• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.236-241
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• 2008

This paper presents a method to recognize the plane regions for movement of walking robots. When the autonomous agencies using stereo camera or laser scanning sensor is under unknown 3D environment, the mobile agency has to detect the plane regions to decide the moving direction and perform the given tasks. In this paper, we propose a very fast method for plane detection using normal vector of a triangle by 3 vertices defined on a small circular region. To reduce the effect of noises and outliers, the triangle rotates with respect to the center position of the circular region and generates a series of triangles with different normal vectors based on different three points on the boundary of the circular region. The vectors for several triangles are normalized and then median direction of the normal vectors is used to test the planarity of the circular region. The method is very fast and we prove the performance of algorithm for real range data obtained from a stereo camera system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.125-133
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• 2010

A versatile micro-robotic platform for micro/nano scale assembly has been demanded in a variety of application areas such as micro-biology and nanotechnology. In the near future, a flexible and compact platform could be effectively used in a scanning electron microscope chamber. We are developing a platform that consists of miniature mobile robots and a compact positioning stage with multi degree-of-freedom. This paper presents the design and the implementation of a low-cost and compact multi degree of freedom position sensor that is capable of measuring absolute translational and rotational displacement. The proposed sensor is implemented by using a CMOS type image sensor and a target with specific hole patterns. Experimental design based on statistics was applied to finding optimal design of the target. Efficient algorithms for image processing and absolute position decoding are discussed. Simple calibration to eliminate the influence of inaccuracy of the fabricated target on the measuring performance also presented. The developed sensor was characterized by using a laser interferometer. It can be concluded that the sensor system has submicron resolution and accuracy of ${\pm}4{\mu}m$ over full travel range. The proposed vision-based sensor is cost-effective and used as a compact feedback device for implementation of a micro robotic platform.