In service robots, a number of human movements are analyzed using a variety of sensors. Vibration signals from walking movements of a human provide useful information about the distance and the movement direction of the human. In this paper, we measure the intensity of vibrations and detect both human walking pace and direction. In our experiments, vibration signals detected by microphone sensors provide good estimation of the distance and direction of a human movement. This can be applied to HRI (Human-Robot Interaction) technology.

Intelligent homes consist of ubiquitous sensors, home networks, and a context-aware computing system. These homes are expected to offer many services such as intelligent air-conditioning, lighting control, health monitoring, and home security. In order to realize these services, many researchers have worked on various research topics including smart sensors with low power consumption, home network protocols, resident and location detection, context-awareness, and scenario and service control. This paper presents the real-time metabolic rate estimation method that is based on measured heart rate for human adaptive appliance (air-conditioner, lighting etc.). This estimation results can provide valuable information to control smart appliances so that they can adjust themselves according to the status of residents. The heart rate based method has been experimentally compared with the location-based method on a test bed.

This paper proposes a method to generate diverse robot facial expressions and facial gestures in order to help long-term HRI. First, nine basic dynamics for diverse robot facial expressions are determined based on the dynamics of human facial expressions and principles of animation for even identical emotions. In the second stage, facial actions are added to express facial gestures such as sniffling or wailing loudly corresponding to sadness, laughing aloud or smiling corresponding to happiness, etc. To evaluate the effectiveness of our approach, we compared the facial expressions of the developed robot when the proposed method is used or not. The results of the survey showed that the proposed method can help robots generate more realistic facial expressions.

People would like to be socially engaged not only with humans but also with robots. One of the most common ways in the robotic field to enhance human robot interaction is to use emotion and integrate emotional concepts into robots. Many researchers have been focusing on developing a robot's emotional expressions. However, it is first necessary to establish the psychological background of a robot's emotion generation model in order to implement the whole process of a robot's emotional behavior. Therefore, this article suggests a robot's motivational emotion model with value effectiveness from a Higgins' motivation definition, regulatory focus theory, and Circumplex model. For the test, a game with the best-two-out-of-three rule is introduced. Each step of the game was evaluated by the proposed model. As the results imply, the proposed model generated psychologically appropriate emotions for a robot in the given situation. The empirical survey remains for future work to prove that this research improves social human robot interaction.

Videoconferencing technology is increasingly used in classrooms to introduce children to people from other countries and cultures in order to provide a wider learning experience. However, with traditional screen-based video conferencing technology, research has shown that it is easy for students to miss non-verbal cues that play a key role in developing human relationships. To investigate how children interact differently when their interactions are mediated through screen-based video communication versus robot-mediated communication, we conducted a study with elementary students in Korea, comparing the use of both technologies to introduce classroom students with peer-aged individuals in America. Our findings show that the children displayed more positive emotions during certain tasks and exhibited more interest and intimacy to remote participants in the context of robot-mediated communication than with video-mediated communication.

Generally, feature area detection methods are widely used for face expression recognition by detecting the feature areas of human eyes, eyebrows and mouth. In this paper, we proposed a face expression recognition method using the histograms of the face, eyes and mouth for many applications including robot technology. The experimental results show that the proposed method has a new type of face expression recognition capability compared to conventional methods.

In this paper, we present and analyze a LQ (Linear Quadratic) inverse optimal state-consensus protocol for continuous-time multi-agent systems with undirected graph topology. By Lyapunov analysis of the state-consensus error dynamics, we show the sufficient conditions on the algebraic connectivity of the graph to guarantee LQ inverse optimality and closed-loop stability. A more relaxed stability condition is also provided in terms of the algebraic connectivity. Finally, a formation control protocol for multiple mobile robots is proposed based on the target LQ inverse optimal consensus protocol, and the simulation results are provided to verify the performance of the proposed LQ inverse formation control method.

In this paper, a near optimal decentralized observer-controller design method is proposed for ramp metering systems based on SDRE (State Dependent Riccati Equation) approach. The optimal nonlinear observer gain is parameterized in terms of the solution matrix of an SDRE. This paper gives a simple algorithm to compute the near optimal observer gain. The optimal control design problem is also considered. Finally, numerical simulation results are given to illuminate the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed design method.

This paper proposes a control system to keep the balance of a unicycle robot. The robot consists of the disk and wheel, for balancing and driving respectively, and the tile angle is measured and used for balancing by the IMU sensor. A PID controller is designed based on a non-model based algorithm to prove that it is possible to control the unicycle robot without any approximated linear system model such as the sliding mode control algorithm. The PID controller has the advantage that it is simple to design the controller and it does not require an unnecessary complex formula. In this paper, assuming that the pitch and roll axis are dynamically decoupled, each of the two controllers are designed separately. A reaction wheel pendulum method is used for the control of the roll axis, that is, for balancing and an inverted pendulum concept is used for the control of the pitch axis. To confirm the performance of the proposed controllers using MATLAB Simulink, the dynamic equations of the robot are derived.

