• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.14 no.7
• /
• pp.720-725
• /
• 2008

This paper proposes a system architecture for USN with a service robot to provide more active assisted living services for elderly persons by monitoring their mental and physical well-being with USN environments at home, hospital, or silver town. Sensors embedded in USN are used to detect preventive measures for chronic disease. Logged data are transferred to main controller of a service robot via wireless channel in which the analysis of data is performed. For the purpose of handling emergency situations, it needs real-time processing on gathering variety sensor data, routing algorithms for sensor nodes to a moving sink node and processing of logged data. This paper realized multi-hop sensor network to detect user movements with biometric data transmission and performed algorithms on Xenomai, a real-time embedded Linux. To leverage active sensing, a mobile robot is used of which task was implemented with a priority to process urgent data came from the sink-node. This software architecture is anticipated to integrate sensing, communication and computing with real-time manner. In order to verify the usefulness of a proposed system, the performance of data transferring and processing on a real-time OS with non real-time OS is also evaluated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2014.02a
• /
• pp.386.1-386.1
• /
• 2014

The ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC), a type of electro-active polymer material, has received enormous interest in various fields such as robotics, medical sensors, artificial muscles because it has many advantages of flexibility, light weight, high displacement, and low voltage activation, compare to traditional mechanical actuators. Mostly noble metal materials such as gold or platinum were used to form the electrode of an IPMC by using electroless plating process. Furthermore, carbon-based materials, which are carbon nanotube (CNT) and reduced graphene-CNT composite, were used to alter the electrode of IPMC. To form the electrode of IPMC, we employ the synthesized graphene on copper foil by chemical vapor deposition method and use the transfer process by using a support of PET/silicone film. The properties of graphene were evaluated by Raman spectroscopy, UV/Vis spectroscopy, and 4-point probe. The structure and surface of IPMC were analyzed via field emission scanning electron microscope. The fabricated IPMC performance such as displacement and operating frequency was measured in underwater.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.65 no.12
• /
• pp.2030-2036
• /
• 2016

This paper presents a hardware development procedure of the ASB(Active Seat Belt) control system to comply with ISO 26262. The ASIL(Automotive Safety Integrity Level) of an ASB system is determined through the HARA(Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment) and the safety mechanism is applied to meet the reqired ASIL. The hardware architecture of the controller consists of a microcontroller, H-bridge circuits, passive components, and current sensors which are used for the input comparison. The required ASIL for the control systems is shown to be satisfied with the safety mechanism by calculation of the SPFM(Single Point Fault Metric) and the LFM(Latent Fault Metric) for the design circuits.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.807-830
• /
• 2015

When a building structure requires both health monitoring system and vibration control system, integrating the two systems together will be cost-effective and beneficial for creating a smart building structure with its own sensors (nervous system), processors (brain system), and actuators (muscular system). This paper presents a real-time integrated procedure to demonstrate how health monitoring and vibration control can be integrated in real time to accurately identify time-varying structural parameters and unknown excitations on one hand, and to optimally mitigate excessive vibration of the building structure on the other hand. The basic equations for the identification of time-varying structural parameters and unknown excitations of a semi-active damper-controlled building structure are first presented. The basic equations for semi-active vibration control of the building structure with time-varying structural parameters and unknown excitations are then put forward. The numerical algorithm is finally followed to show how the identification and the control can be performed simultaneously. The results from the numerical investigation of an example building demonstrate that the proposed method is feasible and accurate.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.79-82
• /
• 2015

This paper proposes a novel complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) active pixel sensor (APS) and presents its performance characteristics. The proposed APS exhibits a linear-logarithmic response, which is simulated using a standard $0.35-{\mu}m$ CMOS process. To maintain high sensitivity and improve the dynamic range (DR) of the proposed APS at low and high-intensity light, respectively, two additional nMOSFETs are integrated into the structure of the proposed APS, along with a photogate. The applied photogate voltage reduces the sensitivity of the proposed APS in the linear response regime. Thus, the conversion gain of the proposed APS changes from high to low owing to the addition of the capacitance of the photogate to that of the sensing node. Under high-intensity light, the integrated MOSFETs serve as voltage-light dependent active loads and are responsible for logarithmic compression. The DR of the proposed APS can be improved on the basis of the logarithmic response. Furthermore, the reference voltages enable the tuning of the sensitivity of the photodetector, as well as the DR of the APS.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.155-171
• /
• 2019

