• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.461-468
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• 2005

This paper proposes a wheel-assembly automation system, which assembles a wheel into a hub of a vehicle hung to a moving hanger in a car manufacturing line. A macro-micro manipulator control strategy is introduced to increase the system bandwidth and tracking accuracy to ensure insertion tolerance. A camera is equipped at the newly designed wheel gripper, which is attached at the center of the end-effector of the macro-micro manipulator and is used to measure position error of the hub of the vehicle in real time. The redundancy problem in the macro-micro manipulator is solved without complicated calculation by assigning proper functions to each part so that the macro part tracks the velocity error while the micro part regulates the fine position error. Experimental results indicate that tracking error satisfies the insertion tolerance of assembly $({\pm}1mm)$, and thus it is verified that the proposed system can be applied to the wheel assembly task on a moving hanger in the manufacturing line.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2012

Purpose: An autonomous robot was developed for harvesting strawberries cultivated in bench-type systems. Methods: The harvest robot consisted of four main components: an autonomous vehicle, a manipulator with four degrees of freedom (DOF), an end effector with two DOFs, and a color computer vision system. Strawberry detection was performed based on 3D image and distance information obtained from a stereo CCD color camera and a laser device, respectively. Results: In this work, a Cartesian type manipulator system was designed, including an intermediate revolute axis and a double driven arm-based joint axis, so that it could generate collision-free motions during harvesting. A DC servomotor-driven end-effector, consisting of a gripper and a cutter, was designed for gripping and cutting the strawberry stem without damaging the strawberry itself. Real-time position tracking algorithms were developed to detect, recognize, trace, and approach strawberries under natural light conditions. Conclusion: The developed robot system could harvest a strawberry within 7 seconds without damage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.615-618
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• 2005

All over the world, many kinds of micro-actuators were already developed for various applications. The actuators are using various principles such as electromagnetic, piezoelectric and thermopneumatic etc. The most of the micro-actuators have been made using 2D based MEMS technology. In these actuators, it is difficult to drive 3-dimensional motion. This characteristic gives the limit of actuator application. However, micro-stereolithography technology has made it possible to fabricate freeform three-dimensional microstructures. In this technology, 2-dimensional micro-shape layer is cumulated on the other layers. This layer-by-layer process is the main principle to fabricate 3-dimensioal micro-structures. In this research, a micro-bellows actuator that is vertically moving was developed using the micro-stereolithography technology. When pressure was applied into the bellows, a non-contact actuating motion is generated. For actuation experiment, syringe pump and laser interferometer were used for applying pressure and measuring the displacement. Several hundreds micro-scale actuation was observed. And, to demonstrate the feasibility of proposed actuation principle, in this research, a micro-gripper was developed using half-bellows structure.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.180-193
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• 2020

In this study, the end-effector tracking performance of a manipulator installed on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for autonomous underwater intervention is verified. The underwater manipulator is an ARM 7E MINI model produced by the ECA group, which consists of six joints and one gripper. Of the six joints of the manipulator, two are revolute joints and the other four are prismatic joints. Velocity control is used to control the manipulator with forward and inverse kinematics. When the manipulator approaches a target object, it is difficult for the ROV to maintain its position and posture, owing to various disturbances, such as the variation in both the center of mass and the reaction force resulting from the manipulator motion. Therefore, it is necessary to compensate for the influences and ensure the relative distance to the object. Simulations and experiments are performed to track the trajectory of a virtual object, and the tracking performance is verified from the results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.22-37
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• 1995

Industrial robot has played a central role in the production automation such as welding, assembling, and painting. There has been, however, little effort to the application of robots in machining work(grinding, cutting, milling, etc.) which is typical 3D work. The machining automation requires a high stiffness robot arm to reduce deformation and vibration. Conventional articulated robots have serially connecting links from the base to the gripper. So, they have very weak structure for he machining work. Stewart Platform is a typical parallel robotic mechanism with a very high stiffness but it has a small work space and a large installation space. This research proposes a new machining robot arm with a double parallel mechanism. It is composed of two platforms and a central axis. The central axis will connect the motions between the first and the second platforms. Therefore, the robot has a large range of work space as well as a high stiffness. This paper will introduce the machining work using the robot and design the proposed robot arm.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1613-1616
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• 2007

