• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.284-291
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• 2012

Recently, development of underwater robot has actively been in progress in the world as ROV(Remotely Operator Vehicle) and AUV(Autonomous Unmmanded Vehicle) style. But KIOST(Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology), beginning in 2010, launched the R&D project to develop the robot, dubbed CRABSTER(Crab + (Lob)ster) in a bid to enhance the safety and efficiency of resource exploration. CRABSTER has been designed to be able to walk and swim with its own legs without screws. Among many research subjects regarding CRABSTER, optimal swimming patterns are handled in this paper. In previous studies, drag forces during one period with different values for angle of each joint were derived. However kinematics of real-robot and fluid-dynamics are not considered. We conducted simulations with an optimization algorithm for swimming by considering simplified fluid dynamics in this paper. Drag-coefficients applied to the simulation were approximated values calculated by CFD(Computational Fluid Dynamics : Tecplot 360, ANSYS). In addition, optimized swimming patterns were applied to a real robot. The experiments with the real robot were conducted in circumstances in the water. As a result, when the experiments were carried out in the water, a regular pattern of drag force output came out depending on the movement of the robot. We confirmed the fact that the drag forces from the simulation and the experiment has a high similarity.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.661-666
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• 2013

A state feedback controller with integration of output error is proposed for way-point tracking of an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). For the steering control on the XY plane, the proposed controller uses three state variables (sway velocity, yaw rate, heading angle) and the integral of the steering error, and for the depth control on the XZ plane, it uses four state variables (pitch rate, depth, pitch angle) and the integral of the depth error. From the simulation using Matlab/Simulink, we verify that the performance of the proposed controller is satisfactory within an error range of 1m from the target way-point for arbitrarily chosen sets of consecutive way-points.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.667-675
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• 2013

This paper presents vision-based techniques for underwater landmark detection, map-based localization, and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) in structured underwater environments. A variety of underwater tasks require an underwater robot to be able to successfully perform autonomous navigation, but the available sensors for accurate localization are limited. A vision sensor among the available sensors is very useful for performing short range tasks, in spite of harsh underwater conditions including low visibility, noise, and large areas of featureless topography. To overcome these problems and to a utilize vision sensor for underwater localization, we propose a novel vision-based object detection technique to be applied to MCL (Monte Carlo Localization) and EKF (Extended Kalman Filter)-based SLAM algorithms. In the image processing step, a weighted correlation coefficient-based template matching and color-based image segmentation method are proposed to improve the conventional approach. In the localization step, in order to apply the landmark detection results to MCL and EKF-SLAM, dead-reckoning information and landmark detection results are used for prediction and update phases, respectively. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated by experiments with an underwater robot platform in an indoor water tank and the results are discussed.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.16-23
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• 2020

This paper describes an alignment algorithm that estimates the initial heading angle of AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) for starting navigation in a sea area. In the basic dead reckoning system, the initial orientation of the vehicle is very important. In particular, the initial heading value is an essential factor in determining the performance of the entire navigation system. However, the heading angle of AUVs cannot be measured accurately because the DCS (Digital Compass) corrupted by surrounding magnetic field in pointing true north direction of the absolute global coordinate system (not the same to magnetic north direction). Therefore, we constructed an experimental constraint and designed an algorithm based on extended Kalman filter using only inertial navigation sensors and a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver basically. The value of sensor covariance was selected by comparing the navigation results with the reference data. The proposed filter estimates the initial heading angle of AUVs for navigation in a sea area and reflects sampling characteristics of each sensor. Finally, we verify the performance of the filter through experiments.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.124-131
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• 2011

There are many researches in unmanned vehicles such as UGV(Unmanned Ground Vehicle), AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). In these researches, differential wheeled mobile robots are mainly used to develop the experimental stage algorithm because of the simplicity of modeling and control. Usually a commercial product used in the study, but in order to operate a commercial product to the restrictions because there would need to use a fixed protocol. Using the microprocessor makes the internal sensors(encoder and INS) and external sensors(ultrasonic sensors, infrared sensors) operate and to determine commands for robot operation. This paper propose a mobile robot design for suitable purpose.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.199-208
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• 2014

In this study, propeller open water characteristics ($K_P$, $K_T$ and ${\eta}_o$) were compared for three different ducted propellers using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, as well as an experimental test at a basin. The best shape of the duct was selected from the three types of specially designed ducts based on the CFD analysis results. The same propeller model (Kaplan type propeller) was used inside all three duct models, and the propeller open water characteristics were compared, predominantly at the design speed for an underwater vehicle. Finally, the results of the CFD test simulations for the selected duct case were verified by experimental open water tests in a towing tank.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.88-96
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• 2011

