information. Performance is validated by experiments consisting of autonomous driving and flight tests in a real environment. For more evaluation, the landing position error analysis is performed using circular error probability (CEP).

This paper addresses a Moving Target Indication (MTI) algorithm which can be used for small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with image sensors. MTI is a system (or an algorithm) which detects moving objects. The principle of the MTI algorithm is to analyze the difference between successive image data. It is difficult to detect moving objects in the images recorded from dynamic cameras attached to moving platforms such as UAVs flying at low altitudes over a variety of terrain, since the acquired images have two motion components: 'camera motion' and 'object motion'. Therefore, the motion of independent objects can be obtained after the camera motion is compensated thoroughly via proper manipulations. In this study, the camera motion effects are removed by using wiener filter-based image registration, one of the non-parametric methods. In addition, an image pyramid structure is adopted to reduce the computational complexity for UAVs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method with experimental results on outdoor video sequences.

Recently, UFRs (Unmanned Flying Robots) have begun to be utilized in various areas for civilian and military applications. Due to this increased utilization, accidents involving UFRsare also increasing. To prevent or monitor accidents caused by UFRs, high-accuracy positioning information is one of the most important technical elements. This paper proposes an efficient UFR monitoring system which provides accurate UFR positioning information with low-cost onboard elements; a small ARM module based on an embedded Linux operating system, a low-cost single frequency GPS receiver with a cheap patch antenna, and a versatile wireless network interface module. The ground monitoring system employs a dual frequency GPS receiver to generate exact UFR coordinates with cm-level accuracy. By processing the UFR measurements based on the Inverse RTK (Real Time Kinematic) method, the ground monitoring system determines the cm-level accurate coordinates of the UFR. The feasibility of the proposed UFR monitoring system was evaluated by three experiments in terms of data loss and accuracy.

As required performance of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) becomes more complex and complicated, required positioning accuracy is becoming more and more higher. GPS is a reliable world wide positioning providing system. Therefore, UAV generally acquires position information from GPS. But when GPS is not available such as too weak signal or too less GPS satellites environments, UAV needs alternative positioning system such as network positioning system. RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) based positioning, which is one method of network positioning technologies, determines its position using RSSI measurements containing distance information from AP (Access Point)s. In that method, a selected AP's configuration has strong and tight relationship with its positioning errors. In this paper, for, we additionally account AP's configuration information by adopting DOP (Dilution of Precision) into AP selection procedures and provide more accurate RSSI based positioning results.

This paper copes with control design for unmanned aerial vehicle transportation system. Moving pendulum dynamics of slung-load system is derived using two methods: Udwadia-Kalaba equation and Newtonian approach. PID controller is applied to Udwadia-Kalaba equation model for structural consistency and linear quadratic Gaussian / Loop Transfer Recovery (LQG/LTR) technique is employed for Newtonian model with minimal state-space realization. Characteristics of PID and LQG/LTR controller are compared, and two controllers are combined to compensate the drawbacks of each other. Numerical simulation is set for two cases and conducted to evaluate performance of designed controllers. The result proves that combination of LQG/LTR and PID control performs stable and robust.

This paper presents a modified track guidance algorithm for formation flight of multiple UAVs. The suggested guidance algorithm is the spatial version of the first order dynamic characteristics for a time-dependent system so the algorithm is able to generate a path without overshoot to track the desired line. A crucial design parameter is a spatial constant that controls the shape of the convergence to an assigned flight path similarly to a time constant. Reference flight trajectories are designed based on a two-dimensional vehicle model, and the performance of the proposed guidance law is verified by numerical simulation using rigid body UAV dynamics with MATLAB/Simulink Aerosim Blockset.

This paper investigates the group average-consensus and group formation-consensus problems for first-order multi-agent systems. The control protocol for group consensus is designed by considering the positive adjacency elements. Since each intra-group Laplacian matrix cannot be satisfied with the in-degree balance because of the positive adjacency elements between groups, we decompose the Laplacian matrix into an intra-group Laplacian matrix and an inter-group Laplacian matrix. Moreover, average matrices are used in the control protocol to analyze the stability of multi-agent systems with a fixed and undirected communication topology. Using the graph theory and the Lyapunov functional, stability analysis is performed for group average-consensus and group formation-consensus, respectively. Finally, some simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control protocol for group consensus.

본 논문에서는 축소 차수 외란 관측기를 이용하여 외란이 있는 이종 다개체 시스템을 위한 협조 추종 제어기를 제안하였다. 이를 위해 우선 주어진 제어 문제가 외란과 모델 불확실성을 가지는 시스템을 위한 강인 제어 문제로 변환 될 수 있음을 보이고 변환된 문제에 외란 관측기 기반의 동적 협조 추종 제어기를 설계하였다. 모의 실험을 통해서 제안하는 이종 다개체 시스템의 협조 추종을 성공적으로 달성함을 보였다.

This paper proposes an RBFN-based adaptive tracking controller for an electrically driven mobile robot with parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. A mobile robot model considered in this paper includes all models of the robot body and actuators with uncertain kinematic and dynamic parameters, and uncertain frictions and external disturbances. The proposed controller consists of an RBFN(Radial Basis Function Network) and a robust adaptive controller. The presented RBFN is used to approximate unknown nonlinear robot dynamic functions. The proposed controller is adjusted by the adaptation laws obtained through the Lyapunov stability analysis. The proposed control scheme does not a priori need the accurate knowledge of all parameters in the robot kinematics, robot dynamics and actuator dynamics. Also, nominal parameter values are not required in the controller. The global stability of the closed-loop robot control system is guaranteed using the Lyapunov stability theory. Simulation results show the validity and robustness of the proposed control scheme.

