• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.337-343
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• 1996

In this paper, we investigate the defect detection by making use of pre-made reference image data and classify the defects by using the artificial neural network. The approach is composed of three main parts. The first step consists of a proper generation of two reference image data by using a low level morphological technique. The second step proceeds by performing three times logical bit operations between two ready-made reference images and just captured image to be tested. This results in defects image only. In the third step, by extracting four features from each detected defect, followed by assigning them into the input nodes of an already trained artificial neural network we can obtain a defect class corresponding to the features. All of the image data are formed in a bit level for the reduction of data size as well as time saving. Experimental results show that proposed algorithms are found to be effective for flexible defect detection, robust classification, and high speed process by adopting a simple logic operation.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.124-130
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• 2020

This paper designed modular agricultural robotic platform capable of a variety of agricultural tasks to address the problems caused by a decline in agricultural populations and an increase in average age. We propose a modular robotic platform that can perform many tasks required in field farming by replacing only work modules with common robotic platforms. This platform is capable of steering while driving on four wheels in an upland environment where farm work is performed, and an attitude control module is attached to each drive module to control the attitude of the platform. In addition, the width of the platform is designed to be variable in order to operate in various ridges according to the crop cultivation method. Finally, we evaluated five items: variable width, gradient, attitude control angle, step and road speed in order to carry out the farming industry while maintaining a stable posture.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method. Information such as identification, logistics history, and specification of products are written and stored into the memory of RFID tags (that is, transponders), and retrieved through RF communication between RFID reader device and RFID tags. RFID systems have been applied to many fields of transportation, industry, logistics, environment, etc in order to improve business efficiency and reduce maintenance cost as well. Recently, some research results are announced in which RFID devices are combined with other sensors for mobile robot localization. In this paper, design of multi-protocol baseband for RFID reader device is proposed, and the baseband modem is implemented into SoC (System On a Chip). The baseband modem SoC for multi-protocol RFID reader is composed of several IP (Intellectual Property) blocks such as multi-protocol blocks, CPU, UART(Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter), memory, etc. As a result, the SoC implemented with FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array) is applied to real product. It is shown that the size of RFID Reader module designed with the FPGA becomes smaller, and the SoC chip price for the same function becomes cheap. In addition, operation performance could be the same or better than that of the product with no SoC applied.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2011

An increasing number of researches and developments for personal or professional service robots are attracting a lot of attention and interest industrially and academically during the past decade. Furthermore, the development of intelligent robots is intensively fostered as strategic industry. Until now, most of practical and commercial service robots are worked by remotely operated controller. The most important technical issue of remote control is a wireless communication, especially in the indoor and unstructured environments where communication infrastructures might be destroyed by various disasters. Therefore we propose a multi-robot following navigation method for securing the valid communication distance extension of the remote control based on WPAN(Wireless Personal Area Networks). The concept and implementation of following navigation are introduced and the performance verification is performed through real navigation experiments in real or test-bed environments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.1058-1064
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• 2004

This paper presents a distributed precedence queue mechanism to resolve unexpected transmission delay of a lower priority transaction in a CAN based system, which keeps a fixed priority in data transaction. The mechanism is implemented in the upper sub-layer of the data link layer(DLL), which is fully compatible with the original medium access control layer protocol of CAN. Thus the mechanism can be implemented dynamically while the data transactions are going on without any hardware modification. The CAN protocol was originally developed to be used in the automotive industry, and it was recently applied for a broader class of automated factories. Even though CAN is able to satisfy most of real-time requirements found in automated environments, it is not to enforce either a fair subdivision of the network bandwidth among the stations or a satisfactory distribution of the access delays in message transmission. The proposed solution provides a superset of the CAN logical link layer control, which can coexist with the older CAN applications. Through the real experiments, effectiveness of the proposed mechanism is verified.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.1233-1240
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• 2010

In the flat panel display and semiconductor industries, the visual alignment system is considered as a core technology which determines the productivity of a manufacturing line. It consists of the vision system to extract the centroids of alignment marks and the stage control system to compensate the alignment error. In this paper, we develop a Kalman filter algorithm to estimate the alignment mark postures and propose a coarse-fine alignment control method which utilizes both original fine images and reduced coarse ones in the visual feedback. The error compensation trajectory for the distributed joint servos of the alignment stage is generated in terms of the inverse kinematic solution for the misalignment in task space. In constructing the estimation algorithm, the equation of motion for the alignment marks is given by using the forward kinematics of alignment stage. Secondly, the measurements for the alignment mark centroids are obtained from the reduced images by applying the geometric template matching. As a result, the proposed Kalman filter based coarse-fine alignment control method enables a considerable reduction of alignment time.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.922-929
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• 2014

Wind turbines are in the limelight in the alternative energy industry. However, they face frequent and various problems during operation. We focused on the supervising of the blades of a wind turbine. In this paper, we present the design of a maintenance robot that takes the size of wind turbine blades into consideration, so the general form of the robot is a square with four wires fixed to its vertices and to the nacelle. After the robot is placed near the nacelle, it moves along the blades. We also designed an attitude control algorithm for the robot to maintain its balance. Our control algorithm for the robot consists of roll and pitch attitude controllers and a height controller. Each controller was designed independently and then superposed together. We used simulations to verify our control algorithm.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.427-433
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• 2015

Hot forging industry workers are prone to encounter several health risks due to lack of automation and poor working environment conditions. These workers particularly suffer from muscle fatigue owing to the constant handling of heavy products during the forging process. Thus we developed an assistant robot for workers who carry out hot forging tasks. The purpose of a robot is to compensate gravity-loads for heavy products. To verify the functionality of a robot, we performed a muscle fatigue analysis using Electromyography (EMG) signals. Four muscles of the upper extremity were chosen to measure muscle activity. And experiment conditions were setup to imitate the hot forging process. Post experimental analysis of the captured muscle activity revealed a reduction in the median frequency of the EMG signals, which means clear fatigue reduction due to a robot's assistance. The developed assist robot with compact and economical components can be efficiently utilized at forging work sites to create better working conditions for operators.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.323-332
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• 2014

Stepper motor is widely used in positioning applications due to its durability and high torque to inertia ratio as well as low cost and ability to be easily controlled with open-loop. Due to increased resolution of position control and improved stability of motion control, microstepping has drawn attention in industry since it was introduced in 1970s. With the increase in computational power and decrease in cost of embedded processors in recent years, drives and control systems for stepper motors have become more sophisticate than ever. Thus, closed-loop control methods have been developed to improve the performance of the stepper motors. In this paper, we review not only basic principles of conventional control methods used for stepper motors but also that of microstepping control. In addition, we surveyed recent development in nonlinear control methods applied to stepper motors. The nonlinear control methods are presented in the view of Lyapunov stability. Nonlinear torque disturbance observer, sliding mode control, and nonlinear phase compensation are also presented.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.948-955
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• 2008

The conventional PID controller has been widely employed in industry. However, the PID controller with one degree of freedom(DOF) can not optimize both set-point tracking response and disturbance rejection response at the same time. In order to solve this problem, a few types of 2DOF PID controllers have been suggested. In this paper, a tuning formula for a 2DOF PID controller is presented. The optimal parameter sets of the 2DOF PID controller are determined based on the first-order plus time delay process and a real-coded genetic algorithm(RCGA) such that the ITAE performance criterion is minimized. The tuning rule is then addressed using calculated parameter sets and another RCGA. A set of simulation works are carried out on three processes with time delay to verify the effectiveness of the proposed rule.