• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.275-284
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• 2006

This paper deals with problems of safe and efficient navigation algorithm for autonomous mobile robots in unknown environments. Since the obstacle avoidance algorithms are very important in mobile robot navigation, two obstacle avoidance algorithms: VFH(vector field histogram) algorithm and a fuzzy algorithm are combined to have optimal performance in various environments. And a upper-level supervisor is to select the proper one from VFH algorithm and the fuzzy algorithm according to the situations the robot faces. Computer simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed navigation algorithm for autonomous mobile robots.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.124-132
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• 2022

With growth in intelligence of mobile robots, interaction with humans is emerging as a very important issue for mobile robots and the pedestrian tracking technique following the designated person is adopted in many cases in a way that interacts with humans. Among the existing multi-object tracking techniques for pedestrian tracking, Simple Online and Realtime Tracking (SORT) is suitable for small mobile robots that require real-time processing while having limited computational performance. However, SORT fails to reflect changes in object detection values caused by the movement of the mobile robot, resulting in poor tracking performance. In order to solve this performance degradation, this paper proposes a more stable pedestrian tracking algorithm by correcting object tracking errors caused by robot movement in real time using wheel odometry information of a mobile robot and dynamically managing the survival period of the tracker that tracks the object. In addition, the experimental results show that the proposed methodology using data collected from actual mobile robots maintains real-time and has improved tracking accuracy with resistance to the movement of the mobile robot.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.6
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• pp.852-862
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• 2013

This paper proposes a target tracking control method for wheeled mobile robots with nonholonomic constraints by using a backstepping-like feedback linearization. For the target tracking, we apply a vision system to mobile robots to obtain the relative posture information between the mobile robot and the target. The robots do not use the sensors to obtain the velocity information in this paper and therefore assumed the unknown velocities of both mobile robot and target. Instead, the proposed method uses only the maximum velocity information of the mobile robot and target. First, the pseudo command for the forward linear velocity and the heading direction angle are designed based on the kinematics by using the obtained image information. Then, the actual control inputs are designed to make the actual forward linear velocity and the heading direction angle follow the pseudo commands. Through simulations and experiments for the mobile robot we have confirmed that the proposed control method is able to track target even when the velocity sensors are not used at all.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.7 no.9
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• pp.766-773
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• 2001

Omni-directional mobile robots have been popularly employed in several application areas. However, the kinematics for these systems have not been clearly identified, specially for redundantly actuated case which is common in omni-directional mobile robot such as the Nomadic model. For such mobile robot systems, exploitation of redundant actuation as well as singularity analysis has not been extensively addressed. In light of this fact, this paper introduces two different kinematic approaches for omni-directional mobile robots. Then, a singular-free load distribution scheme for redundantly actuated three-wheeled omni-directional mobile robot is proposed. Through simulation, several advantages of redundantly actuated mobile robot in aspect of singularity avoidance, minimization of torque norm, and exploiting several subtasks are presented.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.8 no.10
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• pp.881-889
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• 2002

Mobility analysis for various mobile mechanisms including mechanisms with lack of geometric generality is performed. Joint screws are employed to find the sire of feasible joint motion space or each of independent loops of mobile mechanisms. Particularly, the concept of "representative screws" is introduced to represent the feasible motion spaces for subsets of joints belonging to either a loop or a sub-system consisting of several closed loops. Firstly. simplified joint model for each of low different typical wheels popularly employed in mobile robots is described. Then. mobility analysis fir various types of planar mobile robots and the Mars Rover mobile robot for navigation on the rocky road on Mars arc performed. It is confirmed that the obtained results in this study coincide with the previous ones which were obtained by suing imaginary Joints approach(1)pproach(1)

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.293-299
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• 2010

