• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.389-394
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• 2006

Inaccurate localization exposes a robot to many dangerous conditions. It could make a robot be moved to wrong direction or damaged by collision with surrounding obstacles. There are numerous approaches to self-localization, and there are different modalities as well (vision, laser range finders, ultrasonic sonars). Since sensor information is generally uncertain and contains noise, there are many researches to reduce the noise. But, the correctness is limited because most researches are based on statistical approach. The goal of our research is to measure more exact robot location by matching between built VRML 3D model and real vision image. To determine the position of mobile robot, landmark-localization technique has been applied. Landmarks are any detectable structure in the physical environment. Some use vertical lines, others use specially designed markers, In this paper, specially designed markers are used as landmarks. Given known focal length and a single image of three landmarks it is possible to compute the angular separation between the lines of sight of the landmarks. The image-processing and neural network pattern matching techniques are employed to recognize landmarks placed in a robot working environment. After self-localization, the 2D scene of the vision is overlaid with the VRML scene.

• 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 Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.1029-1037
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• 2008

When a humanoid robot pushes an object with its force, it is essential to adequately control its posture so as to maximize the surplus torque far all joints. For such purpose, this study proposes a method to find an optimal posture of a humanoid robot using a genetic algorithm in such a way that the surplus torque for all joints is maximized. In this study, pushing motion of an 18-DOF humanoid robot is considered. When the robot takes a cooperative motion to push an object, the palms and soles are assumed to be fixed at the object and ground respectively, and are subjected to sense the reaction force from the object and the ground. Then, the torques for all joints are calculated and reflected to fitness function of the genetic algorithm. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a number of simulations with different fitness functions are carried out. The simulation result shows that the proposed method can be adopted to find optimized posture in cooperative motion of a humanoid robot.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.716-722
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• 2016

Coordinate estimation is an essential function for autonomous navigation of a mobile robot. The optical mouse sensor is convenient and cost-effective for the coordinate estimation problem. It is possible to overcome the position estimation error caused by the slip and the model mismatch of robot's motion equation using the optical mouse sensor. One of the simple methods for the position estimation using the optical mouse sensor is integration of the velocity data from the sensor with time. However, the unavoidable noise in the sensor data may deteriorate the position estimation in case of the simple integration method. In general, a mobile robot has ready-to-use motion information from the encoder sensors of driving motors. By combining the velocity data from the optical mouse sensor and the motion information of a mobile robot, it is possible to improve the coordinate estimation performance. In this paper, a coordinate estimation algorithm for an autonomous mobile robot is presented based on the well-known Kalman filter that is useful to combine the different types of sensors. Computer simulation results show the performance of the proposed localization algorithm for several types of trajectories in comparison with the simple integration method.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.450-456
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• 2014

Humanoid robot is the most suitable robot platform for effective human and robot interaction. However, the robot's complicated body structure containing more than twenty joint actuators makes it difficult to generate stable and elaborate postures using the conventional inverse kinematic method. This paper proposes an alternative approach to generate difficult postures of touching an object placed in front of the foot by the left or right hand with its torso bent forward in single support phase using the fast computational optimization method, particle swarm optimization. The simulated postures are also applied to a commercial humanoid robot platform, which validates the feasibility of the proposed approach.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.1122-1129
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• 2009

Recently taping robot with smart recognition function have been studied in the coil manufacturing field. Due to the difficulty of 3D surface processing from the complicated working environment, it is not easy to accomplish smart tape attachment motion with non-contact sensor. To solve these problems the applicable surface recognition algorithm and a flexible sensing device has been recommended. In this research, the fusion method between 1D displacement and 3D laser scanner is applied for robust tape attachment about cold rolled coil. With these sensors we develop a two-step exploration and the smart algorithm for the awareness of non-aligned coil's information. In the proposed robot system for tape attachment, the problem is reduced to coil's radius searching with laser displacement sensor at first, and then position and orientation detection with 3D laser scanner. To get the movement at the robot's base frame, the hand-eye compensation between robot's end effector and sensing device should be also carried out respectively. In this paper, we examine the auto-coordinate transformation method in the calibration step for the real environment usage. From the experimental results, it was shown that the taping motion of robot had a robust under the non-aligned cold rolled coil.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.7 no.9
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• pp.733-740
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• 2001

A monitoring robot capable of doing network and RF communication is introduced. The robot has several features that poses arbitrary position thanks to a mechanism combining the 4wheel drive and 4 link mechanism, transmits an image and command data via RF wireless communication. Moreover, the image data from the camera are transferred through a network communication. The robot plays a role in monitoring what is happening around the robot, and covers wide range due to a moving camera associated with the 4 arms. The robot can adjust its mass center by the 4 link mechanism, hence it guarantees a stability in moving on the slope.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.599-606
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• 2002

A new method to govern the navigation of a mobile robot using hand gesture recognition is proposed based on the following two procedures. One is to achieve vision information by using a 2-DOF camera as a communicating medium between a man and a mobile robot and the other is to analyze and to control the mobile robot according to the recognized hand gesture commands. In the previous researches, mobile robots are passively to move through landmarks, beacons, etc. In this paper, to incorporate various changes of situation, a new control system that manages the dynamical navigation of mobile robot is proposed. Moreover, without any generally used expensive equipments or complex algorithms for hand gesture recognition, a reliable hand gesture recognition system is efficiently implemented to convey the human commands to the mobile robot with a few constraints.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.399-405
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• 2007

This paper deals with the controller for a stable walking of a humanoid robot using genetic algorithm. A humanoid robot has instability during walking because it isn't fixed on the ground, and its nonlinearities of the joints increase its instability. If controller isn't robust, the robot may fall down at the ground during walking because of its nonlinearities. To solve this problem, robust controller is required to reduce the effect of nonlinearities and to gain the good tracking performance. In this paper, motion controller that is based on fuzzy-sliding mode controller is proposed. This controller can remove the effect of the saturation by limitation of the input voltage. It also includes compensator for reducing the effect of the nonlinearity by backlash and PI controller improving the tracking performance. In here, genetic algorithm is used for searching the optimal gains of the controller. From the given controller, a humanoid robot can moved more preciously. All the processes are investigated through simulations and are verified experimentally in a real joint system for a humanoid robot.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.1139-1145
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• 2008

A robust position sensing system is proposed in this paper for a ubiquitous mobile robot which moves indoors as well as outdoors. The Differential GPS (DGPS) which has a position estimation error of less than 5 m is a general solution when the mobile robot is moving outdoor, while an active beacon system (ABS) with embedded ultrasonic sensors is reliable as an indoor positioning system. The switching from the outdoor to indoor or vice versa causes unstable measurements on account of the reference coordinates and algorithm changes. To minimize the switching time in the position estimation and to stabilize the measurement, a robust position sensing system is proposed. In the system, to minimize the switching delay, the door positions are stored and updated in a database. Using the database, the approaching status of the mobile robot from indoor to outdoor or vice versa has been checked and the switching conditions are prepared before the mobile robot actually moves out or moves into the door. The reliability and accuracy of the robust positioning system based on DGPS and ABS are verified and demonstrated through the real experiments using a mobile robot prepared for this research.