• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.314-321
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• 2002

An endoscope is usually inserted into the human body for the inspection of the gullet, stomach, and large intestine (colon) and this may cause discomfort to patients and damage to tissues during diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. This situation necessitates a self-propelling endoscope. There are many kinds of mechanism to move in a rigid pipe. However, these methods are difficult to apply directly to the endoscope. The main reason is that human intestine cannot be considered as a uniform, straight, and rigid pipe. This paper proposes a flexible loop wheel mechanism, which is adaptable to the human intestine. This mechanism is designed and fabricated by a simple modeling, and tested by an experiment. Finally, the actuator is inserted into the pig colon.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.306-313
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• 1999

To measure the accurate position of mobile robot, dead-reckoning method using the encoder attached to each wheel is conventionally used, since it is easy to compute and inexpensive to develop. However, that method is useless when slip occurs and error is accumulated with time. This paper proposes a position estimation method using encoder trailer composed of 2 encoders only(ET-2). This method provides accurate position information even when slip occurs, and can reduce accumulated error if we select the proper link lengths of encoder trailer. Experimental results show the performance of ET-2 when slip occurs. Finally, accumulated systematic error from encoder resolution is analyzed in comparison with an existing method with encoder trailer composed of 3 encoders. (As a matter of convenience, we will call the existing encoder trailer ‘ET-3’)

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2007

The skid-steering method that applied a number of mobile robot currently is very effective in narrow area. But it contains several problems of its natural properties, slip, occurred by different direction between vehicle's driving and wheel's rotary. From this thesis we want to suggest suitable structure of $6{\times}6$ skid steering wheeled vehicle and method of driving by analyzing the behavior of $6{\times}6$ skid-steered wheeled vehicle by engineering analytical method

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.44-53
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• 1993

In this paper, we discuss on the control algorithm to make the wheeled inverse pendulum type mobile robot move in two dimensional plane. The robot considered in this paper has two independently driven wheels in same axel which suport and move it-self, and is assumed to have the fyro type sensor to know the inclination algle of the body and rotary encoders to know wheel's rotation angular velocity. The control algorithm is divided into three parts. The first part is for the posture and velocity control for forward-backward direction, the second is the steering control, and the last part is for the control of total system to track the given trajectory. We handle the running velocity control of the robot as part of the posture control to keep the balance because the posture relates deeply with the velocity and can be controlled by the velocities of the wheels. The control problem is analyzed as the tracking control, and the controller is realized with the state feedback and feed-forward of the reference velocity. Constructing the control system which contained one intergrator in forward path, we also realized the control system without observer for the estimation of the accumulated errors in the inclination angle of the body. To prevent the robot from being unstable state by sudden variation of the reference velocity when it starts and stops, or changes velocity, the reference velocity of which acceleration is slowly changing, is ordered to the robot. To control its steering, we give the different reference velocities for both wheels which are calculated from the desired angular velocity of the body. Finally, we presents the experimental results of the experimental robot Yamabico Kurara in which the proposed control algorithm had been implemented.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.607-612
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• 1998

In this paper, a controller using fuzzy-genetic algorithms is proposed for pat-tracking of WMR. A fuzzy controller is implemented so as to adjust appropriate crossover rate and mutation rate. A genetic algorithms is also implemented to have adaptive adjustment of control gain during optimizing process. To check effectiveness of this algorithms, computer simulation is applied.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.83-91
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• 2016

Most of outdoor mobile robots have a suspension on each wheel in order to relieve the shock by ground obstacles and to improve the driving stability. Typically, in the actual operations, the suspensions have been used under a given set of conditions as all the damping and spring coefficients of the suspensions are fixed. However, it is necessary to readjust the coefficients of the suspensions according to surface conditions that may cause the unstable shaking of a robot body at high speed driving. Therefore, this paper is focused on the mobility analysis of an outdoor robot when the coefficients of suspensions (in particular, damping coefficients) are changed while driving on an uneven road surface. In this paper, a semi-active suspension with twelve damping coefficient levels was used and a small sized vehicle with the suspensions was employed to analyze the mobility dependent on a change of the damping coefficient. And the mobility was evaluated through driving experiments on a bumped slope.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.134-141
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• 2014