This article presents an optimum yaw moment distribution scheme for a vehicle with electronic stability control (ESC) and active rear steering (ARS). After computing the control yaw moment in the yaw moment controller, it should be distributed into tire forces, generated by ESC and ARS. In this paper, yaw moment distribution is formulated as an optimization problem. New objective function is proposed to tune the relative magnitudes of the tire forces. Weighed pseudo-inverse control allocation (WPCA) is adopted to solve the problem. To check the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, simulation is performed on a vehicle simulation package, CarSim. From the simulation, the proposed optimum yaw moment distribution scheme is shown to effective for vehicle stability control.

ROS is based on a graph architecture where processing takes place in nodes. Nodes communicate together by passing messages through topics based on the publish/subscribe model. On the other hand, OPRoS components know each other and are tightly-coupled via port connections, and different coupling schemes make the interoperation between two platforms difficult. This paper describes an extension of OPRoS framework to support the interoperation with the ROS topic.

Road signs provide important safety information about road and traffic conditions to drivers. Road signs include not only common traffic signs but also warning information regarding unexpected obstacles and road constructions. Therefore, accurate detection and identification of road signs is one of the most important research topics related to safe driving. In this paper, we propose a 3-D vision technique to automatically detect and track road signs in a video sequence which is acquired from a stereo vision camera mounted on a vehicle. First, color information is used to initially detect the sign candidates. Second, the SVM (Support Vector Machine) is employed to determine true signs from the candidates. Once a road sign is detected in a video frame, it is continuously tracked from the next frame until it is disappeared. The 2-D position of a detected sign in the next frame is predicted by the 3-D motion of the vehicle. Here, the 3-D vehicle motion is acquired by using the 3-D pose information of the detected sign. Finally, the predicted 2-D position is corrected by template-matching of the scaled template of the detected sign within a window area around the predicted position. Experimental results show that the proposed method can detect and track many types of road signs successfully. Tracking comparisons with two different methods are shown.

There have been many autonomous robot calibration methods which form closed loop structures through the various attached sensors and mechanical fixtures. Single point calibration among them has been used for on-site calibration due to its convenience of implementation. The robot can reach a single point with infinitely many configurations so that single point calibration algorithm can be set up and easily implemented relative to the other methods. However, it is not still easy to drive the robots' sharp edge to its corresponding edge of the fixture. This is error-prone process. In this paper, we propose a 3 dimensional small displacement measuring sensor and a robot calibration algorithm based on this sensor. This method relieves the difficulty of matching two edges in the single point calibration and improves the resulting robot accuracy. Simulated study is carried out on a Hyundai HA06 robot to show the effectiveness of the proposed method over the single point calibration. And also, the resulting robot accuracy is compared with that from 3D laser tracker based calibration to show the dependency of robot accuracy on range of the workspace where the measurement data are collected.

This article describes a path planning algorithm for fixed-wing UAVs when a real terrain should be considered. Nowadays, many UAVs are required to perform mission flights near given terrain for surveillance, reconnaissance, and infiltration, as well as flight altitude of many UAVs are relatively lower than typical manned aerial vehicles. Therefore, real terrain should be considered in path planning algorithms of fixed-wing UAVs. In this research, we have extended a spline-$RRT^*$ algorithm to three-dimensional planner. The spline-$RRT^*$ algorithm is a $RRT^*$ based algorithm, and it takes spline method to extend the tree structure over the workspace to generate smooth paths without any post-processing. Direction continuity of the resulting path is guaranteed via this spline technique, and it is essential factor for the paths of fixed-wing UAVs. The proposed algorithm confirm collision check during the tree structure extension, so that generated path is both geometrically and dynamically feasible in addition to direction continuity. To decrease degrees of freedom of a random configuration, we designed a function assigning directions to nodes of the graph. As a result, it increases the execution speed of the algorithm efficiently. In order to investigate the performance of the proposed planning algorithm, several simulations are performed under real terrain environment. Simulation results show that this proposed algorithm can be utilized effectively to path planning applications considering real terrain.

This study proposes a NN (Neural Networks)-based adaptive control method for a 6X6 skid-type UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) with 6 in-wheel motors. The UGV experiences lots of uncertainties and, thus, the control performance can degrade significantly without a compensation of the unknown terms. To improve the control performance of the UGV, the NN is utilized to design the adaptive controller. Then, the designed overall force and moment are optimally distributed into 6 traction forces with the assumption that six vertical forces of the UGV are known exactly, because the six traction forces are original source to be excited to the UGV to move. Finally, numerical simulations with the TruckSim model are performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

In this Paper, outdoor position estimation system was implemented using GPS (Global Positioning System) and INS (Inertial Navigation System). GPS position information has lots of errors by interference from obstacles and weather, the surrounding environment. To reduce these errors, multiple GPS system is used. Also, the Discrete Wavelet Transforms was applied to INS data for compensation of its error. In this paper, position estimation of the mobile robot in the straight line is conducted by EKF (Extended Kalman Filter). However, curve running position estimation is less accurate than straight line due to phase change in rotation. The curve is recognized through the rate of change in heading angle and the position estimation precision of the initial curve was improved by UPF (Unscented Particle Filter). In the case of UPF, if the number of particle is so many that big memory gets size is needed and processing speed becomes late. So, it only used the position estimation in the initial curve. Thereafter, the position of mobile robot in curve is estimated through switching from UPF to EKF again. Through the experiments, we verify the superiority of the system and make a conclusion.