• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2007

This paper addresses the localization and navigation problem in the movement of service robots by using invisible two dimensional barcodes on the floor. Compared with other methods using natural or artificial landmarks, the proposed localization method has great advantages in cost and appearance since the location of the robot is perfectly known using the barcode information after mapping is finished. We also propose a navigation algorithm which uses a topological structure. For the topological information, we define nodes and edges which are suitable for indoor navigation, especially for large area having multiple rooms, many walls, and many static obstacles. The proposed algorithm also has the advantage that errors which occur in each node are mutually independent and can be compensated exactly after some navigation using barcodes. Simulation and experimental results were performed to verify the algorithm in the barcode environment, showing excellent performance results. After mapping, it is also possible to solve the kidnapped robot problem and to generate paths using topological information.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.720-727
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• 2009

This paper proposes a new integrated navigation system for a mobile robot in indoor environments. This system consists of five frameworks which are classified by function. This architecture can make the navigation system scalable and flexible. The robot can recover from exceptional situations, such as environmental changes, failure of entering the narrow path, and path occupation by moving objects, using the exception recovery framework. The environmental change can be dealt with using the probabilistic approach, and the problems with the narrow path and path occupation are solved using the ray casting algorithm and the Bayesian update rule. The proposed navigation system was successfully applied to several robots and operated in various environments. Experimental results showed good performance in that the exception recovery framework significantly increased the success rate of navigation. The system architecture proposed in this paper can reduce the time for developing robot applications through its reusability and changeability.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.127-132
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• 2016

For a practical mobile robot team such as carrying out a search and rescue mission in a disaster area, the localization have to be guaranteed even in an environment where the network infrastructure is destroyed or a global positioning system (GPS) is unavailable. The proposed architecture supports localizing robots seamlessly by finding their relative locations while moving from a global outdoor environment to a local indoor position. The proposed schemes use a cooperative positioning system (CPS) based on the two-way ranging (TWR) technique. In the proposed TWR-based CPS, each non-localized mobile robot act as tag, and finds its position using bilateral range measurements of all localized mobile robots. The localized mobile robots act as anchors, and support the localization of mobile robots in the GPS-shadow region such as an indoor environment. As a tag localizes its position with anchors, the position error of the anchor propagates to the tag, and the position error of the tag accumulates the position errors of the anchor. To minimize the effect of error propagation, this paper suggests the new scheme of full-mesh based CPS for improving the position accuracy. The proposed schemes assuring localization were validated through experiment results.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.51 no.12
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• pp.577-582
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• 2002

The objective of this paper is to produce a weighted graph map for path-planning of an autonomous mobile robot(AMR) based on the measurements from a single ultrasonic sensor, which are acquired when the autonomous mobile robot explores unknown indoor circumstance. The AMR navigates in th unknown space by following the wall and gathers the range data using the ultrasonic sensor, from which the occupancy grid map is constructed by associating the range data with occupancy certainties. Then, the occupancy grid map is converted to a weighted graph map suing morphological image processing and thinning algorithms. the path- planning for autonomous navigation of a mobile robot can be carried out based on the occupancy grid map. These procedures are implemented and tested using an AMR, and primary results are presented in this paper.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.12
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• pp.2094-2102
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose an extended Kalman filter(EKF)-based simultaneous localization and mapping(SLAM) method using laser corner pattern matching for mobile robots. SLAM is one of the most important problems of mobile robot. However, existing method has the disadvantage of increasing the computation time, depending on the number of landmarks. To improve computation time, we produce the corner pattern using classified and detected corner points. After producing the corner patterns, it is estimated that mobile robot's global position by matching them. The estimated position is used as measurement model in the EKF. To evaluated proposed method, we preformed the experiments in the indoor environments. Experimental results of proposed method are shown to maintain an accuracy and decrease the computation time.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.361-368
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• 2015

