• Title/Summary/Keyword: Curbs height

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Curb Detection and Following in Various Environments by Adjusting Tilt Angle of a Laser Scanner (레이저 스캐너의 틸트 각도 조절을 통한 다양한 환경에서의 연석 탐지 및 추종)

  • Lee, Dong-Wook;Lee, Yong-Ju;Song, Jae-Bok;Baek, Joo-Hyun;Ryu, Jae-Kwan
    • Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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    • v.16 no.11
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    • pp.1068-1073
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    • 2010
  • When a robot navigates in an outdoor environment, a curb or a sidewalk separated from the road can be used as a robust feature. However, most algorithms could detect the curb only in the straight road, and could not detect highly curved corners, ramps, and so on. This paper proposes an algorithm which enables the robot to detect and follow the curbs in various types of roads. In the proposed method, the robot tilts a laser scanner and computes the error between the predicted and the measured distances to the road in front of the robot. Based on this error, the curbs at corners and curves can be classified. It is also difficult to detect a curb near a ramp because of its low height. In this case, the robot also tilts a laser scanner to detect the curb beyond the ramp. Once the robot classifies the road into the curve, corner, ramp, the robot selects the proper navigation strategies depending on the classified road types and is able to continue to detect and follow the curb. The results of a series of experiments show that the robot can stably detect and follows the curb in curves, corners and ramps as well as the straight road.

Experimental Study on the Determination of Slope and Height of Curbs Considering the VRUs (교통약자를 고려한 보도의 경사도와 높이 결정을 위한 실험연구)

  • Kim, Hyunjin;Lim, Joonbeom;Choe, Byongho;Oh, Cheol;Kang, Inhyeng
    • International Journal of Highway Engineering
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.107-115
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    • 2018
  • PURPOSES : As the population of the mobility handicapped, who are classified as the disabled, the elderly, pregnant women, children, etc., has increased, the voices for guaranteeing their rights have been increasing as well. Thus, the design manuals for roads and sidewalks for the mobility handicapped were developed by the local government, such as the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Tourism, in Seoul City. However, according to the 2013 survey results of the Seoul Metropolitan City, the mobility handicapped still feel uncomfortable with the sidewalks, and particularly request for the improvement of the step and slope of the sidewalk curb. Therefore, in this study, we conducted an empirical experimental study to determine the slope of the sidewalk curb and height of the steps considering the mobility handicapped and analyzed whether there is a statistically significant difference. METHODS : The methodology of this study is an empirical experimental one. In the study, five non-disabled people, 10 wheelchair users, and 10 eye patch and stick users walked about 2-3 min on the sidewalk plates of the sloped type (0%, 5%, 6.3%, 8.3%) and stepped type (0 cm, 1 cm, 3 cm, 6 cm), and their human physiological responses, such as the skin temperature, volume of perspiration on forehead and chest, and heart rate, were measured and recorded. After combining the data, we conducted a nonparametric test, ANOVA, or t-test to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference according to each slope and step type. RESULTS : It was found that for the non-disabled, there was no significant difference in human physiological responses according to the slope and steps of the sidewalk. It can be said that the non-disabled do not feel much physiological discomfort while walking. In the case of the sloped sidewalk plate, the heart rate of the wheel chair users increased when the slope was 6.3%. In the case of the eye patch and stick users, the volume of perspiration on the chest increased at a slope of 5.0%. In general, it is judged that a sidewalk with a slope that is less than 5% does not cause a change in the physiological response. In the case of a stepped sidewalk plate, when 0 cm, 1 cm, and 3 cm were compared for wheelchair users, the amount of forehead perspiration increased from 1 cm. Meanwhile, in the case of the eye patch and stick users, when 0 cm and 6 cm were compared, the amount of perspiration on the forehead and chest as well as the heart rate all increased at 6 cm. Taken together, in the case of wheelchair users, a difference was shown when the height of the step of the sidewalk plate was 1 cm, suggesting that installing it at 0 cm does not cause any physiological discomfort. Moreover, in the case of the eye patch and stick users, when comparing only 0 cm and 6 cm, 0 cm was considered to be suitable, as there was a difference in physiological response at 6 cm. CONCLUSIONS : In this study, we set the human physiological responses such as chest skin temperature, amount of perspiration, and heart rate as evaluation items, and our study was considered to be a meaningful experiment that targeted wheelchair users as well as eye patch and stick users. The validity of the evaluation items was confirmed, as the results of human physiological responses were significant. As for the sidewalk design, according to the experiment result, it is considered that differential application should be implemented according to the type of mobility handicap, rather than uniformly applying a sidewalk step of 2 cm and sidewalk slope of 1/25, which are the current legal standards.

H2 Control of Wheel Chair Robot with Inverse Pendulum Control

  • Takakazu, Ishimatsu;Chan, Tony
    • 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 2001.10a
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    • pp.89.2-89
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    • 2001
  • Wheel chair bound persons need assistance since there are many steps or curbs or other obstacles blocking their path in the roadways and walkways. Although a step may be small, it may be very difficult for such a person to climb over it. Therefore, we are proposing a power assist wheel chair robot that enables a wheel chair bound person to climb over steps up to about 10 centimeters in height without assistance from others. By using the proposed wheel chair robot, a user can maintain inverse pendulum control after raising its front wheels Then, a user can move forward to the step maintaining the inverse pendulum control, and can climb over the step using motor force of a rear wheel shaft ...

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An innovative experimental method to upgrade performance of external weak RC joints using fused steel prop plus sheets

  • Kheyroddin, Ali;Khalili, Ali;Emami, Ebrahim;Sharbatdar, Mohammad K.
    • Steel and Composite Structures
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.443-460
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    • 2016
  • In this paper, the efficiency and effectiveness of two strengthening methods for upgrading behavior of the two external weak reinforced concrete (RC) beam-column joints were experimentally investigated under cyclic loading. Since two deficient external RC joints with reduced beam height and low strength concrete were strengthened using one-way steel prop and curbs with and without steel revival sheets on the beam. The cyclic performance of these strengthened specimens were compared with two another control external RC beam-column joints, one the standard RC joint that had not two mentioned deficiencies and another had both. Therefore, four half-scale RC joints were tested under cyclic loading.The experimental results showed that these innovative strengthening methods (RC joint with revival sheet specially) surmounted the deficiencies of weak RC joints and upgraded their performance and bearing capacity, stiffness degradation, energy absorption, up to those of standard RC joint. Also, results exhibited that the prop at joint acted as a fuse element due to adding steel revival sheets on the RC beam and showed better behavior than that of the specimen without steel revival sheets. In other words by stiffening of beam, the prop collected all damages due to cyclic loading at itself and acted as the first line of defense and prevented from sever damages at RC joint.