• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.85-92
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• 2020

Applications for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) have expanded enormously in recent years. Of all its various technologies, the UAV's ability to take off and land in a moving environment is particularly required for military or oceanic usage. In this study, we develop a novel leveling platform that allows the UAV to stably take off and land even on uneven terrains or in moving environments. The leveling platform is composed of an upper pad and a lower mobile base. The upper pad, from which the UAV can take off or land, is designed in the form of a 2 degrees of freedom (DOF) gimbal mechanism that generates the leveling function. The lower mobile base has a four-wheel drive structure that can be operated remotely. We evaluate the developed leveling platform by performing extensive experiments on both the horizontal terrain and the 5-degree ramped terrain, and confirm that the leveling platform successfully maintains the horizontal pose on both terrains. This allows the UAV to stably take off and land in moving environments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.465-470
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• 2015

This paper proposes a robust 3D mapping system for a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) that carries a LRF (Laser Range Finder) using the sinusoidal trajectory algorithm. In the case of previous 3D mapping research, the UAV usually takes off vertically and flights up and down while the LRF is measuring horizontally. In such cases, the measuring range is limited and it takes a long time to do mapping. By using the sinusoidal trajectory algorithm proposed in this research, the 3D mapping can be time-efficient and the measuring range can be widened. The 3D mapping experiments have been done to evaluate the performance of the sinusoidal trajectory algorithm by scanning indoor walls.

• Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.124-134
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• 2008

The rising demand for the high efficiency and high covertness in UAV motivates the miniature design of the high performing mission sensors, or payloads. One of the promising payload sensors, EO/IR sensor has evolved satisfying its demands and became the main stand-alone mission sensor for 200kg-range UAV. One aspect in development of EO/IR sensor concerns lack of specification criterions to represent its performance. Even though the high demand and competition among each manufacturer caused EO/IR features subject to rapid change collateral to new technology, the datasheets maintained the conventional outdated formats which leave some of the major components in ambiguity. Making comparisons or predicting actual performance with such datasheets is hardly worthwhile; yet, they could be important reference guide for the potential customers what to expect for the upcoming EO/IR. According to UAS Roadmap 2007-2032 published by DoD, one of the main potential customers as well as a main investor of EO/IR technology, EO/IR is expected to play key roll in solving urgent problems, such as see and avoid system. This paper will examine the recent representative EO/IR specialized in UAS missions through datasheets to find out current trend and eventually extrapolate the possible future trend.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.1065-1094
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• 2014

Civil engineers always face the challenge of uncertainty in planning, building, and maintaining infrastructure. These works rely heavily on a variety of surveying and monitoring techniques. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are an effective approach to obtain information from an additional view, and potentially bring significant benefits to civil engineering. This paper gives an overview of the state of UAV developments and their possible applications in civil engineering. The paper begins with an introduction to UAV hardware, software, and control methodologies. It also reviews the latest developments in technologies related to UAVs, such as control theories, navigation methods, and image processing. Finally, the paper concludes with a summary of the potential applications of UAV to seismic risk assessment, transportation, disaster response, construction management, surveying and mapping, and flood monitoring and assessment.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.654-667
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• 2003

This paper presents a consequence of the systematic approach to identify the aerodynamic parameters of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with the automatic flight control system. A 3-2-1-1 excitation is applied for the longitudinal mode while a multi-step input is applied for lateral/directional excitation. Optimal time step for excitation is sought to provide the broad input bandwidth. A fully automated programmed flight test method provides high-quality flight data for system identification using the flight control computer with longitudinal and lateral/directional autopilots, which enable the separation of each motion during the flight test. The accuracy of the longitudinal system identification is improved by an additional use of the closed-loop flight test data. A constrained optimization scheme is applied to estimate the aerodynamic coefficients that best describe the time response of the vehicle. An appropriate weighting function is introduced to balance the flight modes. As a result, concurrent system models are obtained for a wide envelope of both longitudinal and lateral/directional flight maneuvers while maintaining the physical meanings of each parameter.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.357-374
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• 2008

