• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1057-1062
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• 2014

This paper proposes a tip-over detection method for a mobile robot using a support inscribed circle defined as an inscribed circle of a support polygon. A support polygon defined by the contact points between the robot and the terrain is often used to analyze the tip-over. For a robot moving on uneven terrain, if the intersection between the extended line of gravity from the robot's COG and the terrain is inside the support polygon, tip-over will not occur. On the contrary, if the intersection is outside, tip-over will occur. The terrain is detected by using an RGB-D sensor. The terrain is locally modeled as a plane, and thus the normal vector can be obtained at each point on the terrain. The support polygon and the terrain's normal vector are used to detect tip-over. However, tip-over cannot be detected in advance since the support polygon is determined depending on the orientation of the robot. Thus, the support polygon is approximated as its inscribed circle to detect the tip-over regardless of the robot's orientation. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the experiments are carried out using a 4-wheeled robot, ERP-42, with the Xtion RGB-D sensor.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.51-70
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• 2008

CFD is applied to evaluate pedestrian wind comfort at outdoor platforms in a high-rise apartment building. Model validation is focused on generic building sub-configurations that are obtained by decomposition of the actual complex building geometry. The comfort study is performed during the design stage, which allows structural design changes to be made for wind comfort improvement. Preliminary simulations are performed to determine the effect of different design modifications. A full wind comfort assessment study is conducted for the final design. Structural remedial measures for this building, aimed at reducing pressure short-circuiting, appear to be successful in bringing the discomfort probability estimates down to acceptable levels. Finally, the importance of one of the main sources of uncertainty in this type of wind comfort studies is illustrated. It is shown that the uncertainty about the terrain roughness classification can strongly influence the outcome of wind comfort studies and can lead to wrong decisions. This problem is present to the same extent in both wind tunnel and CFD wind comfort studies when applying the same particular procedure for terrain relation contributions as used in this paper.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.773-780
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• 2015

Navigation in outdoor environments is a fundamental and challenging problem for unmanned ground vehicles. Detecting lane markings or boundaries on the road may be one of the solutions to make navigation easy. However, because of various environments and road conditions, a robust lane detection is difficult. In this paper, we propose a new approach for estimating virtual lanes on a traversable region. Estimating the virtual lanes consist of two steps: (i) we detect virtual road region through road model selection based on traversability at current frame and similarity between the interframe and (ii) we estimate virtual lane using the number of lane on the road and results of previous frame. To improve the detection performance and reduce the searching region of interests, we use a probability map representing the traversability of the outdoor terrain. In addition, by considering both current and previous frame simultaneously, the proposed method estimate more stable virtual lanes. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach using real data in outdoor environments.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.17-25
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• 2017

Purpose: Since hospitals have a big impact on the natural and social environment, hospitals' sustainability must be considered in various aspects including environmental, social, and economical aspects. So far, research on sustainable hospitals has mainly been conducted on indoor environment, but outdoor space of hospital is as important as well. The purpose of this research is to study the sustainability of hospital outdoor space and to make proposals for improving sustainable regional public hospitals. Methods: Through preceding research analysis and literature review, the concept of sustainable outdoor space of hospital was defined. Also, the evaluation contents of outdoor space were extracted from domestic and foreign green building certification criteria. With this analytic frame, we visited 4 regional public hospitals in Korea, interviewed the facility managers, and analyzed sustainability of hospital outdoor space. Results: Analysis of 4 regional public hospitals reveals that there is a lack of consideration for sustainability in all 4 categories; urban and network, natural environment, community, and user. In terms of community, sustainability has rarely been applied to all four hospitals. The site selection and terrain of the site were essential to sustainability. Implications: Establishing a master plan considering future expansion is critical. Also more attempt to show regional characteristics is needed. It is necessary to design a comprehensive outdoor space that considers sustainability and also healing environment. Level difference in the site can be used as a design element.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2007

Mobile robots traveling on rough terrain need several algorithms to overcome obstacles. In this paper, we propose the step-type obstacle traversal algorithm to adapt the mobile robot with six arms and wheels to travel on rough terrain. Obstacle traversal is composed of two different stages: planning and control. In planning stage, the required joint torque of each arm as well as the interference between the wheels and the arms are analyzed to guarantee traversing obstacles. Control stage includes such steps as checking distance to obstacle, determining the height and length of obstacle, performing arm motion according to sensed torque data, and evaluating safety at every instance. The proposed algorithm is designed and implemented for CALEB 1 six legged robot developed in the laboratory and verified by simulation and experiment in outdoor environment.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2016

