• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2696-2700
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• 2003

Nuclear robots should be developed for the reduction of radiation exposure, lower man hours, shorter power outage, and also improved worker safety concerns in performing hazardous and dangerous tasks. Among the components of a nuclear robot system, a robot control system equivalent to a human brain is a crucial point because a nuclear robot does not work without a control system. Therefore, in this paper, we will explain the requirements for a robot control system for a nuclear robot from a general point of view and also review the robot control systems of nuclear robots that were developed domestically, to assist a researcher beginning with the design for the control system of nuclear robots. The explained robot control system will be useful to develop the control system for industrial robots, home robots and other robots which are needed for tele-operation and are controlled through the internet.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.613-618
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• 2018

We are developing a shared remote control mobile robot for aerial work in nuclear power plants (NPPs); a robot consists of a mobile platform, a telescopic mast, and a dual-arm slave with a working tool. It is used at a high location operating the manual operation mechanism of a fuel changer of a heavy water NPP. The robot system can cut/weld a pipe remotely in the case of an emergency or during the dismantling of the NPP. Owing to the challenging control mission considering limited human operator cognitive capability, some remote tasks require a shared control scheme, which demands systematic software design and integration. Therefore, we designed the architecture of the software systematically.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1244-1248
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• 2003

This paper describes visual tracking procedure of the underwater mobile robot for nuclear reactor vessel inspection, which is required to find the foreign objects such as loose parts. The yellowish underwater robot body tends to present a big contrast to boron solute cold water of nuclear reactor vessel, tinged with indigo by Cerenkov effect. In this paper, we have found and tracked the positions of underwater mobile robot using the two color information, yellow and indigo. The center coordinates extraction procedures are as follows. The first step is to segment the underwater robot body to cold water with indigo background. From the RGB color components of the entire monitoring image taken with the color CCD camera, we have selected the red color component. In the selected red image, we extracted the positions of the underwater mobile robot using the following process sequences; binarization, labelling, and centroid extraction techniques. In the experiment carried out at the Youngkwang unit 5 nuclear reactor vessel, we have tracked the center positions of the underwater robot submerged near the cold leg and the hot leg way, which is fathomed to 10m deep in depth.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.803-807
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• 2003

Tele-operation and remote monitoring techniques are essential and important technologies for performing the inspection and repair tasks effectively in nuclear power plants. This paper presents the application of a mobile robot for the remote monitoring and inspection of the Calandria faces, where human access is limited because of the high-level radioactive environments during full power operation. The mobile robot was designed with reconfigurable crawler type of wheels attached on the front and rear side in order to pass through the ditch. The extendable mast, mounted on the mobile robot, can be extended up to 8 m vertically. This robot was also equipped a visible CCD/thermal infrared inspection head module and a stereo camera module for the enhancement of visual inspection.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.125-134
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• 2009

This paper presents details on a tube inspection robotic system and a positioning method of the robot for a steam generator (SG) in nuclear power plants (NPPs). The robotic system is separated into three parts for easy handling, which reduces the radiation exposure during installation. The system has a supporting leg to increase the rigidity of the robot base. Since there are several thousands of tubes to be inspected inside a SG, it is very important to position the tool of the robot at the right tubes even if the robot base is positioned inaccurately during the installation. In order to obtain absolute accuracy of a position, the robot kinematics was mathematically modeled with the modified DH(Denavit-Hartenberg) model and calibrated on site using tube holes as calibration points. To tune the PID gains of a commercial motor driver systematically, the time delay control (TDC) based gain tuning method was adopted. To verify the performance of the robotic system, experiments on a Framatomes 51B Model type SG mockup were undertaken.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2508-2513
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• 2003

This paper presents a nuclear steam generator tube inspection/maintenance robot system. The robot assists in automatic non-destructive testing and the repair of nuclear steam generator tubes welded into a thick tube sheet that caps a hemispherical or quarter-sphere plenum which is a high-radiation area. For easy carriage and installation, the robot system consists of three separable parts: a manipulator, a water-chamber entering and leaving device for the manipulator and a manipulator base pose adjusting device. A software program to control and manage the robotic system has been developed on the NT based OS to increase the usability. The software program provides a robot installation function, a robot calibration function, a managing and arranging function for the eddy-current test, a real time 3-D graphic simulation function which offers remote reality to operators and so on. The image information acquired from the camera attached to the end-effecter is used to calibrate the end-effecter pose error and the time-delayed control algorithm is applied to calculate the optimal PID gain of the position controller. The developed robotic system has been tested in the Ulchin NPP type steam generator mockup in a laboratory.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.165-170
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• 1996

In order that a mobile robot executes the real tasks such as inspection and maintenance in nuclear facility efficiently, the coordination between the mobile platform and the manipulator is essentially required In this paper, a new motion control method for a mobile robot to execute the tasks in nuclear facility efficiently is proposed. A series of simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.203-209
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• 1999

In this study, the structural deflection analysis of robot manipulator for removing nuclear fuel rod from nuclear reactor vessel is performed by using general purpose finite element code (ANSYS). The structural deflection analysis results reported in this study is very required for the accurate design of robot system. The structural deflection analysis for the manipulator's structural status at which the gripper grasps and draws up the nuclear fuel rod is done, For this beginning structural status of robot manipulator's removing motion, the reaction forces at each joint have static maximum values as reported in the reference(6), and so these forces may cause the maximum deflection of robot structure. The structural deflection analysis is performed for selected four working cases of the proposed structural model and results on deformation, stress for the manipulator's solid body and the deflection at the end of robot manipulator's gripper are calculated. And further, the same analysis is performed for the slenderer manipulator with cross section reduced by one-fifth of each side length of proposed model. The analysis is performed not only for the nuclear fuel rod with weight load of 300kg but also for nuclear fuel rods with weight loads of 100kg, 200kg, 400kg and 500kg. The static structural deflection analysis results show that the deflection value increases as the load increases and the largest value (corresponding to the weight load of 500kg in case 1) is much smaller than the gap distance between nuclear fuel rods. but the largest value for the slenderer manipulator is almost as large as the gap distance, Hence, conclusively, the proposed manipulator's structural model is acceptably safe for mechanical design of robot system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.632-637
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• 2017

Even though the potential for an accident in nuclear power plants is very low, multiple emergency plans are necessary because the impact of such an accident to the public is enormous. One of these emergency plans involves a robotic system for investigating accidents under conditions of high radiation and contaminated air. To develop a robot suitable for operation in a nuclear power plant, we focused on eliminating the three major obstacles that challenge robots in such conditions: the disconnection of radio communication, falling on uneven floors, and loss of localization. To solve the radio problem, a Wi-Fi extender was used in radio shadow areas. To reinforce the walking, we developed two- and four-leg convertible walking, a floor adaptive foot, a roly-poly defensive falling design, and automatic standing recovery after falling methods were developed. To allow the robot to determine its location in the containment building, a bar code landmark reading method was chosen. When a severe accident occurs, this robot will be useful for accident condition monitoring. We also anticipate the robot can serve as a workman aid in a high radiation area during normal operations.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.346-351
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• 2005

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose of human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on the pipe, one extendable and contractable actuator, and a rotation actuator connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in the circumferential direction