• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.259-270
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• 2022

This study explores the use of the recently developed "strain-sensing smart skin" (S⁴) method for noncontact strain measurements on cement-based samples. S⁴ sensors are single-wall carbon nanotubes dilutely embedded in thin polymer films. Strains transmitted to the nanotubes cause systematic shifts in their near-infrared fluorescence spectra, which are analyzed to deduce local strain values. It is found that with cement-based materials, this method is hampered by spectral interference from structured near-infrared cement luminescence. However, application of an opaque blocking layer between the specimen surface and the nanotube sensing film enables interference-free strain measurements. Tests were performed on cement, mortar, and concrete specimens with such modified S⁴ coatings. When specimens were subjected to uniaxial compressive stress, the spectral peak separations varied linearly and predictably with induced strain. These results demonstrate that S⁴ is a promising emerging technology for measuring strains down to ca. 30 𝜇𝜀 in concrete structures.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.115-119
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• 2022

A readout circuit for a mercury-cadmium-telluride (MCT)-amplified mid-wave infrared (IR) photodetector was realized and applied to noncontact chemical agent detectors based on a quantum cascade laser (QCL). The QCL emitted 250 times for each wavelength in 0.2-㎛ steps from 8 to 12 ㎛ with a frequency of 100 kHz and duty ratio of 10%. Because of the nonconstant QCL emission power during on-duty, averaging the photodetector signals is essential. Averaging can be performed in digital back-end processing through a high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) or in analog front-end processing through an integrator circuit. In addition, it should be considered that the 250 IR data points should be completely transferred to a PC during each wavelength tuning period of the QCL. To average and minimize the IR data, we designed a readout circuit using the analog front-end processing method. The proposed readout circuit consisted of a switched-capacitor integrator, voltage level shifter, relatively low-speed analog-to-digital converter, and micro-control unit. We confirmed that the MCT photodetector signal according to the QCL source can be accurately read and transferred to the PC without omissions.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.203-208
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• 2024

Every year, approximately 350 million tons of plastic waste are generated worldwide. This waste, can degrade into microplastics, owing to factors such as temperature changes and UV exposure. These smaller plastic particles are increasingly entering the food chain through marine life, thereby raising concerns about their impact on human health. Consequently, there is an increasing need to measure microplastics. Common methods involve direct collection by using a manta trawl equipped with a 330 ㎛ mesh net or performing spectroscopic and thermal analyses on collected samples. However, these methods require complex pre-processing, which risk sample destruction. In this study, we developed a system to directly sample microplastics in aquatic environments by using laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Through an analysis of the fluorescence spectra as well as, the with gradient and integration at specific points, we successfully distinguished microplastics of 100, 200, 300, and 500 ㎛ in size, and we also differentiated between polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS) types.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.3A
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• pp.297-307
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• 2010

Recently, maintenance engineering and technology for civil and building structures have begun to draw big attention and actually the number of structures that need to be evaluate on structural safety due to deterioration and performance degradation of structures are rapidly increasing. When stiffness is decreased because of deterioration of structures and member cracks, dynamic characteristics of structures would be changed. And it is important that the damaged areas and extent of the damage are correctly evaluated by analyzing dynamic characteristics from the actual behavior of a structure. In general, typical measurement instruments used for structure monitoring are dynamic instruments. Existing dynamic instruments are not easy to obtain reliable data when the cable connecting measurement sensors and device is long, and have uneconomical for 1 to 1 connection process between each sensor and instrument. Therefore, a method without attaching sensors to measure vibration at a long range is required. The representative applicable non-contact methods to measure the vibration of structures are laser doppler effect, a method using GPS, and image processing technique. The method using laser doppler effect shows relatively high accuracy but uneconomical while the method using GPS requires expensive equipment, and has its signal's own error and limited speed of sampling rate. But the method using image signal is simple and economical, and is proper to get vibration of inaccessible structures and dynamic characteristics. Image signals of camera instead of sensors had been recently used by many researchers. But the existing method, which records a point of a target attached on a structure and then measures vibration using image processing technique, could have relatively the limited objects of measurement. Therefore, this study conducted shaking table test and field load test to verify the validity of the method that can measure multi-point displacement responses of structures using image processing technique.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.56 no.12
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• pp.919-928
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• 2023

Rainfall characteristics in Korea are concentrated during the summer flood season. In particular, when a large amount of turbid water flows into the dam due to the increasing trend of concentrated rainfall due to abnormal rainfall and abnormal weather conditions, prolonged turbid water phenomenon occurs due to the overturning phenomenon. Much research is being conducted on turbid water prediction to solve these problems. To predict turbid water, turbid water data from the upstream inflow is required, but spatial and temporal data resolution is currently insufficient. To improve temporal resolution, the development of the Turbidity-SS conversion equation is necessary, and to improve spatial resolution, multi-item water quality measurement instrument (YSI), Laser In-Situ Scattering and Transmissometry (LISST), and hyperspectral sensors are needed. Sensor-based measurement can improve the spatial resolution of turbid water by measuring line and surface unit data. In addition, in the case of LISST-200X, it is possible to collect data on particle size, etc., so it can be used in the Turbidity-SS conversion equation for fraction (Clay: Silt: Sand). In addition, among recent remote sensing methods, the spatial distribution of turbid water can be presented when using UAVs with higher spatial and temporal resolutions than other payloads and hyperspectral sensors with high spectral and radiometric resolutions. Therefore, in this study, the Turbidity-SS conversion equation was calculated according to the fraction through laboratory analysis using LISST-200X and YSI-EXO, and sensor-based field measurements including UAV (Matrice 600) and hyperspectral sensor (microHSI 410 SHARK) were used. Through this, the spatial distribution of turbidity and suspended sediment concentration, and the turbidity calculated using the Turbidity-SS conversion equation based on the measured suspended sediment concentration, was presented. Through this, we attempted to review the applicability of the Turbidity-SS conversion equation and understand the current status of turbid water occurrence.