Recent destructions of outdoor signboards have frequently been caused by strong wind, resulting in damage on the property and human livelihood. One of the major causes of the problems is inadequate implementation of structural design code to the outdoor signboards which are vulnerable to wind. This leads to this paper to present the design guideline of wind-resistant outdoor signboards. In order to estimate the design wind speed, basic wind speeds over Korea suggested by KBC(2015)(revision) are corrected with land surface roughness and topography of the terrain and installation height of the signboard. This paper also suggested the procedure of wind load estimation for different types of outdoor signboards; wall attached type, wall ribbed type and ground erected type. Since the process involves complex calculation to some extent, this paper presents summarized version of wind load estimation from non-professional point of view.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.26-34
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• 2008

The information of traversability and path planning is essential for UGV(Unmanned Ground Vehicle) navigation. Such information can be obtained by analyzing 3D terrain. In this paper, we present the method of 3D terrain modeling with color information from a camera, precise distance information from a 2D Laser Range Finder(LRF) and wheel encoder information from mobile robot with less data. And also we present the method of 3B terrain modeling with the information from GPS/IMU and 2D LRF with less data. To fuse the color information from camera and distance information from 2D LRF, we obtain extrinsic parameters between a camera and LRF using planar pattern. We set up such a fused system on a mobile robot and make an experiment on indoor environment. And we make an experiment on outdoor environment to reconstruction 3D terrain with 2D LRF and GPS/IMU(Inertial Measurement Unit). The obtained 3D terrain model is based on points and requires large amount of data. To reduce the amount of data, we use cubic grid-based model instead of point-based model.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.41-54
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• 2001

In this paper, we proposed a method to determine optimal wave source for mobile telephone communication. The approach is based on wave propagation simulation. Given a wave source we can determine wave propagation effects on every surfaces of wave simulation environment. The effect is evaluated as a cost function while the source’s position x, y, z work as variables for a parameter optimization. Wave propagated 3 dimensional space generates reflected waves whenever it hits boundary surface, it receives multiple waves which are reflected from various boundary surfacers in space. Three algorithms being implemented in this paper are based on a raytracing theory. If we get 3 dimensional geometry input as well as wave sources, we can compute wave propagation effects all over the boundary surfaces. In this paper, we present a new approach to compute wave propagation. First approach is tracing wave from a source. Source is modeled as a sphere casting vectors into various directions. This approach has limit in computing necessary wave propagation effects on all terrain surfaces. The second approach proposed is tracing wave backwards : tracing from a wave receiver to a wave source. For this approach we need to allocate a wave receiver on every terrain surfaces modeled, which requires enormous amount of computing time. But the second approach is useful for indoor wave propagation simulation. The last approach proposed in this paper is tracing sound by geometric computation. We allow direct, 1-relfe tion, and 2-reflection propagation. This approach allow us to save in computation time while achieving reasonable results. but due to the reflection limitaion, this approach works best in outdoor environment.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.359-364
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• 2012

Real-Time Traversability should be analyzed from the equiped sensors' data in real time for autonomous outdoor navigation. However, it is difficult to find out such traversability that considers the terrain roughness and the vehicle dynamics especially in case of skid type vehicle. The traversability based on real time dynamic analysis was proposed to solve such problem but in navigation with strait driving path. To adapt the method into the navigation with curved driving path, a path following controller should be incorporated into the dynamic model even though it cause the real time problem. In this paper, a dynamic model is proposed to solve the real time problem in the traversability analysis based on real time dynamic simualtion. The dynamic model contains the control dummy which is connected to the vehicle body with a universal joint to follow the curved path without controller. Simulation and experimental results on $6{\times}6$ articulated unmanned ground vehicle demonstrate the method's effectiveness and applicability into the traversability analysis on terrain with bumps.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.42-48
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• 2011

This paper presents the vibration reduction algorithm at the walking-will recognition sensors on the uneven terrain. Recently, concern about walking assistant aids is increasing according to the increase in population of elder and handicapped person. However, most of walking aids don't have any actuators for its movement. So, general walking aids have weakness for its movement to upward/download direction of slope. To overcome the weakness of the general walking aids, many researches for active type walking aids are being progressed. Especially, vibration analysis and impulse reduction are one of the important elements of the active-type walking aid during moving on the outdoor area because the ground has many kinds of obstacles such as speed dumps, puddles and so on. So, we analyze the influence from vibration by uneven terrain. And then, we propose the impulse reduction algorithm to overcome the vibration. All the processes are verified experimentally in an active-type walking aid.