• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.727-728
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• 2008

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.346-351
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• 2005

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose of human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on the pipe, one extendable and contractable actuator, and a rotation actuator connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in the circumferential direction

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.87-95
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• 2006

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by a high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called a FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends close to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper describes a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose to human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on to the pipe, one extendable and contractible actuator, and a rotation actuator connected to the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in a circumferential direction.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.125-132
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• 2008

This paper describes a mobile inspection robot with an automatic pipe tracking system for a feeder pipe inspection in a PHWR. The robot is composed of two inch worm mechanisms. One is for a longitudinal motion along a pipe, and the other is for a rotational motion in a circumferential direction to access all of the outer surfaces of a pipe. The proposed mechanism has a stable gripping capability and is easy to install. An automatic pipe tracking system is proposed based on machine vision techniques to make the mobile robot follow an exact outer circumference of a curved feeder pipe as closely as possible, which is one of the requirements of a thickness measurement system for a feeder pipe. The proposed sensing technique is analyzed to attain its feasibility and to develop a calibration method for an accurate measurement. A mobile robot and control system are developed, and the automatic pipe tracking system is tested in a mockup of a feeder pipe.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Mechanical Technology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.137-141
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• 2011

Driving mechanism, the central part of a robot, was designed in this study. Power for the motive drive was acquired by directly connecting the motor shaft in worm shape of the low-end DC motor, car window motor, to a decelerator. The decelerator consists of a worm gear to receive power from the motor shaft, a pinion gear to be connected in line with the worm gear, and an output shaft to be engaged to the pinion gear. Motion driving is achieved by the power from the motor shaft with the designed gears, transferred to the deceleration mechanism and to the output gear.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 2016

In this study, design the core part of the driving of the robot. The power of the driving is window motor for automobiles obtained by using a method of directly to the motor shaft of the worm gear type. The decelerator consists of a worm gear to receive power from the motor shaft, Helical gear contact to worm gear, a pinion gear to be connected in line with the helical gear, and an output shaft to be engaged to the pinion gear. Drive system by using the power from the motor shaft based on the deceleration gear designed by the gear ratio set by the gear teeth increases the torque.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.250-256
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• 2015

We present a novel method to model the body posture of a worm for vision-based automatic monitoring and analysis. The worm considered in this study is a Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), which is popularly used for research in biological science and engineering. We model the posture by an open chain of a few curved or rigid line segments, in contrast to previously published approaches wherein a large number of small rigid elements are connected for the modeling. Each link segment is represented by only two parameters: an arc angle and an arc length for a curved segment, or an orientation angle and a link length for a straight line segment. Links in the proposed method can be readily related using the Denavit-Hartenberg convention due to similarities to the kinematics of an articulated manipulator. Our method was tested with real worm images, and accurate results were obtained.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.963-968
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• 2005

For worm robots applied to pipe inspection and colonoscopy, earthworm-like robots that have a locomotion pattern in backward wave or green caterpillar-like robots that have a locomotion pattern in forward wave have been studied widely. Note however that a method using a single and fixed locomotion pattern is not desirable in the sense of mobility cost, if there are various changes in pipe diameter. In this paper, locomotion patterns are considered for a semi-looper-like robot, which adopts a locomotion pattern of green caterpillars as the basic motion and sometimes can realize a locomotion pattern of looper, whose motion approximately consists of two rhythms or relatively low rhythm.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.816-821
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• 2004

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressured Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops an automatic feeder pipe inspection system that can minimize the irradiation dose by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix their body on the pipe and one extendable and retractable body connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.189-196
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• 2023

An abdominal brace is a recommended treatment for patients with lumbar spinal disorders. However, due to the nature of the static brace, it uniformly compresses the lumbar region, which can weaken the lumbar muscles or create a psychological dependence that worsens the condition of the spine when worn for an extended period of time. Due to these issues, doctors limit the wearing time when prescribing it to patients. In this paper, we propose a device that can dynamically provide abdominal pressure and support according to the lumbar motion. The proposed device is a wearable robot in the form of a brace, with actuators and a driving unit mounted on the brace. To enhance wearability and reduce the weight of the device, worm gears actuator and a multi-pulley mechanism were adopted. Based on the spinal motion of the wearer measured by the Inertia measurement unit sensors, the drives wire by driving pulley, which provide tension to the multi-pulley mechanism on both sides, dynamically tightening or loosening the device. Finally, the device can dynamically provide abdominal pressure and support. We describe the hardware and system configuration of the device and demonstrate its potential through basic control experiments.