Visible light communication (VLC) using LED lamps is suitable for implementing an indoor positioning system in an indoor environment where the global positioning system (GPS) signal does not reach. In this paper, we present an indoor positioning system for mobile robots using a VLC beacon and fuzzy rules. This system consists of an autonomous mobile robot, VLC modules, and device application software. Fuzzy rules are applied to plan the global and local paths along which the mobile robot navigates indoors. The VLC transmitter modules are attached to the wall or the ceiling as beacons to transmit their own location information. The variable pulse position modulation (VPPM) algorithm is used to transmit data, which is a new modulation scheme for VLC providing a dimming control mechanism for flicker-free optical communication. The mobile robot has a receiver module to receive the location information while performing its mission in the environment where VLC transmitters are deployed.

In this paper, a design method for a logistics transportation robot based on a modular conveyor rack and path planning considering the environment of a logistics center is proposed. The driving part of the logistics transportation robot is designed and the working method of lifter for the transportation function is explained. The design of the modular conveyor rack is also described and an algorithm for a logistics transportation robot using a modular conveyor rack is suggested. The $A^*$ algorithm is improved by using the concept of rotation cost and the initial state of the transportation robot's characteristics. We experimented with a four-step transportation algorithm for a logistics transportation robot using a modular conveyor rack and showed that the proposed method can be used successfully in a logistics center. In addition, we verified the effectiveness of the improved $A^*$ algorithm considering the rotation cost and the initial state of the robot.

This paper describes the design of a force measurement and communication system for the force measuring system in industrial robots. The force measurement and communication system is composed of a multi-axis force sensor and a controller for measuring the forces (x-direction force, y-direction force and z-direction force) and sending the measured forces to the robot's controller (PLC: Programmable Logic Controller). In this paper, the force measurement and communication system was designed and fabricated by using a DSP (Digital Signal Processor). An environment test and a grinding and deburring test using an industrial robot with the force measurement and communication system with three-axis force sensor were carried out to characterize the system. The tests showed that the system could safely measure the forces from the three-axis force sensor and send the measured forces to the industrial robot's controller while the grinding and deburring test was performed. Thus, it is thought that the fabricated force measurement and communication system could be used for controlling the force for an industrial robot's grinding and deburring.

In this paper, a smartphone-controlled personal mobility system (PMS) with semi-autonomous navigation is developed. The proposed PMS moves to waypoints and then reaches the destination where the waypoints and destination are selected by the user using Google maps in a smartphone. The hardware environment consists of a GPS (Global Positioning System) in the smartphone and a compass sensor. In addtion, while it is moving in autonomous mode, the user can intervene and change the direction and speed of the PMS in order to avoid obstacles that may be encountered accidentally in a dynamic environment. That is why it is called "semi-autonomous navigation". Experimental results showed that the proposed PMS is effectively able to migrate to the waypoints and destination in both autonomous and manual modes.

In this paper, a localization method for multiple robots based on Bayesian inference is proposed when multiple robots adopting multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology) communications exist in cognitive radio networks. Multiple robots are separately defined by primary and secondary users as in conventional mobile communications system. In addition, the heterogeneous spectrum environment is considered in this paper. To improve the performance of localization for multiple robots, a realistic multiple primary user distribution is explained by using the probabilistic graphical model, and then we introduce the Gibbs sampler strategy based on Bayesian inference. In addition, the secondary user selection minimizing the value of GDOP (Geometric Dilution of Precision) is also proposed in order to overcome the limitations of localization accuracy with Gibbs sampling. Via the simulation results, we can show that the proposed localization method based on GDOP enhances the accuracy of localization for multiple robots. Furthermore, it can also be verified from the simulation results that localization performance is significantly improved with increasing number of observation samples when the GDOP is considered.

Autonomous vehicles must obey the traffic laws in order to drive actual roads. Traffic signs erected at the side of roads explain the road traffic information or regulations. Therefore, traffic sign recognition is necessary for the autonomous vehicles. In this paper, color characteristics are first considered to detect traffic sign candidates. Subsequently, we establish HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradients) features from the detected candidate and recognize the traffic sign through a SVM (Support Vector Machine). However, owing to various circumstances, such as changes in weather and lighting, it is difficult to recognize the traffic signs robustly using only SVM. In order to solve this problem, we propose a tracking algorithm with RANSAC-based motion estimation. Using two-point motion estimation, inlier feature points within the traffic sign are selected and then the optimal motion is calculated with the inliers through a bundle adjustment. This approach greatly enhances the traffic sign recognition performance.

This paper presents the internal oil leakage detection problem for a hydraulic double-rod cylinder. We represent the dynamics of the hydraulic cylinder as a convex combination of linear equations. To detect oil leakage, we propose a model-based fault detection observer design scheme. The observer is designed to be robust against disturbance. Sufficient design conditions are derived in the form of linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is provided to verify the proposed techniques.