Underwater acoustic communication is applicable in various areas, such as ocean data collection, undersea exploration and development, tactical surveillance, etc. Thus, robot control system construction used for underwater-robot like AUV or ROV is essential in these areas. In this paper, we propose the Message Merging MAC($M^2$-MAC) protocol, which is suitable for real time robot control system, considering energy efficiency in important parts of underwater acoustic sensor network constitution. In this proposed MAC protocol, gateway node receives the data from robot nodes according to the time slots that were allotted previously. And messages delivered from base-station are generated to one MAC frame by buffering process. Finally, generated MAC frames are broadcasted to all robot nodes in the cluster. Our suggested MAC protocol can also be hybrid MAC protocol, which is successful blend of contention based and contention-free based protocol through relevant procedure with Maintenance&Sleep (M&S) period, when new nodes join and leave as an orphan. We propose mathematical analysis model concerned about End-to-End delay and energy consumption, which is important factor in constructing real-time robot control system. We also verify the excellence of performance according to comparison of existing MAC protocols with our scheme.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.434-445
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• 2021

This paper proposes an optimal design method for an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) platform to overcome strong current. First, to minimize the hydrodynamic drag components in water, the vehicle is designed to have a streamlined disc shape, which help maintaining horizontal motion (zero roll and pitch angles posture) while overcoming external current. To this end, four vertical thrusters are symmetrically mounted outside of the platform to stabilize the vehicle's horizontal motion. In the horizontal plane, four horizontal thrusters are symmetrically mounted outside of the disc, and each of them has the same forward and reverse thrust performances. With these four thrusters, a specific thrust vector control (TVC) method is proposed, and for external current in any direction, four horizontal thrusters are controlled to generate a vectored thrust force to encounter the current while minimizing the vehicle's rotation and maintaining its heading. However, for the numerical simulations, the vehicle's hydrodynamic coefficients related to the horizontal plane are derived based on both theoretical and empirically derived formulas. In addition to the simulation, experimental studies in both the water tank and circulating water channel are performed to verify the vehicle's various final performances, including its ability to overcome strong current.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.259-266
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• 2012

In these days, researches about underwater robots have been actively in progress for the purposes of ocean detection and resource exploration. Unlike general underwater robots such as ROV(Remotely Operated Vehicle) and AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) which have propellers, an articulated underwater robot which is called Crabster has been being developed in KORDI(Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute) with many cooperation organizations since 2010. The robot is expected to be able to walk and swim under the sea with its legs. Among many researching fields of this project, we are focusing on a swimming section. In order to find effective swimming locomotion for the robot, we approached this subject in terms of Biomimetics. As a model of optimized swimming organism in nature, diving beetles were chosen. In the paper, swimming motions of diving beetles were analyzed in viewpoint of robotics for applying them into the swimming motion of the robot. After modeling the kinematics of diving beetle through robotics engineering technique, we obtained swimming patterns of the one of living diving beetles, and then compared them with calculated optimal swimming patterns of a robot leg. As the first trial to compare the locomotion data of legs of the diving beetle with a robot leg, we have sorted two representative swimming patterns such as forwarding and turning. Experimental environment has been set up to get the motion data of diving beetles. The experimental equipment consists of a transparent aquarium and a high speed camera. Various swimming motions of diving beetles were recorded with the camera. After classifying swimming patterns of the diving beetle, we can get angular data of each joint on hind legs by image processing software, Image J. The data were applied to an optimized algorithm for swimming of a robot leg which was designed by robotics engineering technique. Through this procedure, simulated results which show trajectories of a robot leg were compared with trajectories of a leg of a diving beetle in desired directions. As a result, we confirmed considerable similarity in the result of trajectory and joint angles comparison.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.259-263
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• 2008

The dynamics of mobile robot is nonlinear. To cope with this nonlinearity, many advanced control schemes have been proposed recently. Generally, the advanced control schemes are complicated and not good for the practical real-time control when they are implemented as control programs. So, in this paper, a relatively simple PI controller is proposed and applied to the position control of mobile robot with the adoption of reference trajectory calculation method used for the AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) control. The proposed PI controller is programmed using LabVIEW which is popular for its graphical programming characteristics. The simulation and experimental results show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed PI controller.