We proposed a decoupled adaptive fuzzy sliding-mode control scheme for a class of fourth-order nonlinear systems. The system is decoupled into two second-order systems such that each subsystem has a separate control target expressed in terms of sliding surface. For these sliding surfaces, we define main and sub target conditions. and, we made intermediate variables which are interconnected both surface conditions from the sub target sliding surface. Then, Two sets of fuzzy rule bases are utilized to represent the equivalent control input with unknown system functions of the main target sliding surface including intermediate variables. The membership functions of the THEN-part, which is used to construct a suitable equivalent control of sliding-mode control, are changed according to the adaptive law. With such a design scheme, we not only maintain the distribution of membership functions over state space but also reduce the computing time considerably. We apply the decoupled adaptive sliding-mode control to a nonlinear Cart-Pole system and confirms the validity of the proposed approach.

The Field robot means the machinery applied for outdoor tasks in construction, agriculture and undersea etc. In this study, to field-robotize a hydraulic excavator that is mostly used in construction working, we have developed an automatic excavation system and an adaptive control system. A model-reference adaptive controller has been designed based on the model that is obtained through off-line system identification. It is illustrated by computer simulations that the proposed control system gives good performance in the trajectory tracking control and the adaptation to parameter variation.

There has been a great demand for smart actuators in the field of micro-machines. However, the control accuracy of smart actuators, e.g., a shape memory alloy(SMA) and a piezoceramic actuator, is limited due to the inherent hysteresis nonlinearity. The Preisach hysteresis model has emerged as an appropriate model f3r the behavior of those smart actuators. Yet it is still not easy to construct a practical model of hysteresis using the classical Preisach model. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a new simple method for modeling of the hysteresis nonlinearity of SMA. Using only the proportional relation of the major loop of hysteresis, the proposed method makes the computation of the Preisach model easy. We prove the efficacy of the proposed model through the comparative the experimentation with the classical Preisach model.

The automatic steering system for unmanned vehicle was developed. The magnet and MR (Magnetoresistive) sensors are used for the tue detecting system. The lateral distance between sensor and the center line of the road is determined by the linearization of the distance according to the output. The PD control theory is used for the design of the controller to compare with $H_\infty$ control theory. The $H_\infty$ control theory is used for the design of the controller to reduce the disturbance. The performance of the PD controller and $H_\infty$ controller is compared in simulations and tests. The PD controller is easy to tune in the test site. The $H_\infty$ controller is robust far the disturbances in the test results.

A newly designed haptic interface enables an operator to control a remote robot precisely. It transmits position information to the remote robot and feeds back the interaction force from it. A control algorithm of haptic interface has been studied to improve the robustness and stability to uncertain dynamic environments with a proposed contact dynamic model that incorporates human hand dynamics. A simplified hybrid parallel robot dynamic model fur a 6 DOF haptic device was proposed to from a real time control system, which does not include nonlinear components. LQC/LTR scheme was adopted in this paper for the compensation of un-modeled dynamics. The recovery of the farce from the remote robot at the haptic interface was demonstrated through the experiments.

A kinematic and dynamic optimal design of a new parallel-type rolling mill based upon Stewart platform manipulator is investigated. To provide sufficient degrees-of-freedom in the rolling process and the structural stability of each stand, a parallel manipulator with six legs is considered. The objective of this new parallel-type rolling mill is to permit an integrated control of the strip thickness, strip shape, pair crossing angle, uniform wear of the rolls, and tension of the strip. By splitting the weighted Jacobian matrices Into two parts, the linear velocity, angular velocity, force, and moment transmissivities are analyzed. A manipulability measure, the ratio of the manipulability ellipsoid volume and the condition number of a split Jacobian matrix, is defined. Two kinematic parameters, the radius of the base and the angle between two neighboring Joints, are optimally designed by maximizing the global manipulability measure in the entire workspace. The maximum force needed in the hydraulic actuator is also calculated using the structure determined through the kinematic analysis and the Plucker coordinates. Simulation results are provided.

