• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.960-967
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• 2013

Shape recognition of solder ball bumps in a BGA (Ball Grid Array) is an important issue in flip chip bonding technology. In particular, the semiconductor industry has required faster and more accurate inspection of micron-size solder bumps in flip chip bonding as the density of balls has increased dramatically. The difficulty of this issue comes from specular reflection on the metal ball. Shape recognition of a metal ball is a very realproblem for computer vision systems. Specular reflection of the metal ball appears, disappears, or changes its image abruptly due to tiny movementson behalf of the viewer. This paper presents a practical shape recognition method for three dimensional (3-D) inspection of a BGA using a 5-step ring illumination device. When the ring light illuminates the balls, distinctive specularity images of the balls, which are referred to as "iso-slope contours" in this paper, are shown. By using a mathematical reflectance model, we can drive the 3-D shape information of the ball in aquantitative manner. The experimental results show the usefulness of the method for industrial application in terms of time and accuracy.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.79-95
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• 2014

We are at the dawn of a new era in which the importance of robots will be evaluated on the basis of not only their functions but also their appearance. Therefore, those manufacturers who continue to develop robots that only offer convenience and do not keep up with the emerging trends might be weeded out from the robot market in the future. This study empirically tested and verified the ways in which the commercial value of wearable robots is enhanced when they are stylishly attired, using user and work environment analysis. For the purpose of this study, a styling development project for wearable robots was undertaken and applied to the actual development of these robots. Based on the results of the study, a new styling process for such robots was established. Those manufacturers who will realize the importance of styling of robots and develop robots using this process shall become the trendsetters in designing stylized robots and lead the robot industry in the future.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2016

As modern electronic devices get smaller and smaller, high-resolution, large Field-Of-View (FOV), fast, and cost-effective 3-dimensional (3-D) measurement is requested more and more. In particular, defect inspection machines using machine-vision technology nowadays require 3-D inspection as well as the conventional 2-D inspection. Phase Measuring Profilometry (PMP) is one of the fast non-contact 3-D shape measuring methods currently being extensively investigated in the electronic component manufacturing industry. The PMP system is well known and is successfully applied to measuring complex surface profiles with varying reflectance properties. However, for highly reflective surfaces, such as Ball Grid Arrays (BGAs), it has difficulty accurately measuring 3-D shapes. In this paper, we propose a new fast optical system that can eliminate the highly reflective saturated regions in BGA ball images. This is achieved by utilizing four Low Intensity Grating (LIG) images together with the conventional High Intensity Grating (HIG) images. Extensive experiments using BGA samples show a repeatability of under ${\pm}20um$ in standard deviation, which is suitable for most 3-D shape measurements of BGAs.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.1044-1050
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• 2011

The quality of brazing joints is one of the most important factors that have an effect on the performance of the brazing joint-based heat exchangers with the growing use in industry recently. Therefore, it is necessary to inspect the brazing joints in order to guarantee the performance of the heat exchangers. This paper presents a non-destructive method to inspect the brazing joints of the heat exchangers using X-ray. Firstly, X-ray cross-sectional images of the brazing joints are obtained by using CT (Computerized Tomography) technology. Cross-sectional image from CT is more useful to detect the inner defects than the traditional transmitted X-ray image. Secondly, the acquired images are processed by an algorithm proposed for the defect detection of brazing joint. Finally, two types of brazing joint are examined in a series of experiments to detect the defects in brazing joints. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is effective for defect detection of the brazing joints in heat exchangers.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.1061-1066
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• 2013

In the steel industry, the detection of tiny defects including its 3D characteristics on steel surfaces is very important from the point of view of quality control. A multi-spectral photometric stereo method is an attractive scheme because the shape of the defect can be obtained based on the images which are acquired at the same time by using a multi-channel camera. Moreover, the calculation time required for this scheme can be greatly reduced for real-time application with the aid of a GPU (Graphic Processing Unit). Although a more reliable shape reconstruction of defects can be possible when the numbers of available images are increased, it is not an easy task to construct a camera system which has more than 3 channels in the visible light range. In this paper, a new 6-channel camera system, which can distinguish the vertical/horizontal linearly polarized lights of RGB light sources, was developed by adopting two 3-CCD cameras and two polarized lenses based on the fact that the polarized light is preserved on the steel surface. The photometric stereo scheme with 6 images was accelerated by using a GPU, and the performance of the proposed system was validated through experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.925-931
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• 2016