The root-locus method is often employed when a controller is designed to find controller gain. It is usually used to determine one parameter gain while most controllers for industrial applications have more than one controller gain. For example PID controller has three controller gains, i.e. P, I, and D gains. Thus the conventional root-locus technique cannot complete the design of a controller with more than one controller gain. One way to overcome this drawback has been to apply the root-locus technique for one parameter while other parameters are assumed to be proportional to the parameter or to be constant. However this approach could lead to limited performance of the controller and if we try to adjust the proportional ratio or constants then it could be a long and tedious process of trial and error. Thus it is required to find an effective method for the root-locus technique to design controllers with more than one parameter. To this end this paper proposes an extended root-locus method for controllers with two parameters. In this paper Matlab is used as a computation tool to show the effectiveness of our method by solving examples numerically. As a result we obtained an extended root-locus illustrated in two-dimensional space for a control system with two parameters. The paper then presents how to find two controller gains based on this result of the extended root-locus. The main idea is that we can find the parameters by approaching the desired poles. It is expected that the proposed idea will help control engineers to easily design control systems using the root-locus technique, resulting in more accurate and faster control systems. Note that the extended root-locus idea can be applied to controller design problems with multiple parameters.

This paper describes the track initiation and target-tracking filter for ship tracking in a marine environment by using Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR). LiDAR with three-dimensional scanning capability is more useful for target tracking in the short to medium range compared to RADAR. LiDAR has rotating multi-beams that return point clouds reflected from targets. Through preprocessing the cluster of the point cloud, the center point can be obtained from the cloud. Target tracking is carried out by using the center points of targets. The track of the target is initiated by investigating the normalized distance between the center points and connecting the points. The regular track obtained from the track initiation can be maintained by the target-tracking filter, which is commonly used in radar target tracking. The target-tracking filter is constructed to track a maneuvering target in a cluttered environment. The target-tracking algorithm including track initiation is experimentally evaluated in a sea-trial test with several boats.

Recently, popularity of 3D technology has been growing significantly and it has many application parts in the various fields of industry. In order to overcome the limitations of 2D machine vision technologies based on 2D image, we need the 3D measurement technologies. There are many 3D measurement methods as such scanning probe microscope, phase shifting interferometry, confocal scanning microscope, white-light scanning interferometry, and so on. In this paper, we have used the extended depth of focus (EDF) algorithm among 3D measurement methods. The EDF algorithm is the method which extracts the 3D information from 2D images acquired by short range depth camera. In this paper, we propose the EDF algorithm using the edge informations of images and the average values of all pixel on z-axis to improve the performance of conventional method. To verify the performance of the proposed method, we use the various synthetic images made by point spread function(PSF) algorithm. We can correctly make a comparison between the performance of proposed method and conventional one because the depth information of these synthetic images was known. Through the experimental results, the PSNR of the proposed algorithm was improved about 1 ~ 30 dB than conventional method.

This paper proposes a new TPC (Transmission Priority Change) algorithm which is used to diagnose failures of a CAN (Controller Area Network) based network system for the oil tank monitoring. The TPC algorithm is aimed to increase the total amount of data transmission and to minimize the latency for an urgent message by changing transmission priority. The urgency of the data transmission has been determined by the conditions of sensors. There are multiple sensors inside of the oil tank, such as temperature, valve, pressure and level sensors. When the sensors operate normally, the sensory data can be collected through the CAN network by the monitoring system. However when there is a dangerous situation or failure situation happened at a sensor, the data need to be handled quickly by the monitoring system, which is implemented by using the TPC algorithm. The effectiveness of the TPC algorithm has been verified by the real experiments. In addition, this paper introduces a method that people can figure out the condition of oil tanks and also can perform the fault diagnosis in real-time by using transmitted packet data. By applying this TPC algorithm to various industries, the convenience and reliability of multiple sensors network system can be improved.

This paper proposes a bridge model for data exchange and service invocation between OPRoS and ROS platforms, shows the validity of the proposed model via applications, and compares the proposed model with the OPRoS platform and the ROS platform using performance measures such as data exchange time and service response time. The proposed model operates independently of OPRoS and ROS Platforms using its configuration file with mapping information among the OPRoS data/service port and the ROS topic/service. The configuration file makes easy connections between OPRoS data/service and ROS topic/service without changing the source code of the platform and components.

Gyeong-bu railway line in Korea between Seoul and Cheon-an was built as two double tracks. A four-display signaling system, only for the metro line, was installed on the second double track so KTX and conventional trains can only operate on the first double track. This study suggests a method to allow KTX and conventional trains operated on the five-display signaling system to respond to accidents and track defects on the second double-track under the four-display signal system by means of problem analysis, calculation of breaking distances for KTX and conventional trains at each break mode, and improvement of the ATS system.