• ETRI Journal
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.580-593
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• 2021

When operating in confined spaces or near obstacles, collision-free path planning is an essential requirement for autonomous exploration in unknown environments. This study presents an autonomous exploration technique using a carefully designed collision-free local planner. Using LiDAR range measurements, a local end-point selection method is designed, and the path is generated from the current position to the selected end-point. The generated path showed the consistent collision-free path in real-time by adopting the Euclidean signed distance field-based grid-search method. The results consistently demonstrated the safety and reliability of the proposed path-planning method. Real-world experiments are conducted in three different mines, demonstrating successful autonomous exploration flights in environment with various structural conditions. The results showed the high capability of the proposed flight autonomy framework for lightweight aerial robot systems. In addition, our drone performed an autonomous mission in the tunnel circuit competition (Phase 1) of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.57.4-57.4
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• 2019

BITSE is a project of balloon-borne experiments for a next-generation solar coronagraph developed by a collaboration with KASI and NASA. The coronagraph is built to observe the linearly polarized brightness of solar corona with a polarization camera, a filter wheel, and an aperture door. For the observation, the coronagraph is supported by the power distribution unit (PDU), a pointing system WASP (Wallops Arc-Second Pointer), telemetry & telecommand system SIP (Support Instrument Package) which are developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops Flight Facility, and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. The BITSE Command and Data Handling (C&DH) system used a cost-off-the-shelf electronics to process all data sent and received by the coronagraph, including the support system operation by RS232/422, USB3, Ethernet, and digital and analog signals. The flight software is developed using the core Flight System (cFS) which is a reusable software framework and set of reusable software applications which take advantage of a rich heritage of successful space mission of NASA. The flight software can process encoding and decoding data, control the subsystems, and provide observation autonomy. We developed a python-based testing framework to improve software reliability. The flight software development is one of the crucial contributions of KASI and an important milestone for the next project which is developing a solar coronagraph to be installed at International Space Station.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.36-44
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• 2021

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly needed as they can replace manned aircrafts in dangerous military missions. However, because of their low autonomy, current UAVs can execute missions only under continuous operator control. To overcome this limitation, higher autonomy levels of UAVs based on autonomous situational awareness is required. In this paper, we propose an autonomous situational awareness software consisting of situation awareness management, threat recognition, threat identification, and threat space analysis to detect dynamic situational change by external threats. We implemented the proposed software in real mission computer hardware and evaluated the performance of situational awareness toward dynamic radar threats in flight simulations.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.187-194
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• 2017

ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme is a comprehensive evaluation for aviation safety matters, including aircraft operation, licensing and aircraft incident/accident investigation. As this programme is measures aviation safety level of States, there is a need to meet international standards, especially in the field of aircraft incident/accident investigation. This research discusses points required to satisfy international standards, which are independence and autonomy of an accident investigation board, the lack of the enough number of investigators and efficient management of those personnel, the effective composition and use of an investigation report, an accident investigation itself to build big data and the creation of a cooperation system among States. This paper suggests various opinions in order to enhance aviation safety especially through aircraft accident investigations, using case studies from the US, UK and Japan.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.155-166
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• 2013

We present recent human-vehicle interaction (HVI) research conducted in the area of defense and military application. Research topics discussed in this paper include: training simulation for overland navigation tasks; expertise effects in overland navigation performance and scan patterns; pilot's perception and confidence on an overland navigation task; effects of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) supervisory control on F-18 formation flight performance in a simulator environment; autonomy balancing in a manned-unmanned teaming (MUT) swarm attack, enabling visual detection of IED (Improvised Explosive Device) indicators through Perceptual Learning Assessment and Training; usability test on DaViTo (Data Visualization Tool); and modeling peripheral vision for moving target search and detection. Diverse and leading HVI study in the defense domain suggests future research direction in other HVI emerging areas such as automotive industry and aviation domain.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.78-81
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• 2019

