• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.570-576
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• 2012

In this research a moving platform for a mobile robot which can run with upright posture is proposed. It is able to stand with standing arms and run uprightly based on an inverted pendulum mechanism. Conventional mobile robots generally may equip 4 wheels or 3 wheels including a caster and have good statistic stability. They need a steering mechanism to choose which way to go since they have a square or rectangular configuration with multiple wheels. When a mobile robot meets a sharply perpendicular and narrow crossroad, it may need a special steering scheme such as going forward and backward repeatedly or it sometimes cannot even pass through the crossroad because of its size. The proposed moving platform for a mobile robot changes to a upright posture which has a small planar area and is able to pass through the crossroad. We propose a moving platform for a mobile robot with a inverted pendulum mechanism and standing arms which can make the mobile robot upright.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.1108-1114
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• 2009

Mobility is one of the most important features for a guard robot since it should be operated in rough places. A wheel-based mobile robot capable of jumping is an appropriate structure for a guard robot because it can easily satisfy the requirements for small guard robots. The jumping robot can reach a higher place more rapidly than other locomotion methods. This research proposes a small robot equipped with the jumping mechanism based on the conical spring with the variable length endtip. The variable length endtip enables the independent control of the jump force and jump angle which are related to the jump height and jump distance, respectively. Various experiments demonstrated that the proposed jumping mechanism can provide the independent control of jump force and jump angle, and improve the mobility of a small robot to overcome an obstacle. Furthermore, a combination of the jumping mechanism and the PSD sensor to measure the distance to the step enable the jumping robot to autonomously climb stairs.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.507-514
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• 2022

Mobile manipulators are getting lime light in the field of home automation due to their mobility and manipulation capabilities. In this paper, we developed a small size manipulator system that can be mounted on a mobile robot as a preliminary study to develop a mobile manipulator. The developed manipulator has four degree-of-freedom. At the end-effector of manipulator, there are a camera and a gripper to recognize and manipulate the object. One of four degree-of-freedom is linear motion in vertical direction for better interaction with human hands which are located higher than the mobile manipulator. The developed manipulator was designed to dispose the four actuators close to the base of the manipulator to reduce rotational inertia of the manipulator, which improves stability of manipulation and reduces the risk of rollover. The developed manipulator repeatedly performed a pick and place task and successfully manipulate the object within the workspace of manipulator.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.407-422
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• 2014

Objective: The purpose of the study is to develop quantitative usability evaluation criteria for senior-friendly autonomous transportation robot. Background: The Republic of Korea has become the most rapidly aging society, and is anticipated to enter the post-aged society in 2026. To raise the quality of life of a senior with limited mobility and to reduce the burden of caregivers, many high-tech assistive products with information technologies are developed nowadays. The senior-friendly autonomous transportation robot is one person robot vehicle to move a senior to the destination for hospitals, nursing homes or silver town complex. With built-in navigation system and environmental monitoring censors, it automatically seeks the path to the destination and avoids collision to obstacles and pedestrians on the way. Due to the early stage of the product, few usability studies in this field have been done, mostly on general service robots to assist seniors, power wheelchairs and delivery robots. ISO and KS standards for the service robots are focused on safety. Method: Based on the reference usability index, the early draft of the usability evaluation questionnaires was developed. After small group tests and interviews, the experts modified the initial draft to the Usability Evaluation Criteria for Senior-Friendly Autonomous Transportation Robot (UEC-SFATR). Result: UEC-SFATR consisted of 4 subscales - Safety, Controllability, Efficiency and Satisfaction. All of the 4 subscales of UEC-SFATR were passed the reliability criteria by 4 groups of seniors, divided by gender and familiarity of smart-devices. Conclusion: UEC-SFATR covers wider area of user experiences of the SFATR and is a good measurement tool to help both the users and developers of the robot. Application: This study provides guide to the future product development and product competitiveness evaluation by quantifying user experiences for the SFATR.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.406-411
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• 2005

