In this paper, a new model reduction method is proposed to obtain a reduced order model in the frequency domain. The method is developed based on the second-order plus dead time modeling technique. The initial value of the reduced model parameters can be obtained using this method coinciding four point(0, -$\pi$/2, -$\pi$, -3$\pi$/2) on the Nyquist curve. The optimal parameters of the reduced model is obtained through calculation procedure with three steps. It is shown that Nyquist curves and unit step responses of the reduced models of numerical examples closely agree with those of original models.

Torque ripple control of brushless DC motors has been the persisting issue of the servo drive systems in which the speed fluctuation, vibration and acoustic noise should be minimized. In this paper, a novel approach to achieve the ripple-free torque control with maximum efficiency based on the d-q reference frame is presented and analyzed. The proposed approach can provide the optimized phase current waveforms over wide speed range incorporating cogging torque compensation without an access to the neutral point of the motor windings. Moreover, the undesirable errors caused by the assumptions such as 3 phase balance or symmetry of the phase back EMF between electrical cycles, which are related with the manufacturing imperfections, can be also eliminated. As a result, the proposed approach provides a simple and clear way to obtain the optimal motor excitation currents. A hysteresis current control system is employed to produce high-frequency electromagnetic torque ripples for compensation. The validity and applicability of the proposed control scheme to real situations are verified through the simulations and experimental results.

Object-based image retrieval method is addressed. A new image segmentation algorithm and image comparing method between segmented objects are proposed. For image segmentation, color and texture features are extracted from each pixel in the image. These features we used as inputs into VQ (Vector Quantization) clustering method, which yields homogeneous objects in terns of color and texture. In this procedure, colors are quantized into a few dominant colors for simple representation and efficient retrieval. In retrieval case, two comparing schemes are proposed. Comparing between one query object and multi objects of a database image and comparing between multi query objects and multi objects of a database image are proposed. For fast retrieval, dominant object colors are key-indexed into database.

A new approach for reducing the blocking artifact is proposed in this paper. This method can be applied to conventional transform coding, without introducing additional information or significant blurring. Main drawbacks of the Discrete Cosine Transform(DCT) are visible block boundaries due to coarse quantization of the coefficients. Therefore, restoration techniques result in unnecessary blurring of the image. The proposed deblocking algorithm is based on the heuristic approach for edge detection. All edges of the standard still images are categorized, and the best edges are selected. Several images are used fer experiments, and several other previous algorithms are compared with the proposed approach. The results show that the proposed algorithm works better than those of other previous researches. This algorithm can be used for JPEG, MPEG, and H.261 standard images.

The confidence of information from image processing depends on the original image quality. Enhancing the confidence by an algorithm has an essential limitation. Especially, road images are exposed to lots of noisy sources, which makes image processing difficult. We, in this paper, propose a FNN (fuzzy-neural network) capable oi deciding the quality of a road image prior to extracting lane-related information. According to the decision by the FNN, road images are classified into good or bad to extract lane-related information. A CDF (cumulative distribution function), a function of edge histogram, is utilized to construct input parameters of the FNN, it is based on the fact that the shape of the CDF and the image quality has large correlation. Input pattern vector to the FNN consists of ten parameters in which nine parameters are from the CDF and the other one is from intensity distribution of raw image. Correlation analysis shows that each parameter represents the image quality well. According to the experimental results, the proposed FNN system was quite successful. We carried out simulations with real images taken by various lighting and weather conditions and achieved about 99% successful decision-making.

This paper deals with a workspace analysis of multi-legged walking robots in velocity domain(velocity workspace analysis). Noting that when robots are holding the same object in multiple cooperating robotic arm system the kinematic structure of the system is basically the same with that of a multi-legged walking robot standing on the ground, we invented a way ot applying the technique for multiple arm system to multi-legged walking robot. An important definition of reaction velocity is made and the bounds of velocities achievable by the moving body with multi-legs is derived from the given bounds on the capabilities of actuators of each legs through Jacobian matrix for given robot configuration. After some assumption of hard-foot-condition is adopted as a contact model between feet of robot and the ground, visualization process for the velocity workspace is proposed. Also, a series of application examples will be presented including continuous walking gaits as well as several different stationary posture of legged walking robots, which validate the usefulness of the proposed technique.