The BLDC motor is used widely in industry due to its controllability and freedom from maintenance because there is no mechanical brush in the BLDC motor. Furthermore, it is suitable for high-speed applications, such as compressors and air blowers. For instance, for a compressor with a small impeller due to miniaturizing, the BLDC motor has to rotate at a very high speed to maintain the compression ratio of the compressor. Typically, to reach an ultra-high speed, airfoil bearings must be used in place of ball bearings because of their friction. Unfortunately, the characteristics of airfoil bearings change drastically depending on the revolution speed. In this paper, a BLDC motor with airfoil bearings is controlled with a PID controller. To analyze and determine the PID coefficients, the relay-feedback method is used. Additionally, for adaptive control, a fuzzy logic controller is used. Furthermore, the auto-tuning and self-tuning techniques are combined to control the BLDC motor. The proposed method is able to control the airfoil-bearing BLDC motor efficiently.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 2000

In this paper, we design a H^\infty servo controller for gauge control of tandem cold mill. To improve the performance of the AGC(Aotomatic Gauge Control) system based on the Taylor linearized model of tandem cold mill, the H^\infty servo controller is designed to satisfy robust stability, disturbance attenuation and robust tracking properties. The H^\infty servo controller problem is modified as an usual H^\infty control problem, and the solvability condition of the H^\infty servo problem depends on the solvability of the modified H^\infty control problem. Since this modified problem does not satisfied standard assumptions for the H^\infty control problem, it is solved by an LMI(Linear Matrix Inequality) technique. Consequently, the comparison between the H^\infty servo controller and the existing PID/FF(FeedForward) controller shows the usefulness of this study.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.1074-1080
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• 2006

Motion capture systems are gaining popularity in entertainment, medicine, sports, education, and industry, with animation and gaming applications for entertainment taking the lead. A wide variety of systems are available for motion capture, but most of them are complicated and expensive. In the general class of optical motion capture, two or more optical sensors are needed to measure the 3D positions of the markers attached to the body. Recently, a 3D motion capture system using two Position Sensitive Detector (PSD) optical sensors was introduced to capture high-speed motion of an active infrared LED marker. The PSD-based system, however, is limited by a geometric calibration procedure for two PSD sensor modules that is too difficult for common customers. In this research, we have introduced a new system that used a single PSD sensor unit to obtain 3D positions of active IR LED-based markers. This new system is easy to calibrate and inexpensive.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.887-893
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• 2009

In this paper, a mask-panel alignment robot system is considered for IT industry applications. Two kinds of solutions are suggested which are required in constructing a control system for the alignment robot with actuation redundancy. First, the kinematic solution for the 4PPR parallel positioning mechanism is formulated for an arbitrary initial posture, which relates the mask-panel misalignment in the task space and the desired actuator displacements in the joint space. Secondly, in order to increase the stiffness of the control motion and also to avoid the mechanical lock which may happen due to the redundant actuation, a new synchronous control method is proposed which has the merit of coordinating joint control motions while not losing individual joint control performance. In addition, the engineering process to develop a visual alignment robot system is described with the results of experimental setup and GUI software. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed alignment system control methodology and how much beneficial it will be in real industrial applications.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.333-339
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• 2019

Cobots are industrial robots with greatly enhanced safety functions that enable them to work in the same space with workers without protector. Cobots are regulated by the Industrial Safety and Health Act and must be certified according to the manufacturing stage, installation stage and usage stage. The ISO 10218-2 standard applied in the installation phase is difficult to apply in the field. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a risk assessment method based on ISO 12100 standard. This paper proposes a new methodology that combines 'JSA' and 'What-if', which reflects the human error and the lack of known risk factors. Accordingly, a new risk assessment template was proposed and the effectiveness of the developed new template was examined. The current cobot safety regulations need to be unified with safety inspections scheme, and robot safety experts and infrastructures need to be expanded and Robot safety regulations should be unified to 'Robot Act'. Based on this research, risk assessment methods suitable for the field need to be developed additionally, and robot safety regulation needs to be transformed to promote the industry.