In this study, we will analyze the design, development and application of these small drones using open source. These drones are used in flight exercises, aerial photography, and coding education. In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, such as the development of sensor technology, expansion of open source sharing, and application of artificial intelligence, Is expected to be able to demonstrate convergence. In this paper, we have studied the design and fabrication of small drones using open source. In the case of drones, various functions and differentiated materials are required depending on the application, and the future development of the unmanned mobile object, namely the drone, in which the creativity and the technology are combined with each other continues to be enhanced by the improvement of autonomy and artificial intelligence. Software-based architecture-based technologies have been developed in collaboration with embedded SWs that combine sensors, motors, and control systems. In hardware, it is customary to use a combination of materials and design to increase the freedom of design. It will be made in a free structure.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.10-20
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• 2024

Recent advancements in autonomous flight technologies for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have greatly expanded their applicability for various tasks, including delivery, agriculture, and rescue. This article presents a comprehensive survey of path planning techniques in autonomous navigation and exploration that are tailored for UAVs. The robotics literature has studied path and motion planning, from basic obstacle avoidance to sophisticated algorithms capable of dynamic decision-making in challenging environments. In this article, we introduce popular path and motion planning approaches such as grid-based, sampling-based, and optimization-based planners. We further describe the contributions from the state-of-the-art in exploration planning for UAVs, which have been derived from these well-studied planners. Recent research, including the method we are developing, has improved performance in terms of efficiency and scalability for exploration tasks in challenging environments without human intervention. On the basis of these research and development trends, this article discusses future directions in UAV path planning technologies, illustrating the potential for UAVs to perform complex tasks with increased autonomy and efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.829-839
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• 2021

Autonomous system for UAVs has a capability to decide an appropriate current action to achieve the goal based on the ultimate mission goal, context of mission, and the current state of the UAV. We propose a decision-making system that has an ability to operate ISR mission autonomously under the realistic limitation such as low altitude operation with high risk of terrain collision, a set of way points without change of visit sequence not allowed, and position uncertainties of the objects for the mission. The proposed decision-making system is loaded to a Hardware-In-the-loop Simulation environment, then tested and verified using three representative scenarios with a realistic mission environment. The flight trajectories of the UAV and selected actions via the proposed decision-making system are presented as the simulation results with discussion.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.436-447
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• 2014

The major elements of avionics system architecture are requirements, Real Time Operating System, message communication, memory, and data format etc. Herein describes a state-of-the-art development trend for the avionics system architecture, system requirements and data bus among the major elements of avionics system. While, domestic technology has been tried to Integrated Modular Avionics(IMA) system based on the Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet(AFDX) technology during Light Attack Helicopter(LAH) project in Korea, but not yet proved as the product case in Full Scale Development Phase. The avionics system architecture considering the domestic inexperience of the IMA system architecture are suggested for the Next-generation Corps Unmanned Aircraft System.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.160-167
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• 2023

This study focuses on the development of a Last-Mile delivery service using unmanned vehicles to deliver goods directly to the end consumer utilizing drones to perform autonomous delivery missions and an image-based precision landing algorithm for handoff to a robot in an intermediate facility. As the logistics market continues to grow rapidly, parcel volumes increase exponentially each year. However, due to low delivery fees, the workload of delivery personnel is increasing, resulting in a decrease in the quality of delivery services. To address this issue, the research team conducted a study on a Last-Mile delivery service using unmanned vehicles and conducted research on the necessary technologies for drone-based goods transportation in this paper. The flight scenario begins with the drone carrying the goods from a pickup location to the rooftop of a building where the final delivery destination is located. There is a handoff facility on the rooftop of the building, and a marker on the roof must be accurately landed upon. The mission is complete once the goods are delivered and the drone returns to its original location. The research team developed a mission planning algorithm to perform the above scenario automatically and constructed an algorithm to recognize the marker through a camera sensor and achieve a precision landing. The performance of the developed system has been verified through multiple trial operations within ETRI.