This paper reports an unscented Kalman filter approach for localization of a mobile robot in an indoor environment. The method proposes a new model of measurement uncertainty which adjusts the error covariance according to the measured distance. The method also uses non-zero off diagonal values in error covariance matrices of motion uncertainty and measurement uncertainty. The method is tested through experiments in an indoor environment of 100*40 m working space using a differential drive robot which uses Laser range finder as an exteroceptive sensor. The results compare the localization performance of the proposed method with the conventional method which doesn't use adaptive measurement uncertainty model. Also, the experiment verifies the improvement due to non-zero off diagonal elements in covariance matrices. This paper contributes to implementing and evaluating a practical UKF approach for mobile robot localization.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.205-216
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• 2016

The localization of the robot is one of the most important factors of navigating mobile robots. The use of featured information of landmarks is one approach to estimate the location of the robot. This approach can be classified into two categories: the natural-landmark-based and artificial-landmark-based approach. Natural landmarks are suitable for any environment, but they may not be sufficient for localization in the less featured or dynamic environment. On the other hand, artificial landmarks may generate shaded areas due to space constraints. In order to improve these disadvantages, this paper presents a novel development of the localization system by using artificial and natural-landmarks-based approach on a topological map. The proposed localization system can recognize far or near landmarks without any distortion by using landmark tracking system based on top-view image transform. The camera is rotated by distance of landmark. The experiment shows a result of performing position recognition without shading section by applying the proposed system with a small number of artificial landmarks in the mobile robot.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.10c
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• pp.554-556
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• 2006

A key component for autonomous mobile robot is to localize ifself. In this paper we suggest a vision-based localization and compensation of robot's location using ultrasound. Mobile robot travels along wall and searches each feature in indoor environment and transformed absolute coordinates of actuality environment using these points and builds a map. And we obtain information of the environment because mobile robot travels along wall. Localzation search robot's location candidate point by ultrasound and decide position among candidate point by features matching.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.305-314
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• 2015

The work presented in this paper deals with a navigation problem for multiple mobile robot system in unknown indoor environments. The environment is completely unknown for all the robots and the surrounding information should be detected by the proximity sensors installed on the robots' bodies. In order to guide all the robots to move along collision-free paths and reach the goal positions, a navigation method based on the combination of a set of primary strategies has been developed. The indoor environments usually contain convex and concave obstacles. In this work, a danger judgment strategy in accordance with the sensors' data is used for avoiding small convex obstacles or moving objects which include both dynamic obstacles and other robots. For big convex obstacles or concave ones, a wall following strategy is designed for dealing with these special situations. In this paper, a state memorizing strategy is also proposed for the "infinite repetition" or "dead cycle" situations. Finally, when there is no collision risk, the robots will be guided towards the targets according to a target positioning strategy. Most of these strategies are achieved by the means of fuzzy logic controllers and uniformly applied for every robot. The simulation experiments verified that the proposed method has a positive effectiveness for the navigation problem.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.21-24
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• 2004

This paper describes a perception of small-obstacle using ultrasonic sensors in a mobile robot. The research on the avoidance of the large-obstacles such as a wall, a large box, etc. using ultrasonic sensors has been generally progressed up to now. But the mobile robot could meet a small-obstacle such as a small plastic bottle of about 1 l in quantity, a small box of 7${\times}$7${\times}$7 cm3 in volume, and so on in its designated path, and could be disturbed by them in the locomotion of the mobile robot. So, it is necessary to research on the avoidance of a small-obstacle. In this paper, the small-obstacle perceiving system was designed and fabricated by arranging four ultrasonic sensors on the plastic plate to avoid a small-obstacle. The small-obstacle perceiving system was installed on the above part of the mobile robot with the slope of 40.7$^{\circ}$ to a horizontal line. The static characteristic test and the dynamic characteristic test were performed to know the information of the used ultrasonic sensors. As a result, the mobile robot with the small-obstacle perceiving system could avoid a small-obstacle, and could move in indoor environment safely.