In this study, Semi-active Tuned Mass Dampers (STMDs) are employed in order to cover the prevailing uncertainties and promote the efficiency of the Tuned Mass Dampers (TMDs) to mitigate undesirable structural vibrations. The damping ratio is determined using type-1 and type-2 Fuzzy Logic Controllers (T1 and T2 FLC) based on the response of the structure. In order to increase the efficiency of the FLC, the output membership functions are optimized using genetic algorithm. The results show that the proposed FLC can reduce the sensitivity of STMD to excitation records. The obtained results indicate the best operation for T1 FLC among the other control systems when the uncertainties are neglected. According to the irrefutable uncertainties, three supplies for these uncertainties such as time delay, sensors measurement noises and the differences between real and software model, are investigated. Considering these uncertainties, the efficiencies of T1 FLC, ground-hook velocity-based, displacement-based and TMD reduce significantly. The reduction rates for these algorithms are 12.66%, 26.43%, 20.98% and 21.77%, respectively. However, due to nonlinear behavior and considering a range of uncertainties in membership functions, T2 FLC with 7.2% reduction has robust performance against uncertainties compared to other controlling systems. Therefore, it can be used in actual applications more confidently.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.236-239
• /
• 2019

In this work, we performed an optical simulation study on the performance of a PMDPP3T:PCBM based on an organic photovoltaic (PV) device. The virtual PV device was developed in Lumerical, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) solutions. Different layers of the PV cell have been defined through the incorporation of complex refractive index value of those layers' constituent materials. During the simulation study, the effect of the variation active layer thickness on an ideal short circuit current density ($J_{sc,ideal}$) of the PV cell has been, first, observed. Thereafter, we have investigated the impact of surface roughness of a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrode on $J_{sc,ideal}$ of the PV cells. From this simulation, it has been observed that the $J_{sc,ideal}$ value of the PV cell is strongly dependent on the thickness of its active layer and the photon absorption of the PV cell has gradually decreased with the increment of the TCO's surface roughness. As a result, the capability of the PV device has been reduced with the increment of the surface roughness of the TCO.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.49 no.9
• /
• pp.362-369
• /
• 2012

Recently, a target detection based on a distributed sensor network has been much studied in active sonar. Zhou et al. proposed a target localization method using line fitting based on a distributed sensor network which consists of low complexity sensors that only report binary detection results. This method has three advantages relative to ML estimator. First, there is no need to estimate propagation model parameters. Second, the computation is simple. Third, it only use sensors with "detection", which implies less data to be collected by data processing center. However, this method has larger target localization error than the ML estimator. In this paper, a target localization method which modifies Zhou's method is proposed for reducing the localization error. The modified method shows the performance improvement that the target localization error is reduced by 40.7% to Zhou's method in the point of RMSE.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
• /
• v.4 no.1 s.9
• /
• pp.9-15
• /
• 2000

In order to investigate the structural defects of a cylindrical-type toluene storage tank, we carried out the acoustic emissions. The storage tank was manufactured with high strength steel in 1978 and its's first and second courses from bottom were entirely repaired, recently. Acoustic emissions were monitored with real time according to load sequences in the $75{\~}84\%$ level range of maximum allowable load. Our results show a non-genuine acoustic emissions as well as a genuine characteristics. The pseudo emissions considered as valve noises were transiently occurred on shut-off processes of inlet valve regardless of water loading. The acoustic emission events occurred during water filling phase were estimated due to defects, and in the $75{\~}84\%$ test load level no evidences of defect growth were observed. Those defects were ascertained as weld cracks and porosities through the post radiography testing conducted near active sensors.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.311-316
• /
• 2018

An antenna-coupled bolometer-type terahertz sensor was designed, fabricated, evaluated, and utilized to obtain terahertz transmission images. The sensor consists of a thin film bowtie antenna that resonates accordingly in response to an incident terahertz beam, a heater that converts the applied current in the antenna into heat, and a microbolometer that converts the rise in temperature into a change in resistance. The device is fabricated by a bulk micromachining process on a 4-inch silicon wafer. The fabricated sensor chip has a size of $2{\times}2mm$ and an active area of $0.1{\times}0.1mm^2$. The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the bolometer film (VOx) is 2.0%, which is acceptable for bolometer applications. The output sensor signal is proportional to the power of the incident terahertz beam. Transmission images were obtained with a 2-axis scanning imaging system that contained the sensor. The small active area of the sensor will enable the development of highly sensitive focal plane array sensors in terahertz imaging cameras in the future.