• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.454-461
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• 1999

A concrete floor trowel machine, developed in the U.S in 1990's, consists of only two rotary trowels, and doesn't need any other mechanism for motion such as wheels. When the machine flattens a concrete floor with its rotary trowels, the machine can move in any direction by utilizing the unbalanced friction forces occurring between the rotary wheels and the floor when the trowels are tilted in appropriate directions. In order to automate the trowels machine, this paper proposed the self-propulsive concrete finishing trowel robot which has twin trowels. For the control of the robot, this paper discussed the following. Firstly, the dynamics model of the driving frictional force applied on each trowel from the floor is derived. Secondly, the relationship between the driving force for the robot and the control variable of the robot is derived. Finally, the basic motion of the robot are realized by using the obtained relationship. This paper figures out how the concrete floor finishing robot with tow trowels moves and will contribute to realizing it.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.84-89
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• 2014

In this paper, an image-based visual servo control strategy for tracking a target object is applied to a camera-mounted omni-directional mobile robot. In order to get target angular velocity of each wheel from image coordinates of the target object, in general, a mathematical image Jacobian matrix is built using a camera model and a mobile robot kinematics. Unlike to the well-known mathematical image Jacobian, a simple rule-based control strategy is proposed to generate target angular velocities of the wheels in conjunction with size of the target object captured in a camera image. A camera image is divided into several regions, and a pre-defined rule corresponding to the target-located image region is applied to generate target angular velocities of wheels. The proposed algorithm is easily implementable in that no mathematical description for image Jacobian is required and a small number of rules are sufficient for target tracking. Experimental results are presented with descriptions about the overall experimental system.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.186-192
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• 2015

This paper proposes a robust balance and driving control for omni-directional ball robot(generally called ball-bot) with two axis mecanum wheel. Slip between ball and mecanum wheel actuator inevitably occurs along diagonal axis due to its instantaneous strong torque. In order to reduce and saturate slip, exact distance calculation scheme especially for rotational movement is essential. So this research solved Euler-Lagrange dynamics for proposed two axis ball robot based on practical mechanical modeling. Robust balance control was carried out by PID controller according to the pitch and roll angles of ball robot by using sensor fusion between AHRS and wheel encoder. Proposed PID controller enhances stability by reducing steady state error and settling time. Proposed slip control algorithm for omni-directional ball robot has been demonstrated by experiments for balance control and arbitrary driving control.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1786-1795
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• 2011

The trajectory control for omni-directional mobile robot is not easy. Especially, the tracking control which system uncertainty problem is included is much more difficult. This paper develops trajectory controller of 3-wheels omni-directional mobile robot using fuzzy multi-layered algorithm. The fuzzy control method is able to solve the problems of classical adaptive controller and conventional fuzzy adaptive controllers. It explains the architecture of a fuzzy adaptive controller using the robust property of a fuzzy controller. The basic idea of new adaptive control scheme is that an adaptive controller can be constructed with parallel combination of robust controllers. This new adaptive controller uses a fuzzy multi-layered architecture which has several independent fuzzy controllers in parallel, each with different robust stability area. Out of several independent fuzzy controllers, the most suited one is selected by a system identifier which observes variations in the controlled system parameter. This paper proposes a design procedure which can be carried out mathematically and systematically from the model of a controlled system; related mathematical theorems and their proofs are also given. Finally, the good performance of the developed mobile robot is confirmed through live tests of path control task.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.27-33
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• 2012

Tele-presence and tele-operation techniques are used to build up an immersive scene and control environment for the distant user. This paper presents a novel tele-presence system using the camera tracking based on planar homography. In the first step, the user wears the HMD(head mounted display) with the camera and his/her head motion is estimated. From the panoramic image by the omni-directional camera mounted on the mobile robot, a viewing image by the user is generated and displayed through HMD. The homography of 3D plane with markers is used to obtain the head motion of the user. For the performance evaluation, the camera tracking results by ARToolkit and the homography based method are compared with the really measured positions of the camera.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.547-554
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• 2013