• 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.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.163-170
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• 2000

Optical frequency modulated fiber optic interferometric sensor was developed to sense the mechanical quantities, such as displacement, strain, force etc. It has been difficult to distinguish whether the increase of the mechanical quantities or the decrease of the quantities measured by the conventional fiber optic interferometric sensors because their signals only have a sinusoidal wave pattern related to the change of mechanical quantities. In this study, in order to measure the mechanical quantifies with the distinction of the changing direction of the quantities, the fiber of optic Michelson interferometric sensor was simply constructed by the laser light modulated with saw tooth wave pattern. The output signal of the sensor was controlled as the sinusoidal wave. The signal processing was based on the counting of the wave number of the output signal during constant time duration. The strain was determined by the cumulative value of the wave number producted by the gage factor. In order to verify the strain measurement capability of this sensor, the strain increase-decrease test was performed by universal testing machine installed with the aluminum specimen bonded with the fiber optic sensor and electrical strain gage. In the result of the test, the strain from the fiber optic sensor had a good agreement with the values from the electrical strain gage.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2018

AGVS (Automated Guided Vehicle System) is a core technology of logistics automation which automatically moves specific objects or goods within a certain work space. Conventional AGVS generally requires the in-door localization system and each AGV equips expensive sensors such as laser, magnetic, inertial sensors for the route recognition and automatic navigation. thus the high installation cost is inevitable and there are many restrictions on route(path) modification or expansion. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a cost-effective and scalable AGV based on a light-weight pattern recognition technique. The proposed pattern recognition technology not only enables autonomous driving by recognizing the route(path), but also provides a technique for figuring out the loc ation of AGV itself by recognizing the simple patterns(bar-code like) installed on the route. This significantly reduces the cost of implementing AGVS as well as benefiting from route modification and expansion. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique, we first implement a pattern recognition algorithm on a light-weight MCU(Micro Control Unit), and then verify the results by implementing an MCU_controlled AGV prototype.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.381-387
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• 2012

The planetary exploration rover executes various missions after moving to the target point in an unknown environment in the shortest distance. Such missions include the researches for geological and climatic conditions as well as the existence of water or living creatures. If there is any obstacle on the way, it is detected by such sensors as ultrasonic sensor, infrared light sensor, stereo vision, and laser ranger finder. After the obtained data is transferred to the main controller of the rover, decisions can be made to either overcome or avoid the obstacle on the way based on the operating algorithm of the rover. All the planetary exploration rovers which have been developed until now receive the information of the height or width of the obstacle from such sensors before analyzing it in order to find out whether it is possible to overcome the obstacle or not. If it is decided to be better to overcome the obstacle in terms of the operating safety and the electric consumption of the rover, it is generally made to overcome it. Therefore, for the purpose of carrying out the planetary exploration task, it is necessary to design the proper suspension system of the rover which enables it to safely overcome any obstacle on the way on the surface in any unknown environment. This study focuses on the design of the new double 4-bar linkage type of suspension system applied to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute rover (a tentatively name) that is currently in the process of development by our institute in order to develop the planetary exploration rover which absolutely requires the capacity of overcoming any obstacle. Throughout this study, the negative moment which harms the capacity of the rover for overcoming an obstacle was induced through the dynamical modeling process for the rocker-bogie applied to the Mars exploration rover of the US and the improved version of rocker-bogie as well as the suggested double 4-bar linkage type of suspension system. Also, based on the height of the obstacle, a simulation was carried out for the negative moment of the suspension system before the excellence of the suspension system suggested through the comparison of responding characteristics was proved.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.263-273
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• 2008

The precision of sensors' position is particularly important in the application of road extraction or digital map generation. In general, the various ranging solution systems such as GPS, Total Station, and Laser Ranger have been employed for the position of the sensor. Basically, the ranging solution system has problems that the signal may be blocked or degraded by various environmental circumstances and has low temporal resolution. To overcome those limitations a IMU/range integrated system could be introduced. In this paper, after pointing out the limitation of extended Kalman filter which has been used for workhorse in navigation and geodetic community, the two sampling based nonlinear filters which are sigma point Kalman filter using nonlinear transformation and carefully chosen sigma points and particle filter using the non-gaussian assumption are implemented and compared with extended Kalman filter in a simulation test. For the ranging solution system, the GPS and Total station was selected and the three levels of IMUs(IMU400C, HG1700, LN100) are chosen for the simulation. For all ranging solution system and IMUs the sampling based nonlinear filter yield improved position result and it is more noticeable that the superiority of nonlinear filter in low temporal resolution such as 5 sec. Therefore, it is recommended to apply non-linear filter to determine the sensor's position with low degree position sensors.