• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.437-442
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• 2014

Recently, the needs for the development and application of the micro marine robot (MMR) which has the advantages in terms of size and cost are increasing. However, the basis is very short in the domestic. While the obstacle avoidance sonar (OAS) which was optimized in terms of size and performance and has the ability of 4-directional detection was developed for the obstacle avoidance of the micro surface robot (MSR) fortunately, the problem that the detection performance is degraded according to the shape of the obstacle because of using the fixed sonar-beam with the limited beam width and detection range exists. To solve this problem, the MSR mechanism that implements the rotating sonar-beam using the spur gear and the servo motor is proposed in this paper. To verify the performance of the proposed mechanism, the wall-tracking of the MSR is considered and the comparison and analysis in term of detection performance and actuation command is performed with conventional fixed sonar-beam. The test results show the validity of the proposed mechanism.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.218-224
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• 2012

Recently, as the needs of developing the micro autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) are increasing, the acquisition of the elementary technology is urgent. While they mostly utilizes information of the forward looking sonar (FLS) in conventional studies of the local path control as an elementary technology, it is desirable to use the obstacle avoidance sonar (OAS) because the size of the FLS is not suitable for the micro AUV. In brief, the local path control system based on the OAS for the micro AUV operates with the following problems: the OAS offers low bearing resolution and local range information, it requires the system that has reduced power consumption to extend the mission execution time, and it requires an easy design procedure in terms of its structures and parameters. To solve these problems, an intelligent local path control algorithm based on the beam modeling of OAS with the evolution strategy (ES) and the fuzzy logic controller (FLC), is proposed. To verify the performance and analyze the characteristic of the proposed algorithm, the course control of the underwater flight vehicle (UFV) is performed in the horizontal plane. Simulation results show that the feasibility of real application and the necessity of additional work in the proposed algorithm.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.249-254
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• 2015

Buoys are widely used in marine areas because they can mark positions and simultaneously acquire and exchange underwater, surface, and airborne information. Recently, the need for controlling and optimizing a buoy's position and attitude has been raised to achieve successful communication in a heterogeneous collaborative network composed of an underwater robot, a surface robot, and an airborne robot. A buoy in the form of a marine robot would be ideal to address this issue, as it can serve as a moving node of the communication network. Therefore, a buoy-based autonomous surface robot-kit with the abilities of sonar-based avoidance, dynamic position control, and static attitude control was developed and is discussed in this paper. The test and evaluation results of this kit show the possibility of real-world applications and the need for additional studies.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2011

When a hydrofoil ship plies at high speed, there exist possibilities of collision with ocean mammals dwelling near the surface. An active sonar located within the immersed hydrofoil structure that provides the lift for the vessel, can be used for early warning of their presence. The proper functioning of the active sonar system depends on its ability to reject noise and pick up the target signal. In this article, we measured the noise on a hydrofoil of an operating ship with two flush-mounted hydrophones. The measurements were conducted for the purpose of (1) identifying the effect of operating state of machinery likes engine, cooler and generator (2) observing the change of noise depending on the measuring position (3) observing the change of noise with increasing ship speed. To verify our experiment, experiments were performed three times and the measured results are compared with other investigations and they show similarity to each other. The results are analyzed with frequency domain in order to apply to operating active sonar detecting system and focus on high frequency band within sonar's operating frequency region. Through these experiments and analysis, it is expected that we can identify the generated noise around hydrofoil where active sonar is installed and these results lead us to design active sonar that could distinguish target signal from noise more effectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2010.10a
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• pp.701-704
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• 2010

In studying an autonomous navigation technique of UUV(Unmaned Underwater Vehicle), one of the many fundamental techniques is to plan a 3D path to complete the mission via realtime information received by sonar showing landscapes and obstacles. The simulation system is necessary to verify the algorithm in researching and developing 3D path planning of UUV. It is because 3D path planning of UUV should consider guide control, the dynamics, ocean environment, and search sonar models on the basis of obstacle avoidance technique. The simulation system developed in this paper visualizes the UUV's movement of avoiding obstacles, arriving at the goal position via waypoints by using C++ and OpenGL. Plus, it enables the user to setup the various underwater environment and obstacles by a user interface. It also provides a generalization that can verify path planning algorithm of UUV studied in any developing environment.