• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2009

Generally, underwater vehicle type of propeller shows low efficiency about 50%-55%. However, the efficiency of swimming mechanism of a fish is 60%-70%, more efficient about 20% than screw propellers. Recently, research of underwater vehicle type of fish increase due to its good efficiency and is regarded as a typical bio-mimical robot. In this research, a new algorithm and mechanism that show low energy consumption imitating swimming mechanism of fish proposed increasing speed and running time in field trial.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2020

This paper describes a method for tracking attitude and position of underwater robots. Underwater work with underwater robots is subject to differences in work efficiency depending on the skill of the operator and the utilization of additional sensors. Therefore, this study developed an underwater robot that can operate autonomously and maintain a certain attitude when working underwater to reduce difference of work efficiency. The developed underwater robot uses 8 thrusters to control 6 degrees of freedom motion, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) and PS (Pressure Sensor) to measure attitude and position. In addition, the thruster allocation algorithm was designed to follow the control desired value using 8 thrusters, and the motion control experiments were performed in the engineering water basin using the thruster allocation method.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.679-687
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• 2019

This paper presents the autonomous swimming technology developed for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) operating in the underwater jacket structure environment. To prevent the position divergence of the inertial navigation system constructed for the primary navigation solution for the vehicle, we've developed kinds of marker-recognition based underwater localization methods using both of optical and acoustic cameras. However, these two methods all require the artificial markers to be located near to the cameras mounted on the vehicle. Therefore, in the case of the vehicle far away from the structure where the markers are usually mounted on, we may need alternative position-aiding solution to guarantee the navigation accuracy. For this purpose, we develop a sonar image processing based underwater localization method using a Forward Looking Sonar (FLS) mounted in front of the vehicle. The primary purpose of this FLS is to detect the obstacles in front of the vehicle. According to the detected obstacle(s), we apply an Occupancy Grid Map (OGM) based path planning algorithm to derive an obstacle collision-free reference path. Experimental studies are carried out in the water tank and also in the Pohang Yeongilman port sea environment to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed autonomous swimming technology.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.682-687
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• 2013

Navigation is a crucial capability for all types of manned or unmanned vehicles. However, vehicle navigation in underwater environments still remains a challenging problem since GPS signals for position fixes are not available in the water. Terrain-referenced underwater navigation is an alternative navigation technique that utilizes geometric information of the subsea terrain to correct drift errors due to dead-reckoning or inertial navigation. Terrain-referenced navigation requires the description of an undulating terrain surface as a mathematical function or table, which often leads to a highly nonlinear estimation problem. Recently, PFs (Particle Filters), which do not require any restrictive assumptions about the system dynamics and uncertainty distributions, have been widely used for nonlinear filtering applications. However, PF has considerable computational requirements which used to limit its applicability to problems of relatively low state dimensions. This study proposes the use of a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter that is computationally more efficient than the standard PF for terrain-referenced underwater navigation involving a moderate number of states, and its performance is compared with that of the extended Kalman filter algorithm. The validity and feasibility of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through numerical simulations.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.421-427
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• 2004

In order to exploit underwater resources successfully, the first step would be a marine environmental research and exploration in the seafloor. Generally one sets up a long-term underwater experimental unit in the seafloor and retrieves the unit later after a certain period time. Essential to these applications is the reliable teleoperation and telemetering of the unit. In this paper we presents a robust underwater sound recognition algorithm by which we can identify the sound signal without the influence of disturbances due to underwater environmental changes. The proposed method provides a means suitable for the acoustic releaser which requires low power dissipation and long-time underwater operation. We demonstrate its ability of securing stability and fast sound recognition through simulation methods.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.146-155
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• 2016

Localization of underwater vehicle is essential to use underwater robotic systems for various applications effectively. For this purpose, this paper presents a method of two-dimensional SLAM for underwater vehicles equipped with two hydrophones. The proposed method uses directional angles for underwater acoustic sources. A target signal transmitted from acoustic source is extracted using band-pass filters. Then, directional angles are estimated based on Bayesian process with generalized cross-correlation. The acquired angles are used as measurements for EKF-SLAM to estimate both vehicle location and locations of acoustic sources. Through these processes, the proposed method provides reliable estimation for two dimensional locations of underwater vehicles. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed method in a real sea environment.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.238-244
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• 2021

Image mosaicking is a common and useful technique to visualize a global map by stitching a large number of local images obtained from visual surveys in underwater environments. In particular, visual inspection of underwater structures using underwater robots can be a potential application for image mosaicking. Feature-based pairwise image registration is a commonly employed process in most image mosaicking algorithms to estimate visual odometry information between compared images. However, visual features are not always uniformly distributed on the surface of underwater structures, and thus the performance of image registration can vary significantly, which results in unnecessary computations in image matching for poor-conditioned image pairs. This study proposes a pairwise registrability measure to select informative image pairs and to improve the overall computational efficiency of underwater image mosaicking algorithms. The validity and effectiveness of the image mosaicking algorithm considering the pairwise registrability are demonstrated using an experimental dataset obtained with a full-scale ship in a real sea environment.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2023

In general, in order to operate an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in an underwater environment, a navigation system such as a Doppler Log (DVL) using a Doppler phenomenon of ultrasonic waves is used for speed and direction estimation. However, most of the ultrasonic sensors in underwater is large for long-distance sensing and the cost is very high. In this study, not only canal neuromast on the fish's lateral lines but also superficial neuromast are studied on the simulation to obtain pressure values for each pressure sensor, and the obtained pressure data is supervised using spherical CNN. To this end, through supervised learning using pressure data obtained from a pressure sensor attached to an underwater vehicle, we can estimate the speed and angle of the underwater vehicle in a quasi-static underwater environment and propose a method for a non-ultrasonic based navigation system.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2018

This study focuses on autonomous exploration based on map expansion for an underwater robot equipped with acoustic sonars. Map expansion is applicable to large-area mapping, but it may affect localization accuracy. Thus, as the key contribution of this paper, we propose a method for underwater autonomous exploration wherein the robot determines the trade-off between map expansion ratio and position accuracy, selects which of the two has higher priority, and then moves to a mission step. An occupancy grid map is synthesized by utilizing the measurements of an acoustic range sonar that determines the probability of occupancy. This information is then used to determine a path to the frontier, which becomes the new search point. During area searching and map building, the robot revisits artificial landmarks to improve its position accuracy as based on imaging sonar-based recognition and EKF-SLAM if the position accuracy is above the predetermined threshold. Additionally, real-time experiments were conducted by using an underwater robot, yShark, to validate the proposed method, and the analysis of the results is discussed herein.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1580-1586
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• 2003

This paper presents the design and the analysis of a "fish-like underwater robot". In order to develop swimming robot like a real fish, extensive hydrodynamic analysis were made followed by the study of biology of the fishes especially its maneuverability and propel styles. Swimming mode is achieved by mimicking fish-swimming of carangiform. This is the swimming mode of the fast motion using its tail and peduncle for propulsion. In order to generate configurations of vortices that gives efficient propulsion yawing and surging with a caudal fin has applied and in order to submerge and maintain the body balance pitching and heaving motion with a pair of pectoral fin is used. We have derived the equation of motion of PoTuna by two methods. In first method, we use the equation of motion of underwater vehicle with the potential flow theory for the power of propulsion. In second method, we apply the method of the equation of motion of UVM(Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator). Then, we compare these results.