• 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.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.1082-1091
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• 2007

In this paper, we developed a new hybrid mobile robot which can climb stairs and go over thresholds by crawl gait with embedded real-time control software. This robot is also categorized into hybrid robot that has advantages of wheeled mobile robot and legged mobile robot, but adopts gait feature of crocodile named belly crawl. We imitated the belly crawl using four legs of 2 DOF, four omni-directional wheels, and embedded control software which controls legs and wheels. This software is developed using RTAI/Linux, real-time drivers. As a result, the new hybrid mobile robot has crawl gait. Using this feature, the new hybrid mobile robot can climb stairs and go over thresholds just by path planning of each leg with size of stairs and thresholds, and computing the movement distance of robot body center without considering stability. The performance of our new hybrid mobile robot is verified via experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.169-175
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• 2016

There are many researches to develop robots that improve its mobility and task planning to adapt in various uneven environments. In this paper, we propose the design method and task planning of quadruped robot which can have top-bottom docking structure. The proposed quadruped robot is designed to adjust leg length using linear actuators and perform top-bottom docking and undocking using octagonal cone shaped docking module. Also, to stable walking and information gathering in the various environments, a geomagnetic sensor, PSD sensor, LRF sensor and camera. We propose an obstacle avoidance method and the topbottom docking algorithm of the two quadruped robots using linear actuator. The robot can overcome obstacles using adjusting leg length and activate the top-bottom docking function. The top-bottom docking robots of two quadruped robot can walk 4 legged walking and 6 legged walking, and use 4 arms or 2 arms the upper. We verified that the docking robots can carry objects using 4 leg of the upper robot.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2019

This work shows how to design a robot structure and to control to overcome obstacles while traveling through ducts of various diameters and shapes by three-legged robot. Circuits are centered in the body to connect the three wheel bodies that are driven around the center body with the 4-section slider link structure. Also, the springs are used to contract and expand the robot legs so that it can be caparable of various environments. Geared motor, spring, and belt were selected based on the static and dynamic calculation to be suitable to horizontal and vertical travels. The center body is equipped with a camera and the distance sensors, and a control algorithms are implemented so that it can be successfully performed in L-type and T-type ducts. Using UWB modules and trilateration algorithm, the location of the duct-cleaning robot inside the duct could be identified successfully.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.585-593
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• 2004

Fault-tolerant gait planning in legged locomotion is to design gaits with which legged robots can maintain static stability and motion continuity against a failure in a leg. For planning a robust and deadlock-free fault-tolerant gait, kinematic constraints caused by a failed leg should be closely examined with respect to remaining mobility of the leg. In this paper, based on the authors's previous results, deadlock avoidance scheme for fault-tolerant gait planning is proposed for a hexapod robot walking over even terrain. The considered fault is a locked joint failure, which prevents a joint of a leg from moving and makes it locked in a known position. It is shown that for guaranteeing the existence of the previously proposed fault-tolerant tripod gait of a hexapod robot, the configuration of the failed leg must be within a range of kinematic constraints. Then, for coping with failure situations where the existence condition is not satisfied, the previous fault-tolerant tripod gait is improved by including the adjustment of the foot trajectory. The foot trajectory adjustment procedure is analytically derived to show that it can help the fault-tolerant gait avoid deadlock resulting from the kinematic constraint and does not make any harmful effect on gait mobility. The post-failure walking problem of a hexapod robot with the normal tripod gait is addressed as a case study to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.47-54
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• 2012

In this study, numerical simulations were performed to evaluate the current loads acting on the multi-legged underwater robot "Crabster" with a variety of incident angles using the ANSYS-CFX package. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved to simulate the fluid flow around Crabster to calculate the forces and moments induced by incoming currents with various angles. First, to assess the posture stability of the body, the forces and moments were calculated with various incident angles when the current acted in the vertical and horizontal directions. Next, two forms of legs (box and foil types) were evaluated to determine the hydrodynamic force variation. Finally, the current forces and moments acting on the Crabster body with the legs attached were estimated.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.622-628
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• 2009

A proper walking pattern is to be assigned for a walk of multi-legged robots. For the purpose of identifying a good walking pattern for multi-legged robots, this paper consider a simple model of quadruped robotic walking and analyze its walking balance based on the centroid of foot polygons formed in every step. A performance index to estimate the walking balance is also proposed. Simulation studies show that the centroid trajectory of foot polygons and the walking balance in a common quadruped walking are different according to the walking pattern employed. Based on the walking balance index and a bio-mimetic aspect, a useful walking pattern for quadruped robots is finally addressed.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.345-346
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• 2007

This paper deals with design of a cube-style modular robot. The modular robot can change its own form according to the working environment. Therefore it is suitable to work in the search and rescue area with the shape of snake, legged robot and humanoid robot. Each of modular unit has to install its own controller on the body and driving mechanism in order to give it mobility autonomously. And also they should attach and detach each other with docking mechanism and algorithm. Using this mechanism, they can make union, separation, recombination. The other important point is that some information of each cell should be exchanged to reconfigure their shape and to make some docking of the modular cell. In this paper we suggested a design concept of our modular robot focused on the docking mechanism of the robot.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.227-234
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• 2011

The Interest in robotics has been steadily increasing in recent times both in Korea as well as abroad. Research on robots for new and diverse fields is ongoing. This study discusses the current research and development on robot actuator, which are used to control the joints of robots, and focuses on developing more efficient technology for joint control, as compared with the current technologies. It also aims to find means to apply the abovementioned technology to diverse industrial fields. We found that easy and effective control of actuators could be achieved by using ZigBee sensor networks, which were widely being used on wireless communications. Throughout the experiments it is proved that the developed wireless actuator could be used for easy control of various robot joints. This technology can be effectively applied to develop two-legged robots that will be able to walk like human, or even quadruped and hexapod robots. It can also be applied to motors used in industry. In this study, we develop an extremely minimized ZigBee sensor network module that can be used to control various servo motors with low power consumption even if it is long distances. We realized effective wireless control by optimizing the ZigBee antenna, and were able to quickly check the status of relevant Tree node through mutual communication between the servo motors composing the ZigBee sensor network and the main server control modules. The developed Servo Motor with ZigBee sensor network modules can be applied in both robotics as well as for home or factory automation.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.183-190
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• 2007

The most important thing for navigation of a mobile robot is to find the most suitable path and avoid the obstacles in the static and dynamic environment. This paper presents a method to search the optimal path in start space extended to time domain with considering a velocity and a direction of moving obstacles. A modified version of $A^*$ algorithm has been applied for path planning in this work and proposed a method of path search to avoid a collision with moving obstacle in space-tim domain with a velocity and an orientation of obstacles. The velocity and the direction for moving obstacle are assumed as linear form. The simulation result shows that a mobile robot navigates safely among moving obstacles of constant linear velocity. This work can be applied for not only a moving robot but also a legged humanoid robot and all fields where the path planning is required.