The multiple block localization method in a wide area for multiple robots using iGS is proposed in this paper. The iGS is developed for the indoor global localization using ultrasonic and RF sensors. To measure the distance between a mobile robot and a beacon, the tag on the mobile robot wakes up one beacon to send out the ultrasonic signal and measures the traveling time from the beacon to the mobile robot. As the number of robots is increased, the sampling time of localization also becomes longer. Note that only one robot can localize its own position calling beacons one by one during each of the sampling interval. This is a severe constraint for the localization of multiple robots in a wide area. This paper proposes an efficient localization algorithm for the multiple robots in a wide area which can be divided into multiple blocks. For a given block, a master beacon is designated to synchronize robots. By the access of the synchronization signal, each beacon in the selected group sends out an ultrasonic signal. When the robots in the block receive the ultrasonic signal, they can calculate their own locations based on the distances to the beacons, which are obtained by the multiplication of flight time and velocity of the ultrasonic signal. The efficiency of the algorithm is verified through the real experiments.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.134-141
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• 2003

A major research issue associated with service robots is the creation of an environment recognition system for mobile robot navigation that is robust and efficient on various environment situations. In recent years, intelligent autonomous mobile robots have received much attention as the types of service robots for serving people and industrial robots for replacing human. To help people, robots must be able to sense and recognize three dimensional space where they live or work. In this paper, we propose a three dimensional environmental modeling method based on an edge enhancement technique using a planar fitting method and a neural network technique called "Growing Neural Gas Network." Input data pre-processing provides probabilistic density to the input data of the neural network, and the neural network generates a graphical structure that reflects the topology of the input space. Using these methods, robot's surroundings are autonomously clustered into isolated objects and modeled as polygon patches with the user-selected resolution. Through a series of simulations and experiments, the proposed method is tested to recognize the environments surrounding the robot. From the experimental results, the usefulness and robustness of the proposed method are investigated and discussed in detail.in detail.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.450-462
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• 2004

In this paper, we describe a system for controlling the perceptual processes of two cooperative mobile robots that addresses the issue of enhancing perceptual awareness. We define awareness here as knowing the location of other robots in the environment. The proposed system benefits from a formalism called perceptual anchoring. Here, perceptual anchoring enhances the awareness of the system by employing an anchor-based active gaze control strategy or active perceptual anchoring to control the perceptual effort according to what is important at a given time. By anchoring we extend the notion of awareness as knowing what the symbols in the control module represent to by connecting them to the objects or features in the environment. We demonstrate the present system through a simulation of two nonholonomic mobile robots performing a cooperative transportation by carrying a cargo to a target location where there are two other robots moving about. The system is able to efficiently focus the perceptual effort and thus able to safely carry the cargo to the target position.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.955-963
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• 2012

A mobile tour-guide robot is a very attractive tour-guide in the exhibition hall of science museums and the necessity of tour-guide robots for museums is gradually increasing. Two kinds of robots have served as tour-guide robots in an exhibition hall of the Korea National Science Museum which is a very densely populated museum of many people and exhibits. The robots move around the large exhibition area and provide guide services to lots of visitors. A robot leads the way to the exhibit that a visitor wants to find and it takes the shortest route. Robots were operated for four months from January to April 2011, and we observed behavior of visitors and collected subjective evaluation of users. The result shows that there are four stages of using a mobile tour-guide robot and some differences of subjective evaluations depending on the gender and the age of the user and we suggest several improvements on the mobile tour-guide robot.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Industry Society
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• v.5 no.9
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• pp.993-1004
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• 2004

We propose the method for kinematic and dynamic modeling and Path-tracking of four-wheeled mobile robots with 2 d.o.f having the limited drive-torques. Controllability of wheeled-mobile robots is revealed by using the kinematic model. Instantaneously coincident coordinate system, force/torque propagation and Newton's equilibrium law are used to induce the dynamic model. When drive-torques generated by inverse dynamics exceed the limitation, we make wheeled-mobile robots follow the reference path by modifying the planned reference trajectory with time-scaling. The controller is introduced to compensate for error owing to modeling uncertainty and measurement noise. And simulation results prove that the method proposed by this paper is efficient.