• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.287-295
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• 2012

Purpose: Some of the most representative approaches are to apply next generation technologies to save energy consumption, fully automated control system to appropriately maintain environmental conditions, and autonomous assistance system to reduce labor load and ensure operator's safety. Nevertheless, improvement of upcoming method for soil cultured greenhouse has not been sufficiently achieved. Geometrical complexity of ground in protected crop cultivation might be one of the most dominant factors in design of autonomous vehicle. While there is a practical solution fairly enough to promise an accurate travelling, such as autonomous sprayer guided by rail or induction coil, for various reasons including the limitation of producer's budget, the previously developed sprayer has not been widely distributed to market. Methods: In this study, we developed an autonomous sprayer considering travelling performance on geometrical complexity of ground in soil cultured greenhouse. To maintain a stable travelling and to acquire a real time feedback, common wire with 80 mm thick and body frame and sprayer boom. To evaluate performance of the prototype, tracking performance, climbing performance and spraying boom's uniform leveling performance were individually evaluated by corresponding experimental tests. Results: The autonomous guidance system was proved to be sufficiently suitable for accurate linear traveling with RMS as lower than approximately 10 cm from designated path. Also the prototype could climb $10^{\circ}$ of ground's slope angle with 40 kg of water weight. Uniform leveling of spraying boom was successfully performed within $0.5^{\circ}$ of sprayer boom's slope. Conclusions: Considering more complex pathways and coarse ground conditions, evaluations and improvements of the prototype should be performed for promising reliability to commercialization.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2013

Small mobile robots which use round wheels are suitable for driving on a flat surface, but it cannot climb the obstacle whose height is greater than the radius of wheels. As an alternative, legged-wheels have been proposed by many researchers due to its better climbing performance. However, driving and climbing performances have a trade-off relationship so that their driving performance should be sacrificed. In this study, in order to achieve both driving and climbing performances, a new transformable wheel was developed. The developed transformable wheel can have a round shape on a flat surface and change its shape into legged-wheel when it makes a contact with an obstacle. For design of the transformable wheel, the performance of legged-wheel was analyzed with respect to the number and curvature of the leg, and then the new transformable wheel was designed based on the analysis. Contrary to the existing transformable wheels that contain additional actuators for the transformation, the developed transformable wheel can be unfolded without any additional actuator. In this study, in order to validate the transformable wheel, a simple robot platform was fabricated. Consequently, it climbed the obstacle whose height is 2.6 times greater than the wheel radius.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.651-659
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• 2018

A multi-level overtopping wave energy converter was designed according to the large tidal range and small wave heights in China. It consists of two reservoirs with sloping walls at different levels. The reservoirs share a common outflow duct and a low-head axial turbine. The experimental study was carried out in a laboratory wave-flume to investigate the overtopping performance of the device. The depth-gauges were used to measure the variation of the water level in the reservoirs. The data was processed to derive the time-averaged overtopping discharges. It was found that the lower reservoir can store wave waters at the low water level and break the waves which try to climb up to the upper reservoir. The upper sloping angle and the opening width of the lower reservoir both have significant effects on the overtopping discharges, which can provide more information to the design and optimization of this type of device.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.247-255
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• 2013

This paper shows the development of a snake robot (KAEROT-snake V) which consists of 16 1-DOF actuator modules and head module. The modules are connected serially and the joint axis of each module is rotated by $90^{\circ}$ with respect to the previous joint so that the snake robot can move in the 3D space. A tail actuator module includes slip-ring and metal connector. KAEROT-snake IV developed in prior research could move in the 3D space and climb up in a narrow pipe. But its design was not appropriate to the unstructured tough environment and its speed was somewhat slow. A new actuator module is designed to enclose all parts of the module so that any wire is not exposed. The size and weight of the new module was slightly reduced. And the rotation speed and torque of the joint was increased by about twice when compared with pre-module. An embedded controller was developed so small that it can be mounted inside the module. The performance of the developed robot was demonstrated through various locomotion experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.70-75
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• 2021

We developed a platform that was capable of autonomous steering in a furrow environment. It was developed to autonomously control steering by recognizing the furrow using a laser distance, three-axis tilt, and temperature sensor. The performance evaluation indicated that the autonomous steering success rate was 99.17%, and it was possible to climb up to 5° on the slope. The usage time was approximately 40 h, and the maximum speed was 6.7 km/h.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.520-529
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• 2016

