• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.139-146
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• 2006

In this paper vector code correlation(VCC) method and an algorithm to promote the image processing performance in building an effective measurement system using cameras are described for automatically berthing and controlling the ship equipped with side thrusters. In order to realize automatic ship berthing, it is indispensable that the berthing assistant system on the ship should continuously trace a target in the berth to measure the distance to the target and the ship attitude, such that we can make the ship move to the specified location. The considered system is made up of 4 apparatuses compounded from a CCD camera, a camera direction controller, a popular PC with a built in image processing board and a signal conversion unit connected to parallel port of the PC. The object of this paper is to reduce the image processing time so that the berthing system is able to ensure the safety schedule against risks during approaching to the berth. It could be achieved by composing the vector code image to utilize the gradient of an approximated plane found with the brightness of pixels forming a certain region in an image and verifying the effectiveness on a commonly used PC. From experimental results, it is clear that the proposed method can be applied to the measurement system for automatic ship berthing and has the image processing time of fourfold as compared with the typical template matching method.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.90-96
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• 2008

In general, the swing motions of a crane are controlled and suppressed by controlling the trolley motion. In many of our previous studies, we suggested a new type of anti-sway control system for a crane. In this proposed control system, a small auxiliary mass (moving-mass) is installed on the spreader and moving this auxiliary mass controls tire swing motion. The actuator reaction against the auxiliary mass applies inertial control forces to the container in order to reduce the swing motion in the desired manner. However, measuring systems based on a laser sensor or other means are not veryuseful in real-worldapplications. So, in this paper, animage sensor is used to measure the motions of the spreader and the measured data are fed back to the controller in real time. The applied image processing technique is a kind of robust template matching method called Vector Code Correlation (VCC), which was devised to consider real environmental conditions. The H $\infty$ based control technique is applied to suppress the swing motion of the crane. Experimental results showed that the proposed measurement and control system based on an image sensor is useful and robust to disturbances.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.431-437
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• 2006

In this paper vector code correlation(VCC) method and an algorithm to promote the image-processing performance in building an effective measurement system using cameras are described far automatically berthing and controlling the ship equipped with side-thrusters. In order to realize automatic ship berthing, it is indispensable that the berthing assistant system on the ship should continuously trace a target in the berth to measure the distance to the target and the ship attitude, such that we can make the ship move to the specified location. The considered system is made up of 4 apparatuses compounded from a CCD camera, a camera direction controller, a popular PC with a built-in image processing board and a signal conversion unit connected to parallel port of the PC. The object of this paper is to reduce the image-processing time so that the berthing system is able to ensure the safety schedule against risks during approaching to the berth. It could be achieved by composing the vector code image to utilize the gradient of an approximated plane found with the brightness of pixels forming a certain region in an image and verifying the effectiveness on a commonly used PC. From experimental results, it is clear that the proposed method can be applied to the measurement system for automatic ship berthing and has the image-processing time of fourfold as compared with the typical template matching method.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.103-108
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• 2007

In general, the swing motion of the crane is controlled and suppressed by activating the trolley motion. In many papers reported by us, we suggested a new type of anti-sway control system of the crane. In the proposed control system, a small auxiliary mass(moving-mass) is installed on the spreader and the swing motion is controlled by moving the auxiliary mass. The actuator reaction against the auxiliary mass applies inertial control forces to the container in order to reduce the swing motion in the desired manner. The measuring system is based on laser sensor or others. However it is not so useful in real world. Especially, in this paper, the image sensor is used to measures the motions of the spreader and the measured data are fed back to the controller in real time. The applied image processing technique is a kind of robust template matching method which is named Vector Code Correlation (VCC) and devised to consider the real environmental conditions. And the $H_{\infty}$ based control technique is applied to suppress swing motion of the crane. And the experimental result shows that the proposed measurement system based on image sensor and control system is useful and robust to disturbances.