This paper proposes a novel formation algorithm of identical robots based on object tracking method using omni-directional images obtained through fisheye lenses which are mounted on the robots. Conventional formation methods of multi-robots often use stereo vision system or vision system with reflector instead of general purpose camera which has small angle of view to enlarge view angle of camera. In addition, to make up the lack of image information on the environment, robots share the information on their positions through communication. The proposed system estimates the region of robots using SURF in fisheye images that have $360^{\circ}$ of image information without merging images. The whole system controls formation of robots based on moving directions and velocities of robots which can be obtained by applying Lucas-Kanade Optical Flow Estimation for the estimated region of robots. We confirmed the reliability of the proposed formation control strategy for multi-robots through both simulation and experiment.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.1082-1091
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• 2007

In this paper, we developed a new hybrid mobile robot which can climb stairs and go over thresholds by crawl gait with embedded real-time control software. This robot is also categorized into hybrid robot that has advantages of wheeled mobile robot and legged mobile robot, but adopts gait feature of crocodile named belly crawl. We imitated the belly crawl using four legs of 2 DOF, four omni-directional wheels, and embedded control software which controls legs and wheels. This software is developed using RTAI/Linux, real-time drivers. As a result, the new hybrid mobile robot has crawl gait. Using this feature, the new hybrid mobile robot can climb stairs and go over thresholds just by path planning of each leg with size of stairs and thresholds, and computing the movement distance of robot body center without considering stability. The performance of our new hybrid mobile robot is verified via experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.487-495
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• 2012

In this paper, a Smart Home Service Robot, McBot II, which performs mess-cleanup function etc. in house, is designed much more optimally than other service robots. It is newly developed in much more practical system than McBot I which we had developed two years ago. One characteristic attribute of mobile platforms equipped with a set of dependent wheels is their omni- directionality and the ability to realize complex translational and rotational trajectories for agile navigation in door. An accurate coordination of steering angle and spinning rate of each wheel is necessary for a consistent motion. This paper develops trajectory controller of 3-wheels omni-directional mobile robot using fuzzy azimuth estimator. A specialized anthropomorphic robot manipulator which can be attached to the housemaid robot McBot II, is developed in this paper. This built-in type manipulator consists of both arms with 4 DOF (Degree of Freedom) each and both hands with 3 DOF each. The robotic arm is optimally designed to satisfy both the minimum mechanical size and the maximum workspace. Minimum mass and length are required for the built-in cooperated-arms system. But that makes the workspace so small. This paper proposes optimal design method to overcome the problem by using neck joint to move the arms horizontally forward/backward and waist joint to move them vertically up/down. The robotic hand, which has two fingers and a thumb, is also optimally designed in task-based concept. Finally, the good performance of the developed McBot II is confirmed through live tests of the mess-cleanup task.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.256-264
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• 2018

Unlike normal wheels, the Mecanum wheel enables omni-directional movement regardless of the orientation of a mobile robot. In this paper, a robust trajectory tracking control method is developed based on the dynamic model of the Mecanum wheel mobile robot in order that the mobile robot can move along the given path in the environment with disturbance. The method is designed using the impedance control to make the mobile robot to track the path, and the integral sliding mode control for robustness to disturbance. The good performance of the proposed method is verified using the MATLAB /Simulink simulation and also through the experiment on an actual Mecanum wheel mobile robot. In both the simulation and the experimentation, we make the mobile robot move along a reference trajectory while maintaining the robot's orientation at a constant angle to see the characteristics of the Mecanum wheel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.815-819
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• 1996

In this work, regular rotational gaits of the quadruped crawling robot required to change its moving direction without affecting be its orientation and its static stability margin are studied. The regular rotational gaits provide the quadruped crawling robot with omnidirectional characteristics. However, the ideal foothold region for each of legs of the quadruped crawling robot is assumed for simplicity. Nonetheless, it is expected that the results of this paper will provide the insight for both design of legs of the crawling robot with omnidirectional characteristics as well as its operation of the crawling robot system with specified stability margin.