• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.130-141
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• 2011

The intelligent excavating system(IES), the development in South Korea of which has been underway since 2006, aims for the full-scale automation of the excavation process that includes a series of tasks such as movement, excavation and loading. The core elements to ensure the quality and safety of the automated excavation equipment include 3D modeling of terrain that surrounds the excavating robot and the technology for detecting objects accurately(i.e., for detecting the location of nearby loading trucks and humans as well as of obstacles positioned on the movement paths). Therefore the purpose of this research is to ensure the quality and safety of automated excavation detecting the objects surrounding the excavating robot via a 3D laser scanning system. In this paper, an algorithm for estimating the location, height, width, and shape of objects in the 3D-realized terrain that surrounds the location of the excavator was proposed. The performance of the algorithm was verified via tests in an actual earthwork field.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.2551-2562
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• 2013

Since 2006, an Intelligent Excavation Robot which automatically performs the earth-work without operator has been developed in Korea. The technologies for automatically recognizing the terrain of work environment and detecting the objects such as obstacles or dump trucks are essential for its work quality and safety. In several countries, terrestrial 3D laser scanner and stereo vision camera have been used to model the local area around workspace of the automated construction equipment. However, these attempts have some problems that require high cost to make the sensor system or long processing time to eliminate the noise from 3D model outcome. The objectives of this study are to analyze the advantages of the existing 3D modeling sensors and to examine the applicability for practical use by using Analytic Hierarchical Process(AHP). In this study, 3D modeling quality and accuracy of modeling sensors were tested at the real earth-work environment.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.136-145
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• 2009

The objective of the Intelligent Excavation System (IES) is to recognize the work environment and produce work plan and automatically control the excavator through integrating sensor and robot technologies. This paper discusses one of the core technologies of IES development project, development of 3D work environment modeling. 3D laser scanner is used for 3-dimensional mathematical model that can be visualized in virtual space in 3D. This paper describes (1) how the most appropriate 3D imaging system has been chosen; (2) the development of user interface and customization of the s/w to control the scanner for IES project; (3) the development of the mobile station for the scanner; (4) and the algorithm for the automatic registration of laser scan segments for IES project. The development system has been tested on the construction field and lessons learned and future development requirements are suggested.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.347-352
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• 2007

Recently, automated construction machines have been developed for technically solving construction industry problems such as labor, productivity, quality and the profit decrease. In domestic construction industry, a research for developing an intelligent excavation robot has been performed. The primary objective of this research is to analysis state-of-the art technologies in order to recognize local ground shape in real-time and compute soil volume of earth moving. This research analyzed five elemental technologies for 3D modeling of local ground shape and selected an optimal technology among the five technologies through using AHP method. It is anticipated that the optimal technology selected for 3D modeling of local ground shape can be effectively used to develop the intelligent excavation robot.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.363-375
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• 2013

Today, a shortage of the skilled operator has been intensified gradually and the necessity of an earthwork in extreme environment operators are difficult to access is increasing for the purpose of resource development and new living space creation. For this reason, an effort to develop an unmanned excavation robot for fully automated earthwork system is continuing globally. In Korea, a research consortium called 'Intelligent Excavation System' has been formed since 2006 as a part of Construction Technology Innovation Program of Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs of Korea. Among detailed technologies of the Task Planning System is one of the core technologies of IES, this paper explains research and development process of the Local Area Design Module, which provides informatization unit to create automated excavators' work command information at operation level such as location, range, target, and sequence for excavation work. Designing of Local Area should be considered various influential factors such as excavator's specification, working mechanism, heuristics, and structural stability to create work plan guaranteed safety and effectiveness. For this research, conceptual and detail design of the Local Area is performed for analyzing design element and variable, and quantization method of design specification corresponding with heuristics and structural safety is generated. Finally, module is developed through constructed algorithm and developed module is verified.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.298-311
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• 2015

Nowadays, automatic digging operation of an excavator is a big challenge due to the complexity of digging environment, the hardness of soil and buried obstacles into the ground. In order to achieve the maximum soil bucket volume, this paper introduces a novel engineering model that was developed as a virtual excavator in the design phase. Through this model, the designs of mechanical and control systems for autonomous excavator are executed and modified easily before developing in real testbed. Based on a concept of an autonomous excavation, a mechanical system of excavator was first designed in SOLIDWORKS, and a soil model also was modeled by finite-element analysis in ANSYS, both modeled models were then exported to ADAMS environment to investigate the digging behavior through virtual simulation. An intelligent control strategy was generated in MATLAB/Simulink to control the excavator operation. The simulation results were demonstrated by effectiveness of the proposed excavator robot in testing scenarios with many soil types and obstacles.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.552-557
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• 2004

This paper presents a disturbance observer based on an $H_{\infty}$ controller synthesis for the trajectory control of a hydraulic excavator. Compared to conventional robot manipulators driven by electrical motors, the hydraulic excavator has more nonlinear and coupled dynamics. In particular, the interactions between an excavation tool and the materials being excavated are unstructured and complex. In addition, its operating modes depend on working conditions, which make it difficult to not only derive the exact mathematical model but also design a controller systematically. In this study, the approximated linear model obtained through off-line system identification is used as nominal plant model for a disturbance observer. A disturbance observer based tracking controller which considers the effect of disturbance and model uncertainty is synthesized in $H_{\infty}$ frameworks. Simulation results are used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed control scheme.