• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2502-2507
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• 2003

In this paper, a crack sealing robot is developed. The crack sealing robot is built to detect, track, and seal the crack on the pavement. The sealing robot is required to brush all dirt in the crack out for preparing a better sealing job. Camera calibration has been done to get accurate crack position. In order to perform a cleaning job, the explicit force control method is used to regulate a specified desired force in order to maintain constant contact with the ground. Experimental studies of force tracking control are conducted under unknown environment stiffness and location. Crack tracking control is performed. Force tracking results are excellent and the robot finds and tracks the crack very well.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1077-1081
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• 2003

In this paper, experimental studies of force tracking control for the crack sealing robot are presented. Crack sealing robot is built to detect, track and seal the crack on the pavement. Before sealing, crack must be detected by a laser sensor and a camera sensor, then cleaned for a better sealing job. In order to maintain contact with the ground force control is required to brush all dirt in the crack out for preparing sealing cracks with tars. Impedance control algorithm is presented to regulate a specified desired force. Experimental studies of the proposed force control algorithm are conducted under unknown environment stiffness and location. Performances of force control algorithm are stable and excellent.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.160-163
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• 2008

Currently workmen take charge of the maintenance work of bridges. But the process of sealing cracks in damage bridge is dangerous, costly, and labor-intensive operation Labor turnover and training are increasing problems related to crack sealing crews, and as traffic volumes increase, crack sealing operations become increasingly disruptive to the general public. Automation crack sealing can reduce labor and road user costs, improve work quality and decrease worker exposure to bridge hazards. This research aims to develop an automated damage bridge crack sealing system and developing of algorithms for hybrid controlling.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.481-491
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• 2015

Since the crack in the surface of the concrete acts as the main reason influencing the life span of the structure, regular inspections and maintenance are required. The sealing required for maintenance of the concrete surface is a method of repairing the crack in the surface in the beginning, and is effective in preventing additional cracks and expansion that occurs with time. However, sealing on large sized structures such as tall buildings or bottom parts of bridges are difficult to ensure safety of the workers due to inadequate working environments. Due to this reason, the importance of the need for sealing automation for the maintenance of large sized concrete structures is emerging. This study proposes two control methods to apply robot systems to the sealing of cracks on the bottom parts of concrete bridges. First is the method of automatically tracking the trajectory of cracks. The robot gets the trajectory of the cracks using video information obtained from cameras. Comparing the previous several points and new point, the next point can be estimated. Thus, the trajectory of the crack can be tracked automatically. The other method is sealing by maintaining steady force to the contacting surface. The concrete surface exposed to an external environment for a long time gets an irregular roughness. If robots are able to carry out sealing while maintaining a steady contact force on these rough surfaces, complete equal sealing can be maintained. In order to maintain this equal force, a force control method using impedance is proposed. This paper introduces two developed control methods to apply to sealing robots, and conducts a Lab Test and Field Test after applying to a robot. Based on the test results, opinions on the possibilities of field application of the robot applied with the control methods are presented.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.374-381
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• 2016

The sealing technique is widely used for repairing the cracks on the surface of concrete and preventing their expansion in the future. However, it is difficult to ensure the safety of the workers when sealing large structures in inconvenient working environments. This paper presents the development of a sealing robot system to seal various shapes of concrete surface in rough conditions for a long time. If the robot can maintain the desired contact force, the cracks can be completely sealed. An impedance force tracking controller with slope estimator is proposed to calculate the surface slope in real time using the robot position. It predicts the next point in order to prevent the robot from disengaging from the contact surface owing to quick slope changes. The proposed method has been verified by experimental results.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.290-296
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• 2005

This paper presents the implementation of a crack tracking mobile robot. The crack tracking robot is built for tracking cracks on the pavement. To track cracks, crack must be detected by laser and camera sensors. Laser sensor projects laser on the pavement to detect the discontinuity on the surface and the camera captures the image to find the crack position. Then the robot is commanded to follow the crack. To detect crack position correctly, neural network is used to minimize the positional errors of the captured crack position obtained by transformation from 2 dimensional images to 3 dimensional images.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.389-396
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• 2016

The sealing robot must be able to calculate the slope of a contact surface for complete adherence of the sealing on different concrete shapes. After the slope is obtained, the robot will track on the surface of the concrete, but this process contains an error in the actual purpose of the force command. The reason this a phenomenon occurs, the non-linearity of the contact surface and the end-effector, is due to parasitic coupling. Errors like make it difficult to measure accurately the respective factors. Therefore, it is regarded as a disturbance that occurs when it follows the work surface it. In this paper, we selected the friction coefficient of the surface as a control factor and designed a compensator to reduce effects of disturbance. Finally, in view of the non-linearity of the end-effector of a robot to contact surfaces directly, we propose a robust force tracking controller in the finite range for managing disturbances that occur during the sealing.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.337-343
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• 2005

In this paper, experimental studies of force control of the crack tracking robot are presented. The crack tracking robot should maintain constant contact with the road to perform cleaning process of the crack effectively. Regulating desired force on the road requires a sophisticated force control algorithm. Here, two main force control algorithms such as the impedance force control and the explicit force control are used. Performances of two force control algorithms are compared.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.60-72
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• 2016

This study proposes a multi-robot system, using multiple autonomous robots, to explore concrete structures and assist in their maintenance by sealing any cracks present in the structure. The proposed system employed a new self-localization method that is essential for autonomous robots, along with a visualization system to recognize the external environment and to detect and explore cracks efficiently. Moreover, more efficient crack search in an unknown environment became possible by arranging the robots into search areas divided depending on the surrounding situations. Operations with increased efficiency were also realized by overcoming the disadvantages of the infeasible logical behavioral model design with only six basic behavioral strategies based on distributed control-one of the methods to control swarm robots. Finally, this study investigated the efficiency of the proposed multi-robot system via basic sensor testing and simulation.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.87-94
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• 2000

Crack sealing, a routine and necessary part of pavement maintenance, is a dangerous, costly, and labor-intensive operation. Within the North America, about ${\$}200$ million is spent annually on crack sealing, with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) spending about ${\$}7$ million annually (labor alone accounts for over 50 percent of these costs). Prompted by concerns of safety and cost, the University of Texas at Austin, in cooperation with TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has developed a unique computer-guided Automated Road Maintenance Machine (ARMM) for pavement crack sealing. In 1999, successful field tests have been undertaken in 8 States around the U.S. This paper first describes significance of the automated crack sealing and technical advances in automated crack sealers including the ARMM, developed in the U.S. It then discusses the ARMM's field implementation and performance evaluation results, and improvements and modifications suggested through the technology evaluation during the field trials. Current research efforts and future work plans in its further development are also presented in this paper.