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the performance of a medium-altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle through reverse-engineering method. The external configuration data of the RQ-1 Predator was reverse-engineered from related photos and specification data available on public domains, which also were used to generate the CATIA modeling and weigh distribution data of the UAV. The aerodynamic characteristics of RQ-1 Predator were mainly predicted the vortex lattice method and an empirical method, which the propeller performance was analyzed by the empirical method proposed by Howe. The rate of climb, service ceiling, range, and the loiter endurance of the UAV was analyzed, which showed good agreement with the reference data.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2013

Flight tests on flight control performance of helicopter, conversion and airplane mode for the Smart UAV were completed. Automatic take-off and landing, automatic return home as well as automatic approach to hover were performed in helicopter mode. Climb/descent, left/right turn using speed and altitude hold mode were performed in each $10^{\circ}$ tilt angle in conversion mode. The rotor speed in airplane mode was reduced to 82% from 98% RPM in order to increase rotor efficiency with reducing Mach number at tip of rotors. It reached to the designed maximum speed, $V_{TAS}$=440 km/h at 3 km altitude. This paper presents the flight test result on full envelopment of Smart UAV. Detailed test plan and test data on control performance were also presented to prove that all data meets the flying qualities requirement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.55-56
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• 2006

This paper describes a new concept of the robot that can climb on the vertical plane. The engineering design problem of the main structure is presented and the experimental results regarding a new mechanism of climbing on the vertical wall are discussed. The locomotive motion of the robot is realized by using a series chain of two caterpillar wheels on which 24-suction pads are installed. White each caterpillar wheel rotates on the vertical plane surface, the vacuum pads are activated in sequence based on the sequential opening by specially designed mechanical valves. The detail design feature of the valve is also described in this paper. The overall size of the robot is around 460 mm in width and length, respectively, and 200 mm in height. Its mass is slightly over 14 kg. The main mechanical structure of the robot consists of driving motors, vacuum caterpillar system, steering part, vacuum pump and battery. The performance of the robot is verified on the vertical wall.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.493-501
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• 2016

In this study, core technologies of a traction system on a mountain tram operating on the track of mountain road full of sharp curves and steep gradients were developed. In domestic mountain resort areas, sometimes the transportation service is not provided in winter because of ice and heavy snow on roads, so a mountain railway service independent of the climate and geographic conditions is needed. A traction system was designed taking into account of the power of a traction motor to climb the gradient of 120 ‰, which is common in domestic mountainous areas. and power transmission system was designed to consider the installation space for the traction system. In addition, a reduction gear and a propeller shaft were developed. An elastic pinion was developed and applied to the rack & pinion bogie system for steep gradient so that noise and vibration generated by contact between the steel gears could be reduced. Impact comparison tests showed that the vibration level of the elastic pinion is one-third lower than that of previous steel pinion. Independent rotating wheels and axles were developed for the bogie system to operate on the sharp curve of a 10 meter radius. In addition, the band braking system was developed to enhance the braking force during running on the steep gradient. A test for the braking force showed it exerts the required braking force. The performance of the developed core components were verified by the tests and finally they were applied to the bogie system running on the track of steep gradient and sharp curve.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

Detect and avoid (DAA) system, which is essential for the operation of UAS, detects intruding aircraft and offers the ranges of turn and climb/descent maneuver that are required to avoid the intruder. This paper uses detect and avoid alerting logic for unmanned systems (DAIDALUS) developed at NASA as a DAA algorithm. Since DAIDALUS offers ranges of avoidance maneuvers, the actual avoidance maneuver must be decided by the UAS pilot as well as the timing and method of returning to the original route. It can be readily used in real-time human-in-the-loop (HiTL) simulations where a human pilot is making the decision, but a pilot decision model is required in fast-time simulations that proceed without human pilot intervention. This paper proposes a pilot decision model that maneuvers the aircraft based on the DAIDALUS avoidance maneuver range. A series of tests were conducted using test vectors from radio technical commission for aeronautics (RTCA) minimum operational performance standards (MOPS). The alert levels differed by the types of encounters, but loss of well clear (LoWC) was avoided. This model will be useful in fast-time simulation of high-volume traffic involving UAS.