• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.45-50
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• 2009

The environment exploration is an essential process for indoor robots such as clean robot and security robot. Apartment house and office building has common frame structure, but internal arrangement of each room may be slightly different. So, it is more convenient to use a common frame map than to build a new map at every time the arrangement is changed. In this case, it is important to recognize invariant features such as wall, door and window. In this paper, an indoor mobile robot is implemented, and by using the laser scanner data and line segment histogram with respect to segment orientation and distance, an environment exploration method is presented and tested. This robot is fitted with a laser scanner, gyro sensor, ultra sonic sensor and IR sensor, and programed with C language.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.56-63
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• 2012

Due to the development of construction technology, there is a considerable increase in the number of skyscrapers in the world. Accordingly, there are rapid growing requests about maintenance systems such as cleaning, painting, and monitoring the processes of facade in highrise buildings. However, it is extremely dangerous working the walls of high-rise buildings, and crashes from buildings have accounted for large proportion of constructional accidents. An alternative solution must be developed with the commercialization of automatic robot systems. For the last decade, interest in developing robots for cleaning and maintenance in facade of highrise buildings has continuously increased. The use of automatic robot systems can be expected to reduce accidents and decrease labor costs. In this paper, we propose a new kind of cleaning mechanism. We have designed and manufactured various cleaning tools for different types of facades with economic commercialization. The cleaning cycle, size, and intensity will be determined by economic constraints as well. The final goals are to design and manufacture tools and robots that can clean facades efficiently and rapidly even in dangerous places. The cleaning tool systems consist of nozzles, brush rollers, and squeezing devices. Furthermore, these tools and robots perform each process utilizing the systems of built-in guide types and gondola types for building maintenance. The performance of the proposed cleaning tools is evaluated experimentally; however additional study should be necessary for safer and more stable commercialization.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.300-306
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• 2005

In this paper we present a guideline to evaluate how easy the use of personal robots is and how good their learning abilities are, based on the analysis of their built-in commands, user interfaces, and intelligences. Recently, we are living with robots that can be able to do lots of roles; cleaning, security, pets and education in real life. They can be classified as home robots, guide robots, service robots, robot pets, and so on. There we, however, no standards to evaluate their abilities, so it is not easy to select an appropriate robot when a user wants to buy it. Thus, we present, as a guideline that can be a standard for the evaluation of the personal robots, the standards by means of analyzing existing personal robots and results of the recent research works. We will, also, demonstrate how to apply the evaluation method to the cleaning robot as an example.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.10b
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• pp.421-423
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• 2005

Power transmission lines have been playing a key role as the mainstay of national industry. When a power failure occurs, it can have severe effects on national security as well as national industry and economy. In this paper, we consider an insulator failure, which is one of the main causes of such a power failure. In spite of its importance, however, a shortage of manpower in the insulator maintenance field is getting more serious due to working environments with a high voltage and a high place. For this reason, a new active maintenance technique using a robot system is required to prevent such an insulator failure. In this paper, a new robot mechanism for insulator cleaning and inspection was developed. We confirmed its effectiveness through experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.157-159
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• 2012

In recent years, the number of high-rise buildings has been on the rise. As buildings have become larger in scale, significantly different issues related to their construction and maintenance have emerged. In addition, the automation and mechanization of the cleaning work for the curtain wall, one of the most frequently-performed tasks in building maintenance, is required as a fundamental measure. For this reason, a guide-rail type cleaning robot system is emerging as one of the measures in response to external factors, including gust. The major objective of this study is to propose an economic feasibility forecasting model and to apply the a building facade cleaning robot which is now under development.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.1769-1770
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• 2007

To prevent an insulator failure, an automatic cleaning robot was developed for suspension insulator strings. The robot autonomously moves along the insulator string using the clamps installed on its two moving frames, and adopts a dry cleaning method using rotating brushes and a circular motion guide. In addition, a mechanized brush bristles and a voltage-balancing contactor are devised to increase cleaning efficiency and to prevent arc generation under live-line conditions, respectively. Moreover, a manual tool for its installation and removal is presented. We confirmed its effectiveness through experiments.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.59-86
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• 2021

The platform concept has been used for business operations in various forms: product platforms, transaction platforms and industry platforms. All these platforms have common characteristics of having 'core' that is reused frequently and 'peripherals' that are less reusable and changed often. Companies use platforms to enable efficient development and creation of product family, transactions and innovation. These platforms provide new opportunities for many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) by bringing changes to traditional industrial structures focused on the products rather than platforms. The service robotics industry in South Korea is mainly composed of technology-intensive SMEs due to its small market size. Although these SMEs succeed in developing technologies, they have difficulties creating and expanding markets to sell products. Thus, this study addresses the characteristics and problems of the South Korean service robotics industry and analyses how ROBOPRINT, one of the SMEs in the service robotics industry, successfully creates and continuously expands the service robot market by adopting platform concept. The results indicate that ROBOPRINT has been applying two types of platforms: product and transaction platforms. First, ROBOPRINT created art robots that were apartment mural service robots. Rather than selling art robots, the company developed various robots such as painting robots, building exterior wall-cleaning robots by reusing the core technology of the robots. The company also developed various robots according to the buyers request. In addition, the company used the robots to directly provide apartment mural services for customers. This mural service has been extended into various areas, not only in apartments but also in soundproof walls, underground passages, and retaining walls. Besides, ROBOPRINT added new services continuously by developing technologies such as virtual reality. Second, ROBOPRINT mediated mural service buyers and mural designers. This platform reduced buyers' workload, which necessitates requesting mural services to ROBOPRINT and searching for mural designers. For designers, this opened up new opportunities to participate in the mural business. The platform attracted both mural buyers and designers who were scattered before. Finally, ROBOPRINT seeks to expand the platform's scope to outside company. To share internally reused ROBOPRINT's technology with other companies, the company participated in Daegu city's 'New Technology Platform Industry'. Furthermore, ROBOPRINT is trying to share the service platform by leasing robots to other companies. This allows external agents to develop technologies and provide services by reusing resources from ROBOPRINT. This study contributes to existing theories by showing that SMEs continuously create and expand markets by building various platforms. Moreover, it provides useful implications for practitioners by describing the firm's specific platform-building strategy.