• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.236-241
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• 2015

This paper presents a study on transformable multiple quadruped robots by docking between robots and waist joints. This robot is able to go on a variety of angles because of mecanum wheels. It is also a hybrid design which allows robot use legs to overcome obstacles on complex terrains and wheels to move on flat ground. The robot is applied kinematics of mecanum wheels and walking, and its walking is based on specific patterns. Docking module is located in front and backside of robot, docking algorithm is suggested and fulfilled for docking between 2 robots. A waist joint is at the center of robot body for transformation and after docking and transformation, robot can activate new functions that carry something.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2013

Small mobile robots which use round wheels are suitable for driving on a flat surface, but it cannot climb the obstacle whose height is greater than the radius of wheels. As an alternative, legged-wheels have been proposed by many researchers due to its better climbing performance. However, driving and climbing performances have a trade-off relationship so that their driving performance should be sacrificed. In this study, in order to achieve both driving and climbing performances, a new transformable wheel was developed. The developed transformable wheel can have a round shape on a flat surface and change its shape into legged-wheel when it makes a contact with an obstacle. For design of the transformable wheel, the performance of legged-wheel was analyzed with respect to the number and curvature of the leg, and then the new transformable wheel was designed based on the analysis. Contrary to the existing transformable wheels that contain additional actuators for the transformation, the developed transformable wheel can be unfolded without any additional actuator. In this study, in order to validate the transformable wheel, a simple robot platform was fabricated. Consequently, it climbed the obstacle whose height is 2.6 times greater than the wheel radius.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.265-272
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• 2009

IVarious driving mechanisms to adapt to uneven environment have been developed for many urban search and rescue (USAR) missions. A tracked mechanism has been widely used to maintain the stability of robot's pose and to produce large traction force on uneven terrain in this research area. However, it has a drawback of low energy efficiency due to friction force when rotating. Moreover, single tracked mechanism can be in trouble when the body gets caught with high projections, so the track doesn't contact on the ground. A transformable tracked mechanism is proposed to solve these problems. The mechanism is designed with several articulations surrounded by tracks, used to generate an attack angle when the robot comes near obstacles. The stair climbing ability of proposed robot was analyzed since stairs are one of the most difficult obstacles in USAR mission. Stair climbing process is divided into four separate static analysis phases. Design parameters are optimized according to geometric limitations from the static analysis. The proposed mechanism was produced from optimized design parameters, and demonstrated in artificially constructed uneven environment and the actual stairway.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.1219-1220
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• 2010

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.65-74
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• 2008

This paper deals with the path creation for stable action of a robot and transformation by using the fuzzy algorithm. Also, the obstacle detection and environmental analysis are performed by a stereo vision device. The robot decides the range and the height using the fuzzy algorithm. Therefore the robot can be adapted in topography through a transformation by itself. In this paper, the robot is designed to have two advantages. One is the fast movability in flat topography with the use of wheels. The other is the moving capability in uneven ground by walking. It has six leg forms for a stable walk. The wheels are fixed on the legs of the robot, so that various driving is possible. The height and the width of robot can be changed variously using four joints of each leg. The wheeled joint has extra DOF for a rotation of vertical axis. So the robot is able to rotate through 360 degrees. The robot has various sensors for checking the own state. The stable action of a robot is achieved by using sensors. We verified the result of research through an experiment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.307-308
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• 2013

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.270-277
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• 2010

Various robot platforms have been designed and developed to perform given tasks in a hazardous environment for the purpose of surveillance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and etc. We have considered a terrain adaptive hybrid robot platform which is equipped with rapid navigation on flat floors and good performance on overcoming stairs or obstacles. Since our special consideration is posed to its flexibility for real application, we devised a design of a transformable robot structure which consists of an ordinary wheeled structure to navigate fast on flat floor and a variable tracked structure to climb stairs effectively. Especially, track arms installed in front side, rear side, and mid side are used for navigation mode transition between flatland navigation and stairs climbing. The mode transition is determined and implemented by adaptive driving mode control of mobile robot. The wheel and track hybrid mobile platform apparatus applied off-road driving mechanism for various professional service robots is verified through experiments for navigation performance in real and test-bed environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.178-184
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• 2012

This paper presents a transformable track mechanism for wall climbing robots. The proposed mechanism allows a wall climbing robot to go over obstacles by transforming the track shape, and also increases contact area between track and wall surface for safe attachment. The track mechanism is realized using a timing belt track with one driving actuator. The inner frame of the track consists of serially connected 5R-joints and 1P-joint, and all joints of the inner frame are passively operated by springs, so the mechanism does not require any actuators and complex control algorithms to change its shape. Static analysis is carried out to determine design parameters which enable $90^{\circ}$ wall-to-wall transition and driving over projected obstacles on wall surfaces. A Prototype is manufactured using the transformable track on which polymer magnets are installed for adhesion force. The size of the prototype is $628mm{\times}200mm{\times}150mm$ ($Length{\times}Width{\times}Height$) and weight is 4kgf. Experiments are performed to verify its climbing capability focusing on $90^{\circ}$ wall to wall transition and driving over projected obstacle.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.57-66
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• 2014

This paper describes the design concept of a bio-inspired legged underwater and estimating its performance by implementing simulations. Especially the leg structure of an underwater organism, diving beetles, is fully adopted to our designing to employ its efficiency for swimming. To make it possible for the robot to both walk and swim, the transformable kinematic model according to applications of the leg is proposed. To aid in the robot development and estimate swimming performance of the robot in advance, an underwater simulator has been constructed and an approximated model based on the developing robot was set up in the simulation. Furthermore, previous work that we have done, the swimming locomotion produced by a swimming patten generator based on the control parameters, is briefly mentioned in the paper and adopted to the simulation for extensive studies such as path planning and control techniques. Through the results, we established the strategy of leg joints which make the robot swim in the three dimensional space to reach effective controls.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.186-190
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• 2019

When problems occurred in the unstable and/or extreme terrain environment, formal field-driving robots were unable to provide any other options such as the transformation of the wheel and body structure, and so on. For such reason, this paper proposed a novel type of integrated wheel mechanism that can be operated as a conventional driving wheel mode and hybrid wheel-leg mode in order to be negotiated in an unstable terrain environment. The mechanical effect of the proposed variable wheel mechanism was analyzed considering the geometric constraint and power requirement of the actuator for the transformation. In addition, we designed and manufactured the prototype of field-driving robot, which reliably control the variable wheel shape. Finally, the effectiveness of the variable wheel mechanism was verified by preliminary experimental approach.