In this paper, we present the area-based Q-learning to search a target object using multiple robot. To search the target in Markovian space, the robots should recognize their surrounding at where they are located and generate some rules to act upon by themselves. Under area-based Q-learning, a robot, first of all, obtains 6-distances from itself to environment by infrared sensor which are hexagonally allocated around itself. Second, it calculates 6-areas with those distances then take an action, i.e., turn and move toward where the widest space will be guaranteed. After the action is taken, the value of Q will be updated by relative formula at the state. We set up an experimental environment with five small mobile robots, obstacles, and a target object, and tried to search for a target object while navigating in a unknown hallway where some obstacles were placed. In the end of this paper, we presents the results of three algorithms - a random search, area-based action making (ABAM), and hexagonal area-based Q-teaming.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.164.1-164
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• 2001

Q-learning is a recent reinforcement learning algorithm that does not need a modeling of environment and it is a suitable approach to learn behaviors for autonomous agents. But when it is applied to multi-agent learning with many I/O states, it is usually too complex and slow. To overcome this problem in the multi-agent learning system, we propose the successive Q-learning algorithm. Successive Q-learning algorithm divides state-action pairs, which agents can have, into several Q-functions, so it can reduce complexity and calculation amounts. This algorithm is suitable for multi-agent learning in a dynamically changing environment. The proposed successive Q-learning algorithm is applied to the prey-predator problem with the one-prey and two-predators, and its effectiveness is verified from the efficient avoidance ability of the prey agent.

• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.35-41
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• 2018

Smart device has become an affordable main computing resource for robotic ap-plications in accordance with a fast growth of mobile internet environment. Since the computing power of smart device has been increased, smart device based ro-bot system attempts to replace traditional robot applications with laptop-based system. Methodologies for acquisition of remote sensory information and control of various types of robots using smart device have been proposed recently. In this paper, we propose a robot control system using a monitoring program and a communication protocol. The proposed system is a combination of an educa-tional programming oriented robot named EPOR-S. as small service robot plat-form and a smart device. Through a simulation study using image processing, the feasibility of combination of the proposed robot monitoring program and control system was verified.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.578-584
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• 2015

In this study a moving platform for a mobile robot that can be traveling with a full automatic standing arm was developed. Conventional mobile robots generally may equip 4 wheels or 3 wheels with a caster wheel or independent driven wheels and have good statistic stability. When a mobile robot travels on a sharply perpendicular and narrow crossroad, it may need a special steering scheme such as going forward and backward repeatedly or it is sometimes physically impossible for the robot to go through the crossroad because of the size limit. The upright running mobile robot changes its posture to the upright posture which has a small planar area and is able to go through the crossroad. The upright control which was manually performed step by step before such as sequences of uprighting (returning), checking, and balancing, is now automated.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.spc3
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• pp.275-281
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• 2012

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) are the most appropriate for energy source of small robot applications. PEMFC has superior in power density and thermodynamic efficiency as compared with the Direct Methaol Fuel Cell (DMFC). Furthermore, PEMFC has lighter weight and smaller size than DMFC which are very important factors as small robot power system. The most significant factor of mobile robots is weight which relates closely with energy consumption and robot operation. This research tried to find optimum specifications in terms of type, number of cell, active area, cooling method, weight, and size. In order to find optimum 500W PEMFC, six options are designed in this paper and studied to reduce total stack weight by applying new materials and design innovations. However, still remaining problems are thermal management, robot space for energy sources, and soon. For a thermal management, design options need to analysis of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for determining which option has the improved performance and durability.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.211-216
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• 2012

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) are the most appropriate for energy source of small robot applications. PEMFC has superior in power density and thermodynamic efficiency as compared with the Direct Methaol Fuel Cell (DMFC). Furthermore, PEMFC has lighter weight and smaller size than DMFC which are very important factors as small robot power system. The most significant factor of mobile robots is weight which relates closely with energy consumption and robot operation. This research tried to find optimum specifications in terms of type, number of cell, active area, cooling method, weight, and size. In order to find optimum 500W PEMFC, six options are designed in this paper and studied to reduce total stack weight by applying new materials and design innovations. However, still remaining problems are thermal management, robot space for energy sources, and so on. For a thermal management, design options need to analysis of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for determining which option has the improved performance and durability.