A microgripper using thermal actuator and SU-8 polymer was designed and fabricated to manipulate cells and microparts. A chip size of a microgripper was 3 mm ${\times}$ 5 mm. The thermally actuated microgripper consisted of two couples of hot and cold arm actuators. The high thermal expansion coefficient, 52 $ppm/^{\circ}C$, of SU-8 compared to silicon and metals, allows the actuation of the microgripper. Thickness and width of SU-8 as an end-effector were 26 ${\mu}m$ and 80 ${\mu}m$, respectively. Initial gap between left jaw and right jaw was 120 ${\mu}m$. The ANSYS program as FEM tool was introduced to analyze the thermal distribution and displacement induced by thermal actuators. $XeF_2$ gas was used for isotropic silicon dry etching process to release SU-8 end-effector. Mechanical displacements of the fabricated microgripper were measured by optical microscopy in the range of input voltage from 0 V to 2.5 V. The maximum displacement between two jaws of a microgripper Type OG 1_1 was 22.4 ${\mu}m$ at 2.5 V.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2012

Many automobile manufacturers are doing experiment on manufacturing environments by using an augmented reality technology. However, system layout and process simulation by using the virtual reality technology have been performed actively more than by using the augmented reality technology in practical use so far. Existing automobile assembly by using the augmented reality requires the precise calibrating work after setting the robot because the existing augmented reality system for the automobile assembly system configuration does not include the end tip deflection and the robot joints deflection due to the heavy weight of product and gripper. Because the robot is used mostly at the automobile assembly, the deflection problem of the robot joint and the product in the existing augmented reality system need to be improved. Moreover camera lens calibration has to be performed precisely to use augmented reality. In order to improve this problem, this paper introduces a method of the software based calibration to apply the augmented reality effectively to the automobile assembly system. On the other hand, the camera lens calibration module and the direct compensation module of the virtual object displacement for the augmented reality were designed and implemented. Furthermore, the developed automobile assembly system oriented AR-system was verified by the practical test.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.1 no.6
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• pp.642-648
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• 2017

Involuntary hand tremor has been a serious challenge in micromanipulation tasks and thus draws a significant amount of attention from related fields. To minimize the effect of the hand tremor, a variety of mechanically assistive solutions have been proposed. However, approaches increasing human awareness of their own hand tremor have not been extensively studied. In this paper, a head mount display based virtual reality (VR) system to increase human self-awareness of hand tremor is proposed. It shows a user a virtual image of a handheld device with emphasized hand tremor information. Provided with this emphasized tremor information, we hypothesize that subjects will control their hand tremor more effectively. Two methods of emphasizing hand tremor information are demonstrated: (1) direct amplification of tremor and (2) magnification of virtual object, in comparison to the controlled condition without emphasized tremor information. A human-subject study with twelve trials was conducted, with four healthy participants who performed a task of holding a handheld gripper device in a specific direction. The results showed that the proposed methods achieved a reduced level of hand tremor compared with the control condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.216-223
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• 2015

Recently Manipulation capability is important for a robot. Interaction between a robot hand and objects can be properly controlled only is suitable sensors are available. Recently the tendency is to create robot hands more compact and high integrated sensors system, in order to increase the grasping capability and in order to reduce cabling through the finger, the palm and the arm. As a matter of fact, miniaturization and cabling harness represents a significant limitation to the design of small sized embedded sensor. Ongoing work is focusing on a flexible manipulation system, which consists of a dual flexible multi-fingered hand-arm system, and a dual active vision system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.489-500
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• 2014

In this study, remote handling strategies for a large-scale argon cell facility were considered. The suggested strategies were evaluated by several types of field test. The teleoperation tasks were performed using a developed remote handling system, which enabled traveling over entire cell area using a bridge transport system. Each arm of the system had six DOFs (degrees of freedom), and the bridge transport system had four DOFs. However, despite the dexterous manipulators and redundant monitoring system, many operators, including professionals, experienced difficulties in operating the remote handling system. This was because of the lack of a strategy for handling the installed camera system, and the difficulty in recognizing the gripper pose, which might fall outside the FOV (field of vision) of the system during teleoperation. Hence, in this paper, several considerations for the remote handling tasks performed in the target facility were discussed, and the tasks were analyzed based on ergonomic factors such as the workload. Toward the development of a successful operation strategy, several ergonomic issues, such as active/passive view of the remote handling system, eye/hand alignment, and FOV were considered. Furthermore, using the method for classifying remote handling tasks, several unit tasks were defined and evaluated.