• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.37.6-37
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• 2002

Omnidirectional mobile robots are capable of arbitrary motion in an arbitrary direction without changing the direction of wheels, because they can perform 3 degree-of-freedom (DOF) motion on a 2-dimensional plane. In this research, a new class of an omnidirectional mobile robot is proposed. Since it has synchronously steerable omnidirectional wheels, it is called an omnidirectional mobile robot with steerable omnidirectional wheels (OMR-SOW). It has 3 DOFs in motion and one DOF in steering. One steering DOF can function as a continuously variable transmission (CVT). CVT of the OMR-SOW increases the range of velocity ratio from the wheel velocities to robot velocity, which may improve...

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.696-703
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• 2005

Since most autonomous mobile robots are powered by a battery, it is important to increase the continuous operating time without recharging. This can be achieved by improving the energy efficiency of a mobile robot, but little research on energy efficiency has been performed. This paper proposes two methods for improving the energy efficiency of an omnidirectional mobile robot.. One method is to realize a continuously variable transmission (CVT) by adopting the mechanism of steerable omnidirectional wheels. The other is the proposed steering algorithm in which wheel arrangement of the mobile robot is continuously adjusted so as to obtain the maximum energy efficiency of the motors during navigation. In addition, new omnidirectional wheels which can be transformed to the conventional wheels depending on the driving conditions are proposed to compensate for less efficient omnidirectional drive mode. Various tests show that motion control of the OMR-SOW works satisfactorily and the proposed steering algorithm for CVT can provide higher energy efficiency than the algorithm using a fixed steering angle. In addition, it is shown that the differential drive mode can give better energy efficiency than the omnidirectional drive mode.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.70-77
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• 2014

This paper proposes a novel localization algorithm based on ego-motion which used Lucas-Kanade Optical Flow and warping image obtained through fish-eye lenses mounted on the robots. The omnidirectional image sensor is a desirable sensor for real-time view-based recognition of a robot because the all information around the robot can be obtained simultaneously. The preprocessing (distortion correction, image merge, etc.) of the omnidirectional image which obtained by camera using reflect in mirror or by connection of multiple camera images is essential because it is difficult to obtain information from the original image. The core of the proposed algorithm may be summarized as follows: First, we capture instantaneous $360^{\circ}$ panoramic images around a robot through fish-eye lenses which are mounted in the bottom direction. Second, we extract motion vectors using Lucas-Kanade Optical Flow in preprocessed image. Third, we estimate the robot position and angle using ego-motion method which used direction of vector and vanishing point obtained by RANSAC. We confirmed the reliability of localization algorithm using ego-motion based on fisheye warping image through comparison between results (position and angle) of the experiment obtained using the proposed algorithm and results of the experiment measured from Global Vision Localization System.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.40-44
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• 2013

The ball-shaped mobile robot, so called ballbot has single point contact on ground and low energy consumption in motion because of the reduced friction. In this paper, a new ballbot is presented, which has omnidirectional mobile platform inside of it as a driving system. Thus the ballbat has omnidirectional mobility without nonholonomic constraints. Kinematics and inverse kinematics of the ballbat is derived also in this paper.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2006

The omnidirectional mobility of a mobile robot may lose significance in motion control, unless the isotropy characteristics of the mechanism is maintained well. This paper investigates the local and global isotropy of an omnidirectional mobile robot with three caster wheels. All possible actuations with different number and combination of rotating and steering joints are considered. First, the kinematic model based on velocity decomposition and the algebraic conditions for the local isotropy are obtained. Second, the geometric conditions for the local isotropy are derived and all isotropic configurations are fully identified. Third, the global isotropy index is examined to determine the optimal parameters in terms of actuation set, characteristic length, and steering link length.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.35-44
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• 2007