Mobile robots use various sensors for navigation such as wheel encoder, vision sensor, sonar, and laser sensors. Dead reckoning is used with wheel encoder, resulting in the accumulation of positioning errors. For that reason wheel encoder can not be used alone. Too much information of vision sensors leads to an increase in the number of features and complexity of perception scheme. Also Sonar sensor is not suitable for positioning because of its poor accuracy. On the other hand, laser sensor provides accurate distance information relatively. In this paper we propose to extract the angular information from the distance information of laser range finder and use the Kalman filter that match the heading and distance of the laser range finder and those of wheel encoder. For laser scanner with one feature point error may increase much when the feature point is variant or jumping to a new feature point. To solve the problem, we propose to use two feature points and show that the positioning error can be reduced much.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.142-151
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• 2022

With the advent of the 4th industrial revolution, autonomous driving technology is being commercialized in various industries. However, research on autonomous driving so far has focused on platforms with wheel-type platform. Research on a tracked platform is at a relatively inadequate step. Since the tracked platform has a different driving and steering method from the wheel-type platform, the existing research cannot be applied as it is. Therefore, a path-tracking algorithm suitable for a tracked platform is required. In this paper, we studied a path-tracking algorithm for a tracked platform based on a GPS sensor. The existing Pure Pursuit algorithm was applied in consideration of the characteristics of the tracked platform. And to compensate for "Cutting Corner", which is a disadvantage of the existing Pure Pursuit algorithm, an algorithm that changes the LAD according to the curvature of the path was developed. In the existing pure pursuit algorithm that used a tracked platform to drive a path including a right-angle turn, the RMS path error in the straight section was 0.1034 m and the RMS error in the turning section was measured to be 0.2787 m. On the other hand, in the variable LAD algorithm, the RMS path error in the straight section was 0.0987 m, and the RMS path error in the turning section was measured to be 0.1396 m. In the turning section, the RMS path error was reduced by 48.8971%. The validity of the algorithm was verified by measuring the path error by tracking the path using a tracked robot platform.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.971-980
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• 2010

In this paper, we present a navigation control algorithm for mobile robots that move in environments having static and moving obstacles. The algorithm includes a global and a local path-planning algorithm that uses $D^*$ search algorithm, a fuzzy logic for determining the immediate level of danger due to collision, and a fuzzy logic for evaluating the required wheel velocities of the mobile robot. To apply the $D^*$ search algorithm, the two-dimensional space that the robot moves in is decomposed into small rectangular cells. The algorithm is verified by performing simulations using the Python programming language as well as by using the dynamic equations for a two-wheeled mobile robot. The simulation results show that the algorithm can be used to move the robot successfully to reach the goal position, while avoiding moving and unknown static obstacles.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.77-84
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• 2004

The attachment of mobile vehicle is necessary for the automated operation on the inclined or vertical walls of steel structures. Since the vehicle requires attaching devices additionally, its overall efficiency can be reduced by the devices. Therefore, external shapes of mobile vehicles have to be researched to give the effective movement on the vertical face. For the design of mobile vehicle, the guideline has been derived from the modeling of wall-climbing, so that the vehicle should have a specific external shape for vertical movement due to the gravitational force. Hence, some adequate arrangement of attaching device to the mobile vehicle has been presented for the effective movement. In the experiments with four permanent magnetic wheels, a plausible result was achieved as a vertical attaching force of 185.2(N), a friction force of 153.8(N) and a curvature radius of 1.4m. The mobile vehicle should be modified according to the proposed design guideline, and then it could be applied to a specific operation as an appropriate external shape. Also, Further research is recommended on an optimal posture and a moving method in a specific application, as the attaching force of the vehicle can be affected by its posture.