• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.1025-1031
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• 2007

GPS is widely used for positioning applications and attitude of a vehicle can be found also with multiple antennas. However, extremely weak signal level prevents GPS from indoor operation. DR with accelerometers and gyros and landmark based localization method used for indoor applications increase complexity and cost. In this paper, a simple but very efficient ultrasound based attitude determination system which determines both position and attitude in WSN is given. The range between transmitter and receivers are measured using the arrival time difference between ultrasound and RF signal. The 3 dimensional positions can be found using more than 3 range measurements. Furthermore, if more than 2 transmitters are used, the attitude can be determined using the baseline vectors obtained by differencing transmitter and receiver positions. The prototype system is implemented to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. In addition, an error analysis shows the relation between the attitude error and basel me length, quality of measurement and orientation of a vehicle. The static and dynamic experiments performed by micro mobile robot shows accurate position with less than 1.5cm error and attitude with less than 1 degree error can be obtained continuously with 20cm baseline. It is expected that these results can be adapted without modification to indoor applications such as home cleaning robot and autonomous wheelchair maneuvering.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.3B
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• pp.287-296
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• 2011

The white stick mainly used for visually impaired person has difficulty in providing location information and effective countermeasures for emergency situations encountered during walking as well as detecting floating obstacles on the ground. In this paper, we propose a machine-to-machine based intelligent walking assistance system for safe and convenient walking of the visually impaired. The proposed system consists of a walking assistance stick used by the visually impaired and a server supporting multiple stick users in remote places through mobile communication networks. The stick equipped with ultrasonic sensors, GPS(global positioning system) receiver and vibrator not only detects floating obstacles, but also offers stick users with present location identification utilizing a text-to-voice conversion technology. Besides providing geographic information, the server notifies the emergency locations of users to guardian and aid agency, and it provides log information during walking such as the place, time and the number of accidents. Test results with a developed prototype system have shown that the system properly performs the functions and satisfies overall system performance.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.107-114
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• 2015

Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) signal planned for future Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) provided better positioning accuracy and smaller multipath error than GPS C/A signal. However, due to the multiple side peaks in the auto-correlation function (ACF) of the BOC modulated signals, a receiver may false lock onto one of the side peaks in the tracking mode. This false lock would then result in a fatal tracking error. In this paper, we propose an unambiguous tracking method for composite BOC (CBOC) signals to mitigate this problem. It aims to reduce the side peaks of the ACF of CBOC modulated signals. It is based on the combination of traditional CBOC correlation function (CF) and reference CF of unmodulated pseudo- random noise code (PRN code). First, we present that cross-correlation function (CCF) with unmodulated PRN code is close to the secondary peaks of the traditional CBOC. Then, we obtain an unambiguous correlation function by subtracting traditional CBOC ACF from these CFs. Finally, the tracking performance for the CBOC signals is examined, and it is shown that the proposed method has better performance than the traditional unambiguous tracking method in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.638-648
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• 2013

Together with the GPS-based approach, geo-location through mobile communication networks is a key technology for location-based service. To save the cost, most geo-location system is implemented on the existed network service, which has a cellular structure. Still, multilateration is limited in cellular structure because it is difficult for the mobile terminal to acquire distance measurements from multiple base stations. This low hearability in the receiver is caused by co-channel interference and multipath environment. Therefore, hearability enhancement is necessary for multilateration under multipath and interference environment. Former time domain based hearability methods were designed for real signals. However, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal, which its usage has been increased in digital wireless communication, is a complex signal. Thus, different hearability enhancement method is needed for OFDM signals. This paper proposes a hearability enhancement method for forward-link multilateration using OFDM signals, which employ interference cancellation and multipath mitigation. A novel interference cancellation and multipath mitigation strategy for complex-valued OFDM signals is presented that has an iterative structure. Simulation results show that the proposed multilateration method provides the user's position with an accuracy of less than 80m through the mobile WiMAX cellular network in multipath environment.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.225-232
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• 2012

Purpose: Accurate monitoring of information from various agricultural vehicles is one of the most important factors for appropriate management strategy of field operations. While there has been a number of study and design on applications of sensors and actuators for data acquisition and control system in tractor, incompatibility between various customized hardware and software has become a major obstacle to the universal deployment in real field operation. International standard for implementation of electronic control unit (ECU) in agricultural vehicles has becoming a mandatory requirement for inter-operation compatibility in the international trade of agricultural vehicle industries. The ISO 11783 standard is basically based upon well known communication technology designated using the controller area network (CAN) bus. While CAN bus could provide 1.0 Mbps of communication speed, the standard only recommended 250 kbps. Methods: This study presents the implementation and evaluation of ISO 11783 for tractor electronic control units (TECU)with a higher transmission rate from multiple ECU than 250 kbps. Throughput and loss rate of the developed prototype were calculated across manipulated bus load for laboratory experimental tests, and the maximum requirement of transmission rate by ISO 11873 was satisfied with lower than 60% of bus load. Results: Field tests with a TECU implemented to process messages from global positioning system (GPS) receiver resulted that the root mean square error of position information was lower than 4 m with 0.5 m/s as a travelling speed. Conclusions: Results of this study represent the utilization of the international standard ISO 11783 to providepractical developments in terms with the inter-operability of TECU.