• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.688-693
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• 2013

This paper proposes a new method on attitude control of an underwater robot by using five ABTs (Attitude Ballast Tank). A pipe is connected to the bottom of the ABTs and transfers water by a pump, while another pipe is connected to the top of the ABT to transfer air. The buoyancy center of the underwater robot can be changed by means of the water transfer. This way, the attitude of the underwater robot can be maintained and/or controlled as desired. The changes of the center of gravity and the buoyancy central are estimated by a Lagrangian function which is similar to that for an inverted pendulum. The controller in this paper is designed by modeling of the underwater robot and selecting suitable gains of a PD controller which has fast response characteristics. This paper shows the possibility of the attitude control of an underwater robot by changing the center of gravity and the buoyancy center of the robot. Moreover, experimental results verify that the controller is effective in maintaining Roll/Pitch of the underwater robot with very low power consumption.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.805-812
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• 2013

This paper describes the design, control, and localization which comprise major aspects of the development of underwater robots for the mine disposal. The developed robots are called the Mine Killer (MK-1) and MK-2. MK-1 had been developed from September 2009 and was presented at the 9-th International Symposium at NPS Monterey CA, on May 17-21, 2010[1]. The paper presents design of MK-1 and MK-2 in detail with comparison of these two versions of MKs. Then it derives hydrodynamic coefficients of MK-1. Based on the coefficients, the motion of MK-1 is simulated for straight line motion and circular motion. Also simulation results for PD control, LQ control and sliding mode control are presented. Finally, it shows a particle filter method for localization of MK-1 and MK-2 using simple range data from acoustic beacons.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.345-355
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• 2000

In this paper, the depth controller of an underwater vehicle based on an $H_\infty$ servo control is designed for the depth keeping of the underwater vehicle under wave disturbances. The depth controller is designed in the form of the $H_\infty$ servo controller, which has robust tracking property, and an $H_\infty$ servo problem is considered for the $H_\infty$ servo controller design. In order to solve the $H_\infty$ servo problem for the underwater vehicle, this problem is modified as an $H_\infty$ control problem for the generalized plant that includes a reference input mode, and a suboptimal solution that satisfies a given performance criteria is calculated with the LMI (Linear Matrix Inequality) approach. The $H_\infty$ servo controller is designed to have robust stability about the perturbation of the parameters of the underwater vehicle and the robust tracking property of the underwater vehicle depth under wave force and moment disturbances. The performance, robustness about the uncertainties, and depth tracking property, of the designed depth controller is evaluated by computer simulation, and finally these simulation results show the usefulness and applicability of the proposed $H_\infty$ depth control system.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.45-55
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• 1998

In this paper, a robust path tracker and depth controller of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle based on sliding mode control is presented. We have also designed augmented equivalent control inputs by analyzing the sliding mode with the reaching mode. This can enhance the reaching rate, and improve chattering problems, that is, noise caused by the control plane actuator of the vehicle, which is one of the problems that occur when sliding mode control is used. Also to resolve the steady state error generated in the path tracker under current effect, a modified sliding plane is constructed. Also a redesigned sliding plane and control input using transformation matrix is proposed to do easy design of MIMO depth controller. For state variables that cannot be measured directly, reduced order sliding mode control is used to design an observer. The performance of designed path tracker and depth controller is investigated by computer simulation. The results show that the proposed control system has robust performance to parameter variation, modelling error and disturbance.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.460-470
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• 2011

This paper presents a dynamic workspace control method of underwater manipulator considering a floating ROV (Remotely Operated vehicle) motion caused by sea wave. This method is necessary for the underwater work required linear motion control of a manipulator's end-effector mounted on a floating ROV in undersea. In the proposed method, the motion of ROV is modeled as nonlinear first-order differential equation excluded dynamic elements. For online manipulator control achievement, we develop the position tracking method based on sensor data and EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) and the input velocity compensation method. The dynamic workspace control method is established by applying these methods to differential inverse kinematics solution. For verification of the proposed method, experimental data based test of ROV position tracking and simulation of the proposed control method are performed, which is based on the specification of the KORDI deep-sea ROV Hemire.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.699-705
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• 2012

In this paper, an infrastructure-based localization method using underwater wireless sensor network (UWSN) is addressed. A localization using the UWSN is necessary to widen the usage of underwater applications, however it is very difficult to establish the UWSN due to the restrictions of water. In this paper, to extend the usage of UWSN at the infrastructure, we propose a sophisticated UWSN localization method using the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) of the electromagnetic waves. During the electromagnetic waves propagating in underwater, there arises a lot of attenuation according to the distance, while the attenuation shows uniformity according to the distance. Using this characteristics, the localization system in underwater infrastructure is proposed and the experimental results show the effectiveness.

• 유공압시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.75-80
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• 2010

The paper is that study method to reduce bad influence that act to the floating fish cage by effect of environment in sea. Fish cage is controlled buoyancy using air control. According to marine environment, it is descend automatically to set-up depth and rise on the surface of the sea. The paper is the preceding research for a practical application. The fish cage simplified with the spherical float body. Then a control algorithm and a program developed by the experiment. And we did modelling by bond graph technique, and controlled by the practical reference model for PID control.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.584-591
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• 2014

This paper presents a novel aided navigation method for AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles). The navigation system for AUV includes several sensors such as IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) and depth sensor. In general, the $13^{th}$ order INS error model, which includes depth error, velocity error, attitude error, and the accelerometer and gyroscope biases as state variables is used with measurements from DVL and depth sensors. However, the model may degrade the estimation performance of the heading state. Therefore, the $11^{th}$ INS error model is proposed. Its validity is verified by using a degree of observability and analyzing steady state error. The performance of the proposed model is shown by the computer simulation. The results show that the performance of the reduced $11^{th}$ order error model is better than that of the conventional $13^{th}$ order error model.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.676-681
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• 2013

For underwater vehicles, the use of sensors such as cameras and laser scanners is limited by the difference in environment compared to robots designed to work on dry land. In underwater environments, if use is made of sound signals, valuable information can be obtained. The most important application is the localization of underwater sound sources. The estimated location of a sound source can be used to control underwater robots or submarines. Thus, the purpose of this research is to estimate the source's direction and location in a noisy underwater environment. The direction of the sound source is obtained using two hydrophones. Furthermore, if we assume that the robot or sound source is moving, the location of the sound source is estimated using more than two estimated directions. The feasibility of the developed algorithm is examined by experiments in a water tank and in the ocean.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.682-687
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• 2013

Navigation is a crucial capability for all types of manned or unmanned vehicles. However, vehicle navigation in underwater environments still remains a challenging problem since GPS signals for position fixes are not available in the water. Terrain-referenced underwater navigation is an alternative navigation technique that utilizes geometric information of the subsea terrain to correct drift errors due to dead-reckoning or inertial navigation. Terrain-referenced navigation requires the description of an undulating terrain surface as a mathematical function or table, which often leads to a highly nonlinear estimation problem. Recently, PFs (Particle Filters), which do not require any restrictive assumptions about the system dynamics and uncertainty distributions, have been widely used for nonlinear filtering applications. However, PF has considerable computational requirements which used to limit its applicability to problems of relatively low state dimensions. This study proposes the use of a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter that is computationally more efficient than the standard PF for terrain-referenced underwater navigation involving a moderate number of states, and its performance is compared with that of the extended Kalman filter algorithm. The validity and feasibility of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through numerical simulations.