• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.439-446
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• 2014

An amphibious inspection robot system (hereafter AIROS) is being developed to visually inspect the in-containment refueling storage water tank (hereafter IRWST) strainer in APR1400 instead of a human diver. Four IRWST strainers are located in the IRWST, which is filled with boric acid water. Each strainer has 108 sub-assembly strainer fin modules that should be inspected with the VT-3 method according to Reg. guide 1.82 and the operation manual. AIROS has 6 thrusters for submarine voyage and 4 legs for walking on the top of the strainer. An inverse kinematic algorithm was implemented in the robot controller for exact walking on the top of the IRWST strainer. The IRWST strainer has several top cross braces that are extruded on the top of the strainer, which can be obstacles of walking on the strainer, to maintain the frame of the strainer. Therefore, a robot leg should arrive at the position beside the top cross brace. For this reason, we used an image processing technique to find the top cross brace in the sole camera image. The sole camera image is processed to find the existence of the top cross brace using the cross edge detection algorithm in real time. A 5-DOF robot arm that has multiple camera modules for simultaneous inspection of both sides can penetrate narrow gaps. For intuitive presentation of inspection results and for management of inspection data, inspection images are stored in the control PC with camera angles and positions to synthesize and merge the images. The synthesized images are then mapped in a 3D CAD model of the IRWST strainer with the location information. An IRWST strainer mock-up was fabricated to teach the robot arm scanning and gaiting. It is important to arrive at the designated position for inserting the robot arm into all of the gaps. Exact position control without anchor under the water is not easy. Therefore, we designed the multi leg robot for the role of anchoring and positioning. Quadruped robot design of installing sole cameras was a new approach for the exact and stable position control on the IRWST strainer, unlike a traditional robot for underwater facility inspection. The developed robot will be practically used to enhance the efficiency and reliability of the inspection of nuclear power plant components.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.67-85
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• 2018

Vehicle platooning through wireless communication and automated driving technology has become realized. Platooning is a technique in which several vehicles travel at regular intervals while maintaining a minimum safety distance. Truck platooning is of keen interest because it contributes to preventing truck crashes and reducing vehicle emissions, in addition to the increase in truck flow capacity. However, it should be noted that interactions between vehicle platoons and adjacent manually-driven vehicles (MV) significantly give an impact on the performance of traffic flow. In particular, when vehicles entering from on-ramp attempt to merge into the mainstream of freeway, proper interactions by adjusting platoon size and inter-platoon spacing are required to maximize traffic performance. This study developed a methodology for establishing operational strategies for truck platoonings on freeway on-ramp areas. Average speed and conflict rate were used as measure of effectiveness (MOE) to evaluate operational efficiency and safety. Microscopic traffic simulation experiments using VISSIM were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of various platooning scenarios. A decision making process for selecting better platoon operations to satisfy operations and safety requirements was proposed. It was revealed that a platoon operating scenario with 50m inter-platoon spacing and the platoon consisting of 6 vehicles outperformed other scenarios. The proposed methodology would effectively support the realization of novel traffic management concepts in the era of automated driving environments.