Automation of welding process in shipyards is ultimately necessary, since the welding site is spatially enclosed by floors and girders, and therefore welding operators are exposed to hostile working conditions. To solve this problem, a welding mobile robot that can navigate autonomously within the enclosure has been developed. To achieve the welding task in the closed space, the robotic welding system needs a sensor system for the working environment recognition and the weld seam tracking, and a specially designed environment recognition strategy. In this paper, a three-dimensional laser vision system is developed based on the optical triangulation technology in order to provide robots with 3D work environmental map. Using this sensor system, a spatial filter based on neural network technology is designed for extracting the center of laser stripe, and evaluated in various situations. An environment modeling algorithm structure is proposed and tested, which is composed of the laser scanning module for 3D voxel modeling and the plane reconstruction module for mobile robot localization. Finally, an environmental recognition strategy for welding mobile robot is developed in order to recognize the work environments efficiently. The design of the sensor system, the algorithm for sensing the partially structured environment with plane segments, and the recognition strategy and tactics for sensing the work environment are described and discussed with a series of experiments in detail.

To improve surgical result of total hip arthroplasty (THA), there has been some approaches using a robotic milling system, which can make a precise cavity in the femur. Usually, to carve a femur, the surgical robot is controlled by a pre-programmed tool-path regardless of a surgeon's experience and Judgment. This paper presents a control method of a surgical robot for THA, which can be used as an advanced surgical tool. With a master/slave combined surgical robot, surgeon can directly control the motion and velocity of a surgical robot. The master/slave-combined robot is controlled to display a specific admittance for a surgeon's force to the surgical robot velocity. To prevent the over-carving of a femur, virtual hard wall is displayed on the surgical boundary. To evaluate the proposed control method of the master/slave-combined surgical robot, 2-DOF master/slave-combined manipulator is used in experiment.

We present a new dynamic routing scheme for multiple autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) systems. There have been so many results concerned with scheduling and routing of multiple AGV systems; however, most of them are only applicable to systems with a small number of AGVs under a low degree of concurrency. With an increased number of AGVs in recent applications, these AGV systems are faced with another problem that has never been occurred in a system with a small number AGVs. This is the stop propagation problem. That is, if a leading AGV stops then all the following AGVs must stop to avoid any collision. In order to resolve this problem, we propose a nonstop preferential detour (NPD) algorithm which is a new dynamic routing scheme employing an election algorithm. For real time computation, we introduce two stage control scheme and propose a new path searching scheme, k-via shortest path scheme for an efficient dynamic routing algorithm. Finally, the proposed new dynamic routing scheme is illustrated by an example.

Machine vision systems are usually used to identify traffic lanes and then determine the steering angle of an autonomous vehicle in real time. The steering angle is calculated using a geometric model of various parameters including the orientation, position, and hardware specification of a camera in the machine vision system. To find the accurate values of the parameters, camera calibration is required. This paper presents a new camera-calibration algorithm using known traffic lane features, line thickness and lane width. The camera parameters considered are divided into two groups: Group I (the camera orientation, the uncertainty image scale factor, and the focal length) and Group II(the camera position). First, six control points are extracted from an image of two traffic lines and then eight nonlinear equations are generated based on the points. The least square method is used to find the estimates for the Group I parameters. Finally, values of the Group II parameters are determined using point correspondences between the image and its corresponding real world. Experimental results prove the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.

This paper presents a development of high accuracy aligner and describes a method to find the orientation of a substantially circular disk shaped wafer with at least one flat region on an edge thereof. In the developed system, the wafer is spun one 360 degree turn on a chuck and the edge position is measured by a linear array to obtain a set of data points at various wafer orientation. The rotation axis may differ from wafer center by an unknown eccentricity. The flat angle is found by fitting a cosine curve to the actual data to obtain a deviation. The maximum deviation is then corrected for errors due to a finite number of data points and wafer eccentricity by calculating an adjustment angle from data points on the wafer fiat. After determining the flat angle the wafer is spun to the desired orientation. The wafer eccentricity can be calculated from four of the data points located away from the flat edge region. and the wafer is then centered.

Since multipath phenomenon frequently occurs when a Global Positioning System receiver is placed in urban area crowded with large buildings, efficient mitigation of multipath effects is necessary to resolve. In this paper, we propose a new multipath detection technique that is useful in real-time positioning with a general Global Positioning System receiver. The proposed technique is based on a channelwise multipath test statistic that efficiently indicates the degree of fluctuations induced by multipath error. The proposed multipath test statistic is operationally advantageous because it does not require any specialized hardware nor any pre-computation of receiver position, it is directly related to standard $\chi$$^2$-distributions, and it can adjust the detection resolution by increasing the number of successive measurements. Simulation and experiment results verify the performance of the proposed multipath detection technique.