• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.252-258
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• 2012

This paper describes hierarchical semantic map building using the classified area information in home environments. The hierarchical semantic map consists of a grid, CAIG (Classified Area Information in Grid), and topological map. The grid and CAIG maps are used for navigation and motion selection, respectively. The topological map provides the intuitive information on the environment, which can be used for the communication between robots and users. The proposed semantic map building algorithm can greatly improve the capabilities of a mobile robot in various domains, including localization, path-planning and HRI (Human-Robot Interaction). In the home environment, a door can be used to divide an area into various sections, such as a room, a kitchen, and so on. Therefore, we used not only the grid map of the home environment, but also the door information as a main clue to classify the area and to build the hierarchical semantic map. The proposed method was verified through various experiments and it was found that the algorithm guarantees autonomous map building in the home environment.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.10-16
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• 2009

This paper is concerned with Korean students' attitudes towards robots, presenting two survey studies. The first study was concerned with a group of college students, taking the perspective of international comparison. Data were collected by administering an online survey, where 106 volunteer students had participated. In the survey, the Negative Attitude towards Robot Scale(NARS) was adopted to compare the Korean students' scores with those of multi-national groups (U.S.A, Germany, Netherland, Japan, Mexico, and China) who responded to the same scale in Bartneck et al.'s research. The analysis of the data reveals that Korean students tend to be more concerned about social impacts that robots might bring to future society and are very conscious about the uncertain influences of robots on human life. The second study investigated factors that may affect K-12 students' attitudes towards robots, with survey data garnered from 298 elementary, middle, and high school students. The data were analyzed by the method of multiple regression analysis to test the hypothesis that a student's gender, age, the extent of interest in robots, and the extent of experiences with robots may influence his or her attitude towards robots. The hypothesis was partially supported in that variables of a student's gender, age, and the extent of interest in robots were statistically significant with regard to the attitude variable. Given the results, this paper suggests three points of discussions to better understand Korean students' attitudes towards robots: social and cultural context, individual differences, and theory of mind.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.266-272
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• 2013

Facial feature extraction and tracking are essential steps in human-robot-interaction (HRI) field such as face recognition, gaze estimation, and emotion recognition. Active shape model (ASM) is one of the successful generative models that extract the facial features. However, applying only ASM is not adequate for modeling a face in actual applications, because positions of facial features are unstably extracted due to limitation of the number of iterations in the ASM fitting algorithm. The unaccurate positions of facial features decrease the performance of the emotion recognition. In this paper, we propose real-time facial feature extraction and tracking framework using ASM and LK optical flow for emotion recognition. LK optical flow is desirable to estimate time-varying geometric parameters in sequential face images. In addition, we introduce a straightforward method to avoid tracking failure caused by partial occlusions that can be a serious problem for tracking based algorithm. Emotion recognition experiments with k-NN and SVM classifier shows over 95% classification accuracy for three emotions: "joy", "anger", and "disgust".

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07d
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• pp.1977-1978
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• 2006

This paper discusses the method of vision based sensor fusion system for biped robot walking. Most researches on biped walking robot have mostly focused on walking algorithm itself. However, developing vision systems for biped walking robot is an important and urgent issue since biped walking robots are ultimately developed not only for researches but to be utilized in real life. In the research, systems for environment recognition and tele-operation have been developed for task assignment and execution of biped robot as well as for human robot interaction (HRI) system. For carrying out certain tasks, an object tracking system using modified optical flow algorithm and obstacle recognition system using enhanced template matching and hierarchical support vector machine algorithm by wireless vision camera are implemented with sensor fusion system using other sensors installed in a biped walking robot. Also systems for robot manipulating and communication with user have been developed for robot.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2143-2147
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• 2005

Human-Robot interaction (HRI) has recently become one of the most important issues in the field of robotics. Understanding and predicting the intentions of human users is a major difficulty for robotic programs. In this paper we suggest an interaction method allows the robot to execute the human user's desires in an intelligent room-based domain, even when the user does not give a specific command for the action. To achieve this, we constructed a full system architecture of an intelligent room so that the following were present and sequentially interconnected: decision-making based on the Bayesian belief network, responding to human commands, and generating queries to remove ambiguities. The robot obtained all the necessary information from analyzing the user's condition and the environmental state of the room. This information is then used to evaluate the probabilities of the results coming from the output nodes of the Bayesian belief network, which is composed of the nodes that includes several states, and the causal relationships between them. Our study shows that the suggested system and proposed method would improve a robot's ability to understand human commands, intuit human desires, and predict human intentions resulting in a comfortable intelligent room for the human user.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.28-35
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• 2015

This paper introduces a resistance scanning-type flexible tactile sensor for intelligent robots and presents the output characteristics of the sensor via signal processing. The sensor was produced via the lamination method using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (a conductive material), an insulator, and Tango-plus (an elastic material). Analog and digital signal processing boards were produced to analyze the output signal of the sensor. The analog signal processing board was made up of an integrator and an amplifier for signal stability, and the digital signal processing board was made up of an IIR filter for noise removal. Finally, the sensor output for the contact force was confirmed through experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.243-249
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• 2015

In direct vehicle teleoperation, a human operator drives a vehicle at a distance through a pair of master and slave device. However, if there is time delay, it is difficult to remotely drive the vehicle due to slow response. In order to address this problem, we introduced a novel methodology of shared vehicle teleoperation using a virtual driving interface. The methodology was developed with four components: 1) virtual driving environment, 2) interface for virtual driving environment, 3) path generator based on virtual driving trajectory, 4) path following controller. Experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed approach in simple and cluttered driving environment as well. In the experiments, we compared two sampling methods, fixed sampling time and user defined instant, and finally merged method showed best remote driving performance in term of completion time and number of collision.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.123-125
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• 2006

This paper discusses the method of vision based sensor fusion system for biped robot walking. Most researches on biped walking robot have mostly focused on walking algorithm itself. However, developing vision systems for biped walking robot is an important and urgent issue since biped walking robots are ultimately developed not only for researches but to be utilized in real life. In the research, systems for environment recognition and tole-operation have been developed for task assignment and execution of biped robot as well as for human robot interaction (HRI) system. For carrying out certain tasks, an object tracking system using modified optical flow algorithm and obstacle recognition system using enhanced template matching and hierarchical support vector machine algorithm by wireless vision camera are implemented with sensor fusion system using other sensors installed in a biped walking robot. Also systems for robot manipulating and communication with user have been developed for robot.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.147-156
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• 2013

In this paper, a new speech endpoint detection method in noisy environments for moving robot platforms is proposed. In the conventional method, the endpoint of speech is obtained by applying an edge detection filter that finds abrupt changes in the feature domain. However, since the feature of the frame energy is unstable in such noisy environments, it is difficult to accurately find the endpoint of speech. Therefore, a novel feature extraction method based on the twice-iterated fast fourier transform (TIFFT) and statistical models of speech is proposed. The proposed feature extraction method was applied to an edge detection filter for effective detection of the endpoint of speech. Representative experiments claim that there was a substantial improvement over the conventional method.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.913-918
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• 2007

Human motion analysis is an important research subject in human-robot interaction (HRI). However, before analyzing the human motion, silhouette of human body should be extracted from sequential images obtained by CCD camera. The intelligent robot system requires more robust silhouette extraction method because it has internal vibration and low resolution. In this paper, we discuss the hybrid silhouette extraction method for detecting and tracking the human motion. The proposed method is to combine and optimize the temporal and spatial gradient information. Also, we propose some compensation methods so as not to miss silhouette information due to poor images. Finally, we have shown the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method through some experiments.