• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 2009.01a
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• pp.808-811
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• 2009

Robovie-R2 [1], developed by ATR, is a 110cm high, 60kg weight, two wheel drive, human like robot. It has two arms with dynamic fingers. It also has a position sensitive detector sensor and two cameras as eyes on his head for recognizing his surrounding environment. Recent years, we have carried out a project to integrate new functions into Robovie-R2 so as to make it possible to be used in a dining room in healthcare center for helping serving meal for elderly. As a new function, we have developed software system for adaptive movement control of Robovie-R2 that is primary important since a robot that cannot autonomously control its movement would be a dangerous object to the people in dining room. We used the cameras on Robovie-R2's head to catch environment images, applied our original algorithm for recognizing obstacles such as furniture or people, so as to control Roboie-R2's movement. In this paper, we will focus our algorithm and its results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.81-88
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• 2005

This paper attempts to derive the dynamic model of handling tasks in finger robot which grasps stable and manipulates a rigid object with some dexterity. Firstly, a set of differential equation describing dynamics of the manipulators and object together with geometric constraint of tight area-contacts is formulated by Lagrange's equation. Secondly, the roblems of controlling both the forces of pressing object and the rotation angle of the object under the geometric constraints are discussed. The effect of geometric constraints of area-contacts between the link's end-effector and the object is analyzed and the model based on the differential-algebraic equations is presented. In this paper, the control method for dynamic stable grasping and enhancing dexterity in manipulating things is proposed. It is illustrated by computer simulation and the experiment that the control system gives the performance improvement in the dynamic stable grasping and nimble manipulating of the dual fingers robot with soft tips.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.219-224
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• 2002

This paper aims to derive a mathematical model of the dynamics of handling tasks in robot finger which stable grasping and manipulates a rigid object with some dexterity. Firstly, a set of differential equation describing dynamics of the manipulators and object together with geometric constraint of tight area-contacts is formulated by Lagrange's equation. Secondly, problems of controlling both the internal force and the rotation angle of the grasped object under the constraints of area-contacts of tight area-contacts are discussed. The effect of geometric constraints of area-contacts on motion of the overall system is analyzed and a method of computer simulation for overall system of differential-algebraic equations is presented. Thirdly, simulation results are shown and the effects of geometric constraints of area-contact is discussed. Finally, it is shown that even in the simplest case of dual single D.O.F manipulators there exists a sensory feedback from sensing data of the rotational angle of the object to command inputs to joint actuators and this feedback connection from sensing to action eventually realizes secure grasping of the object, provided that the object is of rectangular shape and motion is confined to a horizontal plane.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.102-109
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• 2010

In this study, an anthropomorphic robot Hand, called "SKKU Hand III" is presented. The hand has thirteen DOF(Degree-Of-Freedom) and is designed based on the skeletal structure of the human hand. Each finger module(except thumb module) has three DOF and four joints with a saddle joint mechanism which has two DOF at the base joint. Two distal joints of the finger module are mechanically coupled by a timing belt and pulleys. The thumb module is composed of a finger module and an additional actuator, which makes it possible to realize the opposition between the thumb and the other fingers. In addition, the palm DOF of the human hand is mimicked with a spatial link mechanism between the index finger and the thumb. Thus, it can grasp objects more stably and more strongly. For the modularization of the robotic hand all the driving circuits are embedded in the hand, and only the communication lines supporting CAN protocol with DC power cable are given as an interface. Therefore, it is possible to apply it to any robot system the interface. To validate the feasibility of the SKKU Hand III, a series of the representative grasp experiments such as power, precision, intermediate grasp etc. are carried out with the object around us and its operation is demonstrated.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1814-1819
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• 2005

This paper describes the development of a Stewart platform-based robot force sensor with distinctive structure of ball joints. The number of ball joints is only a half of the similar style sensors, so it is possible to reduce size and weight of the sensor. The structure of ball joint is described and discussed. Furthermore, we use strain gauges, but not liner voltage differential transformers, as sensing elements, in order to reduce size and weight of the sensor. It is also proposed that beams are replaced with pipes as sensing elements of the sensor. The ball joints and sensing elements with pipes can effectively reduce the error of the sensor. A geometric analysis model is also proposed. The external force and its moment can be measured with this model. Moreover, the performance of this sensor was tested. The test results conducted to evaluate the sensing capability of the sensor is reported and discussed.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.16
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• pp.71-81
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• 1996

