• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2003

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are unmanned, underwater vessels that are used to investigate sea environments in the study of oceanography. Docking systems are required to increase the capability of the AUVs, to recharge the batteries, and to transmit data in real time for specific underwater works, such as repented jobs at sea bed. This paper presents a visual :em control system used to dock an AUV into an underwater station. A camera mounted at the now center of the AUV is used to guide the AUV into dock. To create the visual servo control system, this paper derives an optical flow model of a camera, where the projected motions of the image plane are described with the rotational and translational velocities of the AUV. This paper combines the optical flow equation of the camera with the AUVs equation of motion, and deriver a state equation for the visual servo AUV. Further, this paper proposes a discrete-time MIMO controller, minimizing a cost function. The control inputs of the AUV are automatically generated with the projected target position on the CCD plane of the camera and with the AUVs motion. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the modeling and the control law of the visual servo AUV simulations on docking the AUV to a target station are performed with the 6-dof nonlinear equations of REMUS AUV and a CCD camera.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.305-312
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• 2021

There is a gradual increase in the need for energy charging in marine environments because of energy limitations experienced by electric ships and marine robots. Buoys are considered potential energy charging systems, but there are several challenges, which include the need to maintain a fixed position and avoid hazards, dock with ships and robots in order to charge them, be robust to actions by birds, ships, and robots. To solve these problems, this study proposes a smart buoy robot that has multiple thrusters, multiple docking and charging parts, a bird spike, a radar reflector, a light, a camera, and an anchor, and its mechanism is developed. To verify the performance of the smart buoy robot, the position control under disturbance due to wave currents and functional tests such as docking, charging, lighting, and anchoring are performed. Experimental results show that the smart buoy robot can operate under disturbances and is functionally effective. Therefore, the smart buoy robot is suitable as an energy charging system and has potential in realistic applications.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.30 no.10 s.116
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• pp.839-845
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• 2006

A laser docking system provides a centimeter-level accuracy distance from jetty mounted laser sensors in order to help a vessel to approach to a pier. It is very accurate & useful, whereas there are too many considerable problems. Laser sensors of the laser docking system need to be correctly positioned and installed on a jetty to allow for full range of vessels to be berthed and to consider loading condition and tidal variations. Above all, the laser docking system is expensive and its service coverage is limited. In order to solve these problems, CDGPS positioning method using GPS satellites has been proposed. This paper presents that, through RHDOP simulation, the previous CDGPS positioning method using only GPS satellites is not able to provide the continuous service with centimeter-level positioning accuracy. And this paper proposes a pseudolite-augmented positioning method for vessel docking in order to solve the problem of the continuous service on the previous CDGPS positioning method. In this paper, pseudolite is used to aid in CDGPS positioning. This paper shows that the proposed method can provides the continuous service through comparison analysis of RHDOP simulation results between the GPS satellite constellation and the pseudolite-augmented GPS satellite constellation. Furthermore, it is shown that the proposed positioning method satisfies the positioning performance required for vessel automatic docking at a test bed designed for performance evaluation.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.419-428
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• 2017

In this study, energy loss due to ventilation load in the dock system was analyzed through simulation. Also, flow generated in the dock system of the warehouse was measured using manufactured measuring devices. Numerical simulation was conducted by simulating the most common picking tasks by examining the actual working environment. Incompressible and unsteady turbulent flows were assumed, and the turbulence model was the k-e standard model. Proper grid was selected through grid dependency test. Measurement was conducted using Honeywell and Vaisala sensors, and flow and temperature inside the warehouse were measured and compared with simulation results to validate simulation. When comparing amount of loss occurring in two hours and amount of loss occurring in 15 minutes, docking time of the former was eight times longer but energy loss was 3.8 times lower. Ventilation load occurring during the initial period after opening docking system accounted for a large proportion of total ventilation load. Also, comparing the load when the dock was closed and the load when the truck was parked, ventilation load was significantly higher than load due to heat conduction from the wall. Therefore, in improving the docking system, it is effective to reduce the gap by improving compatibility of the docking system and truck, rather than wall material.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.142-148
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• 2002