Over the past few decades, a considerable number of studies have been conducted on the technologies to build an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) control system. Today, focus in research has moved from a standalone control system towards a network-centric control system for multiple UAV systems. Enabling the design of such complex systems in easily understandable forms that are amenable to rigorous analysis is a highly desirable goal. In this paper, we discuss our experimental evaluation of the Time-triggered Message-triggered Object (TMO) structuring scheme in the design of the UAV control system. The TMO scheme enables high-level structuring together with design-time guaranteeing of accurate timings of various critical control actions with significantly smaller efforts than those required when using lower-level structuring schemes based on direct programming of threads, UDP invocations, etc. Our system was validated by use of environment simulator developed based on an open source flight simulator named FlightGear. The TMO-structured UAV control software running on a small computing platform was easily connected to a simulator of the surroundings of the control system, i.e., the rest of the UAV and the flight environment. Positive experiences in both the TMO-structured design and the validation are discussed along with potentials for future expansion in this paper.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.234-240
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• 2011

In this paper, the performances of Cram$\acute{e}$r-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) with Frequency Difference of Arrival (FDOA) measurements for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) tracking are investigated. We focus on two cases: the influence on CRLB with FDOA measurements collected by time, and random distribution of Ground Stations (GSs). We derived the performance by gauging the size of CRLB through Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function (CCDF). From the simulation results, broader distribution of GSs and FDOA measurements by longer time bring about better performance.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.405-412
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• 2013

Purpose: In this paper, the improvement of the image quality is investigated. The image quality is degraded by the drift phenomenon of EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infrared) device on UAV. The drift phenomenon means that the image of EO/IR equipment on UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) moves to the unintended direction. This phenomenon should be improved for successful flight mission. Methods: To improve the drift phenomenon, the drift compensation method, the combination algorithm of FMC(Forward Motion Compensation) and AMC(Angular Motion Compensation) method, are introduced to calculate pitch and azimuth angle. Result values of pitch and azimuth angle are used for the improvement of image quality in EO/IR control logic. Results: The image quality is quantitatively improved more than 15 times through field test data of flight. Conclusion: Using the drift compensation technique, the image quality for EO/IR equipment is improved over 15 times than existing methods. This means the user of UAV with EO/IR device can perform a successful mission by keeping the line of sight for the target accurately.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.64-70
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• 2008

The UAV propulsion system that will be operated for long time at more than 40,000ft altitude should have not only fuel flow minimization but also high reliability and durability. If this UAV propulsion system may have faults, it is not easy to recover the system from the abnormal, and hence an accurate diagnostic technology must be needed to keep the operational reliability. For this purpose, the development of the health monitoring system which can monitor remotely the engine condition should be required. In this study, a fuzzy trend monitoring method for detecting the engine faults including mechanical faults was proposed through analyzing performance trends of measurement data. The trend monitoring is an engine conditioning method which can find engine faults by monitoring important measuring parameters such as fuel flow, exhaust gas temperatures, rotational speeds, vibration and etc. Using engine condition database as an input to be generated by linear regression analysis of real engine instrument data, an application of the fuzzy logic in diagnostics estimated the cause of fault in each component. According to study results. it was confirmed that the proposed trend monitoring method can improve reliability and durability of the propulsion system for a long endurance UAV to be operated at medium altitude.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.12-19
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• 2009

The research for the fatigue analysis is regarded greatly as important in aerospace field. Moreover, a study on the fatigue characteristic is very actively progressing. In this study, the fatigue life estimation was performed for Flaperon Joint which has FCL(fatigue critical location) of tilt-rotor UAV. The Flaperon Joint should be taken the various loads by several missions profiles of UAV. The fatigue load spectrum of Flaperon Joint is generated by the standard mission segment for the tilt-rotor UAV, and this spectrum is used for the fatigue test and analysis. The in-house fatigue analysis program is applied to calculate the fatigue life based on Stress-Life(S-N) method. The S-N curve is generated from the S-N data of Mil-Handbook by second order polynomial regression method. Moreover, the coefficient of determination is used to ensure how accuracy it has. In addition, the Goodman equation is used to consider the mean stress effect for evaluating more accurate fatigue life. Finally, the result of fatigue analysis is verified by comparing with the fatigue test result for the Flaperon Joint.