This paper discusses a physiological approach motivated by the study of human hands for robot hand force control. It begins with an analysis of the human's grasping behavior to see how humans determine the grasp forces. The human controls the grasp force by sensing the friction force, that is, the weight of the object which is felt on his hand, but when slip is detected by sensing skin acceleration, the grasp force becomes much greater than the minimum force required for grasping by adding the force which is proportional to the acceleration. And two methods that can predict when and how fingers will slip upon a grasped object are considered. To emulate the human's capabilities, we propose a method for determination of as grasp force, which uses the change in the friction force. Experimental results show that the proposed method can be applied to control of robot hands to grasp objects of arbitrary weight stably without skin-like slip sensors.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.334-336
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• 2007

This paper presents a beat gesture recognition method to synchronize the tempo of a robot playing a piano with the desired tempo of the user. To detect an unstructured beat gesture expressed by any part of a body, we apply an optical flow method, and obtain the trajectories of the center of gravity and normalized central moments of moving objects in images. The period of a beat gesture is estimated from the results of the fast Fourier transform. In addition, we also apply a motion control method by which robotic fingers are trained to follow a set of trajectories, Since the ability to track the trajectories influences the sound a piano generates, we adopt an iterative learning control method to reduce the tracking error.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2008

In this paper, we present a grasp planning method using grasp taxonomy and object primitives. Our grasp taxonomy includes newly defined grasp methods such as thumb supported pinch and palm supported pinch, to enhance grasp robustness. On the target surface, locations of finger-print that will be contacted by the robot fingers are sampled. The sampling is made to be consistent to the grasp taxonomy, called preformed grasps, matched to the target object. We perform simulations to examine the validity and the efficacy of the proposed grasp planning method.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.487-495
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• 2012

In this paper, a Smart Home Service Robot, McBot II, which performs mess-cleanup function etc. in house, is designed much more optimally than other service robots. It is newly developed in much more practical system than McBot I which we had developed two years ago. One characteristic attribute of mobile platforms equipped with a set of dependent wheels is their omni- directionality and the ability to realize complex translational and rotational trajectories for agile navigation in door. An accurate coordination of steering angle and spinning rate of each wheel is necessary for a consistent motion. This paper develops trajectory controller of 3-wheels omni-directional mobile robot using fuzzy azimuth estimator. A specialized anthropomorphic robot manipulator which can be attached to the housemaid robot McBot II, is developed in this paper. This built-in type manipulator consists of both arms with 4 DOF (Degree of Freedom) each and both hands with 3 DOF each. The robotic arm is optimally designed to satisfy both the minimum mechanical size and the maximum workspace. Minimum mass and length are required for the built-in cooperated-arms system. But that makes the workspace so small. This paper proposes optimal design method to overcome the problem by using neck joint to move the arms horizontally forward/backward and waist joint to move them vertically up/down. The robotic hand, which has two fingers and a thumb, is also optimally designed in task-based concept. Finally, the good performance of the developed McBot II is confirmed through live tests of the mess-cleanup task.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.1741-1747
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• 2010

This work presents a study on the design of an economic service robot hand for tele-presence manipulators. The conceptual design of new robot hand is derived from biomimetics approach. Guided by the analysis of human arm' musculoskeletal structure, the fingers are actuated by cables and actuators in the forearm. High tension in the cables is achieved by screw-nut mechanism driven by DC motors. A set of combination springs is incorporated in each of the screw-nut mechanism for easy control of gripping force. The first prototype revealed difficulties with finger control and coupling problem between gripping force and wrist movement. The solutions to these problems have been derived from the contradiction analysis of TRIZ. The second design has been verified by tests on various objects with different weight and shape for full range of wrist motion.