Since the omnidirectional camera system with a very large field of view could take many information about environment scene from few images, various researches for calibration and 3D reconstruction using omnidirectional image have been presented actively. Most of line segments of man-made objects we projected to the contours by using the omnidirectional camera model. Therefore, the corresponding contours among images sequences would be useful for computing the camera transformations including rotation and translation. This paper presents a novel two step minimization method to estimate the extrinsic parameters of the camera from the corresponding contours. In the first step, coarse camera parameters are estimated by minimizing an angular error function between epipolar planes and back-projected vectors from each corresponding point. Then we can compute the final parameters minimizing a distance error of the projected contours and the actual contours. Simulation results on the synthetic and real images demonstrated that our algorithm can achieve precise contour matching and camera motion estimation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.65-73
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• 2001

In this paper, a mobile system using multi-wheel steering and driving mechanism is proposed to maximize maneuverability of the wheeled mobile system. Among various possible configurations, the two-wheel steering and driving systems, which is minimal in structural requirement, is proposed to reduce the complexity in actual design and difficulties in control. The system possesses three or four degrees of freedom depending on the orientations of two wheels, one or two for driving and two for steering, which implies that the system's mobility is always less than three DOF. The proposed system, nonetheless, can exactly emulate characteristics of the omnidirectional motion as long as the planned path is smooth i.e., the curvature changes continuously while velocity is not zero. Efficient kinematic and dynamic control algorithms are proposed for position and orientation control of the proposed wheeled mobile system.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.913-923
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• 2014

This paper proposes a global mapping algorithm for multiple robots from an omnidirectional-vision simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approach based on an object extraction method using Lucas-Kanade optical flow motion detection and images obtained through fisheye lenses mounted on robots. The multi-robot mapping algorithm draws a global map by using map data obtained from all of the individual robots. Global mapping takes a long time to process because it exchanges map data from individual robots while searching all areas. An omnidirectional image sensor has many advantages for object detection and mapping because it can measure all information around a robot simultaneously. The process calculations of the correction algorithm are improved over existing methods by correcting only the object's feature points. The proposed algorithm has two steps: first, a local map is created based on an omnidirectional-vision SLAM approach for individual robots. Second, a global map is generated by merging individual maps from multiple robots. The reliability of the proposed mapping algorithm is verified through a comparison of maps based on the proposed algorithm and real maps.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2356-2361
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• 2005

In this paper, we present a complete isotropy analysis of a caster wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot(COMR) with nonredundant/redundant actuation. The motivation of this work is that the omnidirectional mobility loses significance in motion control unless the isotropy characteristics is maintained well. First, with the characteristic length introduced, the kinematic model of a COMR is obtained based on the orthogonal decomposition of the wheel velocities. Second, a general form of the isotropy conditions of a COMR is given in terms of physically meaningful vector quantities which describe the wheel configurations. Third, for all possible nonredundant and redundant actuation sets, the algebraic expressions of the isotropy conditions are derived to completely identify the isotropic configurations of a COMR. Fourth, the number of the isotropic configurations and the characteristic length required for the isotropy are discussed.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2066-2071
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• 2003

In this paper, we identify the isotropic configurations of an omnidirectional mobile robot with three caster wheels, depending on the selection of actuated joints. First, We obtain the kinematic model of a caster wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot(COMR) without matrix inversion. For a given task velocity, the instantaneous motion of each wheel is decomposed into two orthogonal instantaneous motions of the steering and the rotating joints. Second, with the characteristic length introduced, we derive the isotropy conditions of a COMR having $n({\ge}3)$ actuated joints, which are imposed on two Jacobian matrices, $A{\in}R^{n{\times}3}$ and $B{\in}R^{6{\times}6}$. Under the condition of $B{\propto}I_6$, three caster wheels should have identical structure with the length of the steering link equal to the radius of the wheel. Third, depending on the selection of actuated joints, we derive the conditions for $A^t$ $A{\propto}I_3$ and identify the isotropic configurations of a COMR. All possible actuation sets with different number of actuated joints and different combination of rotating and steering joins are considered.