• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.117-129
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• 2024

This paper introduces collective navigation through a narrow gap using a curriculum-based deep reinforcement learning algorithm for a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Collective navigation in complex environments is essential for various applications such as search and rescue, environment monitoring and military tasks operations. Conventional methods, which are easily interpretable from an engineering perspective, divide the navigation tasks into mapping, planning, and control; however, they struggle with increased latency and unmodeled environmental factors. Recently, learning-based methods have addressed these problems by employing the end-to-end framework with neural networks. Nonetheless, most existing learning-based approaches face challenges in complex scenarios particularly for navigating through a narrow gap or when a leader or informed UAV is unavailable. Our approach uses the information of a certain number of nearest neighboring UAVs and incorporates a task-specific curriculum to reduce learning time and train a robust model. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified through an ablation study and quantitative metrics. Simulation results demonstrate that our approach outperforms existing methods.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.8
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• pp.1592-1598
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• 2011

In this paper, a formation control method based on the leader-following approach for nonholonomic mobile robots is proposed. In the previous works, it is assumed that the followers know the leader's velocity by means of communication. However, it is difficult that the followers correctly know the leader's velocity due to the contamination or delay of information. Thus, in this paper, an adaptive approach based on the parameter projection algorithm is proposed to estimate the leader's velocity. Moreover, the adaptive backstepping technique is used to compensate the effects of a dynamic model with the unknown time-invariant and time-varying parameters. From the Lyapunov stability theory, it is proved that the errors of the closed-loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.9
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• pp.1686-1691
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• 2010

In this paper, we aim at providing a novel sweeping method for multi-security mobile robots. The sweeping problem of the multi-robots can be modeled as the stick pulling problem in which the swarm robots should sweep unknown terrains in order to remove sticks collaboratively. For the purpose, we define a certain map, what is called stick map. And we suggest how to make swarm robots build up and utilize the map in order to improve the productivity of collaborative removing sticks. Finally, the efficiency of our algorithm is verified with simulation experiments.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.11
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• pp.2152-2156
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose the novel behavior control algorithm by using the efficient searching method based on the characteristic of the swarm robots in unknown space. The proposed method consists of identifying the position and moving state of a robot by the dynamic modelling of a wheel drive vehicle, and planing behavior control rules of the swarm robots based on the sensor range zone. The cooperative search for unknown space is carried out by the proposed behavior control. Finally, some experiments show the effectiveness and the feasibility of the proposed method.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.63 no.10
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• pp.1428-1433
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose the formation control algorithm using the leader-following robots in given space. The proposed method is as follows: First, we plan a path of the leader robot for the obstacle avoidance. After that, we propose the formation control algorithm of the following robots using the position and the orientation angle of the leader robot. Also, we propose method for adjusting the formation of the swarm robots when the following robots detect an obstacles. Finally, we show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method though some simulations.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.51-56
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• 2022

This paper presents an Ground Segmentation algorithm to eliminate unnecessary Lidar Point Cloud Data (PCD) in an autonomous driving system. We consider Random Sample Consensus (Ransac) Algorithm to process lidar ground data. Ransac designates inlier and outlier to erase ground point cloud and classified PCD into two parts. Test results show removal of PCD from ground area by distinguishing inlier and outlier. The paper validates ground rejection algorithm in real time calculating the number of objects recognized by ground data compared to lidar raw data and ground segmented data based on the z-axis. Ground Segmentation is simulated by Robot Operating System (ROS) and an analysis of autonomous driving data is constructed by Matlab. The proposed algorithm can enhance performance of autonomous driving as misrecognizing circumstances are reduced.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2013

'Multi-scale mass-deployable cooperative robots' is a next generation robotics paradigm where a large number of robots that vary in size cooperate in a hierarchical fashion to collect information in various environments. While this paradigm can exhibit the effective solution for exploration of the wide area consisting of various types of terrain, its technical maturity is still in its infant state and many technical hurdles should be resolved to realize this paradigm. In this paper, we propose to develop new design and manufacturing methodologies for the multi-scale mass-deployable cooperative robots. In doing so, we present various fundamental technologies in four different research fields. (1) Adaptable design methods consist of compliant mechanisms and hierarchical structures which provide robots with a unified way to overcome various and irregular terrains. (2) Soft composite materials realize the compliancy in these structures. (3) Multi-scale integrative manufacturing techniques are convergence of traditional methods for producing various sized robots assembled by such materials. Finally, (4) the control and communication techniques for the massive swarm robot systems enable multiple functionally simple robots to accomplish the complex job by effective job distribution.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.898-902
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• 2015

Alternative radio-navigation technologies aim at providing continuous navigation solution even if one cannot use GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System). In shadowing region such as indoor environment, GNSS signal is no longer available and the alternative navigation system should be used together with GNSS to provide seamless positioning. For soldiers in battlefield where GNSS signal is jammed or in street battle, the alternative navigation system should work without positioning infrastructure. Moreover, the radio-navigation system should have scalability as well as high accuracy performance. This paper presents a TWR (Two-Way-Ranging)-based cooperative positioning system (CPS) that does not require location infrastructure. It is assumed that some members of CPS can obtain GNSS-based position and they are called mobile anchors. Other members unable to receive GNSS signal compute their position using TWR measurements with mobile anchors and neighboring members. Error propagation in CPS is analytically studied in this paper. Error budget for TWR measurements is modeled first. Next, location error propagation in CPS is derived in terms of range errors. To represent the location error propagation in the CPS, Location Error Propagation Indicator (LEPI) is proposed in this paper. Simulation results show that location error of tags in CPS is mainly influenced by the number of hops from anchors to the tag to be positioned as well as the network geometry of CPS.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.243-248
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• 2014

This study presents an investigation into the ways to detect the areas of object movement with Kinect's Depth Frame, which is capable of receiving 3D information regardless of external light sources. Applied to remove noises along the boundaries of objects among the depth information received from sensors were the blurring technique for the x and y coordinates of pixels and the frequency filter for the z coordinate. In addition, a clustering filter was applied according to the changing amounts of adjacent pixels to extract the areas of moving objects. It was also designed to detect fast movements above the standard according to filter settings, being applicable to mobile robots. Detected movements can be applied to security systems when being delivered to distant places via a network and can also be expanded to large-scale data through concerned information.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2016.10a
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• pp.510-513
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• 2016

Detecting of the object in image processing is substantial but it depends on the object itself and the environment. An object can be detected either by its shape or color. Color is an essential for pattern recognition and computer vision. It is an attractive feature because of its simplicity and its robustness to scale changes and to detect the positions of the object. Generally, color of an object depends on its characteristics of the perceiving eye and brain. Physically, objects can be said to have color because of the light leaving their surfaces. Here, we conducted experiment in the aquarium fish tank. Different color of fish robots are mimic the natural swim of fish. Unfortunately, in the underwater medium, the colors are modified by attenuation and difficult to identify the color for moving objects. We consider the fish motion as a moving object and coordinates are found at every instinct of the aquarium to detect the position of the fish robot using OpenCV color detection. In this paper, we proposed to identify the position of the fish robot by their color and use the position data to control the fish robot gathering in one point in the fish tank through serial communication using RF module. It was verified by the performance test of detecting the position of the fish robot.