We developed a new type of human-sized BWR (biped walking robot) driven by a new actuator based on the ball screw which has high strength and high gear ratio. Each leg of the robot is composed of three pitch joints and one roll joint. In all, a 10 degree-of-freedom robot with two balancing joints was developed. A new type of actuator for the robot is proposed, which is composed of four bar link mechanism driven by the ball screw. The robot overcomes the limit of the driving torque of conventional BWRs. The BWR was designed to walk autonomously by adapting small DC motors for the robot actuators and has a space to board DC battery and controllers. In the performance test, the BWR performed sitting-up and down motion, and walking motion. Through the test, we found the possibility of a high performance biped-walking.

Map building is the process of modeling the robot's environment. The map is usually built based on a grid-based or topological approach, which has its own merits and demerits. These two methods, therefore, can be integrated to provide a better way of map building, which compensates for each other's drawbacks. In this paper, a method of building the topological map based on the occupancy grid map through a Voronoi diagram is presented and verified by various simulations. This Voronoi diagram is made by using a labeled Voronoi diagram scheme which is suitable for the occupancy grid maps. It is shown that the Proposed method is efficient and simple fur building a topological map. The simple path-planning problem is simulated and experimented verify validity of the proposed approach.

Reducing odometer errors caused by kinematic imperfections in wheeled mobile robots is imestigated. Wheel diameters and wheelbase are corrected by using encoders without landmarks. A new velocity trajectory is proposed that compensates for an orientation error due to acceleration- resolution constraints on motor controllers. Based on this velocity trajectory, the wheel velocity of one out of two driven wheels may be changed by the traveled distance of the mobile robot. It is shown that a wheeled mobile robot can't move along a straight line exactly, even if kinematic correction are achieved perfectly, and this phenomenon is attributable to acceleration-resolution constraints on motor controllers. We experiment on a wheeled mobile robot with 2 d.o.f. are used in the experiment to verify the proposed scheme.

Distributed control systems(DCS) using fieldbus such as CAN have been applied to process systems but it is very difficult to design the DCS while guaranteeing the given end-to-end constraints such as precedence constraints, time constraints, and periods and priorities of tasks and messages. This paper presents a scheduling method to guarantee the given end-to-end constraints. The presented scheduling method is the integrated one considering both tasks executed in each node and messages transmitted via the network and is designed to be applied to a general DCS that has multiple loops with several types of constraints, where each loop consists of sensor nodes with multiple sensors, actuator nodes with multiple actuators and controller nodes with multiple tasks. An assignment method of the optimal period of each loop and a heuristic assignment rule of each message's priority are proposed and the integrated scheduling method is developed based on them.

Feeder arrangement is an important element of process planning for printed circuit board assembly systems. This paper newly proposes a feeder arrangement method for multihead-gantry chip mounters. The multihead-gantry chip mounters are very popular in printed circuit board assembly system, but the research has been mainly focused on single-head-gantry chip mounters. We present an integer programming formulation for optimization problem of multihead-gantry chip mounters, and propose a heuristic method to solve the large NP-complete problem in reasonable time. Dynamic programming method is then applied to feeder arrangement optimization to reduce the overall assembly time. Comparative simulation results are finally presented to verify the usefulness of the proposed method.

This paper presents a new in-flight alignment method for an SDINS under large initial heading error. To handle large heading error, a new attitude error model is introduced. The attitude errors are divided into heading error and leveling errors using a newly defined horizontal frame. Some navigation error dynamic models are derived from the attitude error model for indirect feedback filtering of the in-flight alignment system. A Kalman filter with Position measurement is designed to estimate navigation errors as the indirect feedback filter Simulation results show that the proposed in-flight alignment method reduces the heading error very quickly from more than 40deg to about 5deg so as to apply a refined navigation filter. The total alignment process including leveling mode and navigation mode in addition to the proposed one allows large initial values not only in heading error but also in leveling errors.