In many industrial processes and operations, such as power plants, petrochemical industries and ships, shell and tube heat exchangers are widely used and probably applicable for a wide range of operating temperatures. The main purpose of a heat exchanger is to transfer heat between two or more medium with temperature differences. Heat exchangers are highly nonlinear, time-varying and show time lag behavior during operation. The temperature control of such processes has been challenging for control engineers and a variety of forms of PID controllers have been proposed to guarantee better performance. In this paper, a scheme to control the outlet temperature of a shell and tube heat exchanger system that combines the PID controller with feedforward control and anti-windup techniques is presented. A genetic algorithm is used to tune the parameters of the PID controller with anti-windup and the feedforward controller by minimizing the IAE (Integral of Absolute Error). Simulation works are performed to study the performance of the proposed method when applied to the process.

This paper proposes a balancing control and driving control of a bicycle robot based on dynamic modeling of the bicycle robot, which has been derived using the Lagrange equations. For the balancing control of the bicycle robot, a reaction wheel pendulum method has been adopted in this research. By using the dynamics equations of the bicycle robot, an LQR controller has been designed for a balancing and driving control of a bicycle robot. The performance of the balance control is verified experimentally before the driving control, which shows a stable posture within one degree vibrations. To show the dynamic characteristics of the bicycle robot during driving, a trapezoidal velocity trajectory is selected as the references. Through simulations and real experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm has been demonstrated.

It is well known that solar tracking systems can increase the efficiency of exiting solar panels significantly. In this paper, a hybrid solar tracking system has been developed by using both astronomical estimates from a GPS and the image processing results of a camera vision system. A decision making process is also proposed to distinguish current weather conditions using camera images. Based on the decision making results, the proposed hybrid tracking system switches two tracking control methods. The one control method is based on astronomical estimates of the current solar position. And the other control method is based on the solar image processing result. The developed hybrid solar tracking system is implemented on an experimental platform and the performance of the developed control methods are verified.

This article focuses on a hemispherical resonator gyro driven by the Coriolis effect. A hemispherical shell, called a resonator, is maintained in the resonance state by amplitude control and phase locking control. Parametric excitation has been used to control the amplitude. For rate measurement mode or FTR mode, nodal points have been kept to an amplitude of zero. Angular rate measurement has been demonstrated by rotating a resonator. Frequency mismatch between two stiffness principal axes is a major cause of low performance: vibrating pattern drift and reduced control effectiveness. This mismatch has been reduced significantly by the addition of small mass. A negative spring effect, which lowers resonance frequencies, has been verified experimentally.

This paper describes the design of a force applying system for a smart phone curved glass molding system and its characteristic test. The force applying system is composed of a motor and gear, a rectilinear movement structure, a force sensor, an LVDT (Linear Variable Differential Transformer) sensor, an up and down moving block, and so on. The system precisely controls the applying force and time to the plane glass because the glass can be easily destroyed under applied force, and can be bent imperfectly. As a result of the characteristic test, the curved glass can be manufactured using this system, and the holding time under 0N force, the applying force to the plane glass, the time for applying from 0N to maximum force, and the holding time under maximum force at the manufacture feasible temperature $620^{\circ}C$ were found.

Optical pick-up is a core component for data read/write operations in optical disc drives, and an optical pick-up performance evaluator is an instrument used to analyze the overall performance of an optical pick-up. Due to inevitable errors in an analog measurement circuit, resultant evaluation data is not guaranteed to be accurate. In this paper, a calibration method for an optical pick-up performance evaluator is proposed to ensure evaluation accuracy. Measured data is corrected by a 1st order correction function, and a calibration process based on least-square method is utilized to obtain correction coefficients of the correction function. The proposed calibration method is applied to experiments, and enhanced accuracy is presented with resultant evaluation data.

This paper presents a novel aided navigation method for AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles). The navigation system for AUV includes several sensors such as IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) and depth sensor. In general, the $13^{th}$ order INS error model, which includes depth error, velocity error, attitude error, and the accelerometer and gyroscope biases as state variables is used with measurements from DVL and depth sensors. However, the model may degrade the estimation performance of the heading state. Therefore, the $11^{th}$ INS error model is proposed. Its validity is verified by using a degree of observability and analyzing steady state error. The performance of the proposed model is shown by the computer simulation. The results show that the performance of the reduced $11^{th}$ order error model is better than that of the conventional $13^{th}$ order error model.