• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.321-338
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• 2008

This paper presents a Modified Multiple Depth First Search algorithm for the exploration of the indoor environments occupied with obstacles in random distribution. The proposed algorithm was designed and implemented to employ one or a team of Khepera II mini robots for the exploration process. In case of multi-robots, the BlueCore2 External Bluetooth module was used to establish wireless networks with one master robot and one up to three slaves. Messages are sent and received via the module's Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) interface. Real exploration experiments were performed using locally developed teleworkbench with various autonomy features. In addition, computer simulation tool was also developed to simulate the exploration experiments with one master robot and one up to ten slaves. Computer simulations were in good agreement with the real experiments for the considered cases of one to one up to three networks. Results of the MMDFS for single robot exhibited 46% reduction in the needed number of steps for exploring environments with obstacles in comparison with other algorithms, namely the Ants algorithm and the original MDFS algorithm. This reduction reaches 71% whenever exploring open areas. Finally, results performed using multi-robots exhibited more reduction in the needed number of exploration steps.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.281-286
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• 2010

We propose a space and time based sensor fusion method and a robust landmark detecting algorithm based on sensor fusion for mobile robot navigation. To fully utilize the information from the sensors, first, this paper proposes a new sensor-fusion technique where the data sets for the previous moments are properly transformed and fused into the current data sets to enable an accurate measurement. Exploration of an unknown environment is an important task for the new generation of mobile robots. The mobile robots may navigate by means of a number of monitoring systems such as the sonar-sensing system or the visual-sensing system. The newly proposed, STSF (Space and Time Sensor Fusion) scheme is applied to landmark recognition for mobile robot navigation in an unstructured environment as well as structured environment, and the experimental results demonstrate the performances of the landmark recognition.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.434-443
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• 2007

Presently, the exploration of an unknown environment is an important task for thee new generation of mobile service robots and mobile robots are navigated by means of a number of methods, using navigating systems such as the sonar-sensing system or the visual-sensing system. To fully utilize the strengths of both the sonar and visual sensing systems. This paper presents a technique for localization of a mobile robot using fusion data of multi-ultrasonic sensors and vision system. The mobile robot is designed for operating in a well-structured environment that can be represented by planes, edges, comers and cylinders in the view of structural features. In the case of ultrasonic sensors, these features have the range information in the form of the arc of a circle that is generally named as RCD(Region of Constant Depth). Localization is the continual provision of a knowledge of position which is deduced from it's a priori position estimation. The environment of a robot is modeled into a two dimensional grid map. we defines a vision-based environment recognition, phisically-based sonar sensor model and employs an extended Kalman filter to estimate position of the robot. The performance and simplicity of the approach is demonstrated with the results produced by sets of experiments using a mobile robot.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.256-265
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• 2013

A local map-based exploration algorithm for mobile robots is presented. Segmented frontiers and their relative transformations constitute a tree structure. By the proposed efficient frontier segmentation and a local map management method, a robot can reduce the unknown area and update the local grid map which is assigned to each frontier node. Although this local map-based exploration method uses only local maps and their adjacent node information, mapping completion and efficiency can be greatly improved by merging and updating the frontier nodes. Also, we suggest appropriate graph search exploration methods for corridor and hall environments. The simulation demonstrates that the entire environment can be represented by well-distributed frontier nodes.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.9 s.174
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• pp.99-106
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• 2005

In recent years, vision sensors are widely used to mobile robot for navigation or exploration. The analog signal transmission of visual data being used in this area, however, has some disadvantages including noise weakness in view of the data storage. A large amount of data also makes it difficult to use this method for a mobile robot. In this paper, a digital data compressing technology based on MPEG4 which substitutes for analog technology is proposed to overcome the disadvantages by using DWT(Discreate Wavelet Transform) instead of DCT(Discreate Cosine Transform). The TI Company's DSP chip, TMS320C6711, is used for the image encoder, and the performance of the proposed method is evaluated by PSNR(Peake Signal to Noise Rates), QP(Quantization Parameter) and bitrate.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.10b
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• pp.83-85
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• 2005

Exploration involving mapping and localization in an unknown environment is an important task in mobile robots. For this, robot must be able to build a reliable map of surroundings and to estimate the position of it. In this paper, we developed technique for gird-based localization of a mobile robot with ultrasonic sensors using EKF(Extended Kalman Filter). We also describe the information about landmarks detected in the environment. Finally, the robot experiments show the efficiency of our approach in the real environment.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.585-593
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a vision-based simultaneous localization and map-building (SLAM) algorithm. SLAM problem asks the location of mobile robot in the unknown environments. Therefore, this problem is one of the most important processes of mobile robots in the outdoor operation. To solve this problem, Extended Kalman filter (EKF) is widely used. However, this filter requires computational power (${\sim}O(N)$, N is the dimension of state vector). To reduce the computational complexity, we applied compressed extended Kalman filter (CEKF) to stereo image sequence. Moreover, because the mobile robots operate in the outdoor environments, we should estimate full d.o.f.s of mobile robot. To evaluate proposed SLAM algorithm, we performed the outdoor experiments. The experiment was performed by using new wheeled type mobile robot, Robhaz-6W. The performance results of CEKF SLAM are presented.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.400-400
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• 2000

This paper purposed that verify the validity of Petri Net method for control progressive increase of system complexity, before extend the realized single robot system to multi-robot system. An autonomous mobile robot(AMR) needs decision making, motion control, path planning, tracking a path, obstacle avoidance, and sensor fusion, to complete its task. An AMR integrates and operates these technics through a consistent command system. An error in a command hierarchy which is like duplication or omission of a control command hierarchy for each module results in serious problems. This paper minimizes the error by modeling each module and whole system using Petri Net graphical representation and applies it to the exploration task of an AMR

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.33 no.11B
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• pp.1030-1037
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• 2008

This paper presents an algorithm for the path-finding problem in unknown environments with cooperative and commutative multi-robots. To verify the algorithm, we investigate the problem of escaping through the exit of a randomly generated maze by muti-robots. For the purpose, we adopt the so called frontier cells and cell utility functions, which were used in the exploration problem for the multi-robots. For the wireless communications among the mobile robots, we modify and utilize the so called the random basket routing, a kind of hop-by-hop opportunistic routing. A mobile robot, once it finds the exit, will choose its next action, either escape immediately or stay-and-relay the exit information for the others, where the robot takes one action based on a given probability. We investigate the optimal probability that minimizes the average escaping time (out of the maze to the exit) of a mobile robot.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.471-482
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• 2012

For disaster exploration and surveillance application, this paper aims to present a novel application of a multi-robot agent based on WSN and to evaluate a multi-hop communication caused by the robotics correspondingly, which are used in the uncertain and unknown subterranean tunnel. A Primary-Scout Multi-Robot System (PS-MRS) was proposed. A chain topology in a subterranean environment was implemented using a trimmed ZigBee2006 protocol stack to build the multi-hop communication network. The ZigBee IC-CC2530 modular circuit was adapted by mounting it on the PS-MRS. A physical experiment based on the strategy of PS-MRS was used in this paper to evaluate the efficiency of multi-hop communication and to realize the delivery of data packets in an unknown and uncertain underground laboratory environment.