• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.178-182
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• 2022

Post-tension duct in nuclear reactor containment building is filled with grease to prevent steel strand from corroding. If grease leaks by break of duct, steel strand will corrode and cause problem in building safety. Therefore, grease leak should be checked preventatively. But currently used method is inefficient, since it has to remove grease and strand to check. And other methods for checking post-tension dust are not well-researched. In this paper, we develop screw-propelled robot that can move in grease and detect grease duct directly. Also, we make the test environment that is similar to real post-tension duct of containment building and test robot in that environment to verify that our robot is feasible in the post-tension duct. The robot can move forward and backward in grease duct by twin screw mechanism and has mount for sensors to detect grease leakage and strand corrosion.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics S
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• v.35S no.2
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• pp.137-145
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• 1998

In this paper, we propose a tube-hole center detection vision algorithm verifying the position of a tele-controlled robot and providing visual information for increasing reliability and efficiency in the diagnosis of steam generator (SG) tubes in nuclear power plant. A tele-controlled robot plays a role in carrying the probe used in inspecting the integrity of SG tubes. Thus accurately locating a tele-controlled robot on the desired tube-hole center is important issue for reliability of inspection. To do this work, we have to find the tube-hole center locations from the input image. At first, we apply the three-class segmentation method modified for this application. WE extract minimum bounding rectangles (MBRs) in the theresholded binary image. Second, for discriminating between MBR by tube and MBR by noise, we introduce the MBR rejection rules as knowledge-based rule set. MBRs are divided into the very dark region MBRs and the very bright region MBRs. In order to describe the region of complete tube-hole, the MBRs need a process of pairing each other. We then can find the tube-hole center from the paired MBR. For more accurately finding the tube-hole center in several sequential images, the centers of some frames need to be averaged. We tested the performance of our method using hundreds of real images.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2251-2260
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• 2021

The motion control of the divertor maintenance system of the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) was studied in this paper, in which CFETR Multi-Functional Maintenance Platform (MFMP) was simplified as a parallel robot for the convenience of theoretical analysis. In order to design the motion controller of parallel robot, the kinematics analysis of parallel robot was carried out. After that, the dynamic modeling of the hydraulic system was built. As the large variation of heavy payload on MFMP and highly nonlinearity of the system, A Fuzzy-PID controller was built for self-tuning PID controller parameters by using Fuzzy system to achieve better performance. In order to test the feasibility of the Fuzzy-PID controller, the simulation model of the system was built in Simulink. The results have showed that Fuzzy-PID controller can significantly reduce the angular error of the moving platform and provide the stable motion for transferring the divertor.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.133-136
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• 1996

The nozzle dam task is essentially needed to maintain and repair nuclear power plants. For this task, an 8-dof redundant robot is studied with a local path-planning method[l] which is effective to find the optimal joint path in the constrained environment. In this paper, the method[l] is improved practically with the weight matrix and efficient algorithm to find working set. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by simulation and animation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1153-1164
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• 2024

In recent years, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) have been used to search for lost or stolen radioactive sources to avoid radiation exposure for operators. To achieve autonomous localization of radioactive sources, the UGVs must have the ability to automatically determine the next radiation measurement location instead of following a predefined path. Also, the radiation field of radioactive sources has to be reconstructed or inverted utilizing discrete measurements to obtain the radiation intensity distribution in the area of interest. In this study, we propose an effective source localization framework and method, in which UGVs are able to autonomously explore in the radiation area to determine the location of radioactive sources through an iterative process: path planning, radiation field reconstruction and estimation of source location. In the search process, the next radiation measurement point of the UGVs is fully predicted by the design path planning algorithm. After obtaining the measurement points and their radiation measurements, the radiation field of radioactive sources is reconstructed by the Gaussian process regression (GPR) model based on machine learning method. Based on the reconstructed radiation field, the locations of radioactive sources can be determined by the peak analysis method. The proposed method is verified through extensive simulation experiments, and the real source localization experiment on a Cs-137 point source shows that the proposed method can accurately locate the radioactive source with an error of approximately 0.30 m. The experimental results reveal the important practicality of our proposed method for source autonomous localization tasks.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1994.04a
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• pp.390-394
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• 1994

In many cases, tasks are unpredictable and therefore not doable by special-purpose or pro-programble robots. So master/slave type robot hands which combine human perceptions with conventional robot hands are required as robot end effector. These also can be applied to hazardous worksites such as outer space, deep sea and nuclear power plant. In this study, master/slave type robot fingers with 3 joints each are designed and constructed. To control force accurately, TDT(tension difference type) torque sensors are constructed and attached toeachjoints of slave finger and new force reflecting control algorithm is suggested. Finally, experimental results show that the new control algorithm can be successfully applied.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.815-820
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• 1993

Robotic technology has been grown up conspicuously by its versatility. KAERI has been involved in one of facets of robot industry to keep abreast of rapid evolving technologies In robotic field and has launched long-term R&D plan to assure the stable nuclear energy. In this paper, the latest development status of teleoperated robot system has been presented with emphasis the configuration of overall control system with 3 dimensional graphic system that provides operators with tele-presence situation. This robot system under development, composed of master-slave arm with controller and graphic simulator, is operated by a master manipulator to enable an installation and removal operation of nozzle dam system for steam generator. Evaluation and analysis has been carried out to get optimal parameters of robot system.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.161.3-161
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• 2001

This paper describes design features of a cleaning robot for use in a radioactive zone of the Isolation room of the Irradiated Material Examination Facility (IMEF) at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). This cleaning robot is intended to completely eliminate human interaction with hazardous radioactive contaminants. The clean ing robot that is operated either by manual mode or by autonomous mode is designed to be capable of cleaning the isolation room´s floor surface and collecting dry nuclear fuel debris and other radioactive waste placed on the floor. The functional, mechanical and electrical design considerations of the cleaning robot in terms of remote cleanup operation and remote maintenance at a radioactive environment are presented. A graphical representation of the cleaning ...

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.849-854
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• 2003

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has developed a teleoperated cleaning robot for use in the radioactive zone of the isolation room of the Irradiated Material Examination Facility where direct human access to the interior is strictly limited. The teleoperated cleaning robot that was designed to completely eliminate human interaction with the hazardous radioactive contaminants has five remotely replaceable submodules - a mobile module for navigation, a cleaning module for dislodging and sucking contaminated waste, a sensing module for obstacle avoidance, a collection module for storing the acquired waste, and a cover module for protecting the collection module. This cleaning robot is capable of cleaning the contaminated floor surface of the isolation room and collecting loose dry spent nuclear fuel debris and other radioactive waste fixed or scattered on the floor surface. The developed cleaning robot is operated either by a manual control or by autonomous control in conjunction with a graphical simulator, by which the human operator can monitor and intervene the robot performing cleanup tasks in the isolation room. In this paper, we present the mechanical and environmental design considerations and development of the teleoperated cleaning robot for radioactive isolation room use. We also demonstrate its mock-up performance test results from the viewpoint of a remote cleanup operation and remote maintenance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.643-644
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• 2004