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are unmanned underwater vessels to investigate sea environments, oceanography and deep-sea resources autonomously. Docking systems are required to increase the capability of the AUVs to recharge the batteries and to transmit data in real time for specific underwater works, such as repeated jobs at sea bed. This paper presents a visual servo control system for an AUV to dock into an underwater station with a camera mounted at the nose center of the AUV. To make the visual servo control system, this paper derives an optical flow model of a camera, where the projected motions of the image plane are described with the rotational and translational velocities of the AUV. This paper combines the optical flow equation of the camera with the AUVs equation of motion, and derives a state equation for the visual servoing AUV. This paper proposes a discrete-time MIMO controller minimizing a cost function. The control inputs of the AUV are automatically generated with the projected target position on the CCD plane of the camera and with the AUVs motion. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the modeling and the control law of the visual servoing AUV, simulations on docking the AUV to a target station are performed with the 6-dof nonlinear equations of REMUS AUV and a CCD camera.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.78-83
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• 2008

In recent years, small boats used for marine leisure have been steadily increasing because of the increase in national income and the desire for marine leisure. But the repair of such small boats in dry dock has pointed out many faults in small FRP-shipbuilding in terms if workspace and manpower. Lifting a boat from the water to land is done with a crane or by hand using a sling around the bottom of the boat. But dry dock work is limited by the scale of the boat, which corresponds to the crane capacity, with carelessness making it possible to capsize a boat and endanger life. The purpose of this study was the development of a marine docking system that would improve economical efficiency and safety, for which we carried out concept design, model tests, structural analysis, etc.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.11
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• pp.1072-1078
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• 2008

An adaptive control algorithm for spacecraft rendezvous and docking in a Keplerian orbit is presented. The equations of relative motion of two spacecrafts expressed in a local-vertical-local-horizontal rectangular frame are converted to a general Hamiltonian form, then an adaptive control method developed for the uncertain Hamiltonian system is applied to the rendezvous and docking problem. A smooth projection algorithm is applied to keep the parameter estimates inside a singularity-free region, and a numerical example shows that the developed controller successfully deals with the unknown mass of the chaser spacecraft.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.268-276
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• 2023

Alkyl butyrate with fruity flavor is known as an important additive in the food industry. We synthesized various alkyl butyrates from various fatty alcohol and butyric acid using immobilized Rhodococcus cutinase (Rcut). Esterification reaction was performed in a non-aqueous system including heptane, isooctane, hexane, and cyclohexane. As a result of performing the alkyl butyrate synthesis reaction using alcohols of various chain lengths, it was found that the preference for the alcohol substrate had the following order: C6 > C4 > C8 > C10 > C2. Through molecular docking analysis, it was found that the greater the hydrophobicity of alcohol, the higher the accessibility to the active site of the enzyme. However, since the number of torsions increased as the chain length increased, it became difficult for the hydroxyl oxygen of the alcohol to access the ^γO of serine at the enzyme active site. These molecular docking results were consistent with substrate preference results of the Rcut enzyme. The Rcut maintained the synthesis efficiency at least for 5 days in isooctane solvent. We synthesized as much as 452 mM butyl butyrate by adding 100 mM substrate daily for 5 days and performing the reaction. These results show that Rcut is an efficient enzyme for producing alkyl butyrate used in the food industry.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.71-78
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• 2024

The paper presents a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system designed for satellite movement testing in the microgravity environment on the ground with two industrial robots. Especially, the paper deals with the contact between satellites during rendezvous and docking simulations of satellites using a robotic HILS system. For this purpose, the admittance control method plays a core role in preventing damage to the satellite or robot from contact force between satellites. The coordinate frames are transformed into the mass center of the satellite and the admittance control at the level of exponential coordinates is adopted to actively use the properties of Lie groups related to tracking errors. These methods effectively mitigate the risk of robot damage during inter-satellite contact and ensure efficient tracking performance of satellite movements.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.74-77
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• 2017

Bradykinin receptor B2 (B2R) is a GPCR protein which binds with the inflammatory mediator hormone bradkynin. Kallidin, a decapeptide, also signals through this receptor. B2R is crucial in the cross-talk between renin-angiotensin system (RAS) and the kinin-kallikrein system (KKS) and in many processes including vasodilation, edema, smooth muscle spasm and pain fiber stimulation. Thus the structural study of the receptor becomes important. We have predicted the peptide structures of Bradykinin and Kallidin from their amino acid sequences and the structures were docked with the receptor structure. The results obtained from protein-protein docking could be helpful in studying the B2R structural features and in the pathophysiology in various diseases related to it.