• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1609-1614
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• 2003

This paper presents a new method driving multiple robots to their goal position without collision. To consider the movement of the robots in a work area, we adopt the concept of avoidability measure. To implement the concept in collision avoidance of multiple robots, relative distance between the robots is proposed. The relative distance is a virtual distance between robots indicating the threat of collision between the robots. Based on the relative distance, the method calculates repulsive force against a robot from the other robots. Also, attractive force toward the goal position is calculated in terms of the relative distance. The proposed method is simulated for several cases. The results show that the proposed method steers robots to open space anticipating the approach of other robots. The proposed method works as a local collision-free motion coordination method in conjunction with higher level of task planning and path planning method for multiple robots to do a collaborative job.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.1008-1018
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• 2016

This paper presents a control scheme for the leader-following formation of multiple robots. The control scheme combines the sliding mode control (SMC) method with the nonlinear disturbance observer (NDOB) technique. The formation dynamics suffer from uncertainties because the individual robots are uncertain. Concerning such formation uncertainties, the leader-following formation dynamics are modeled. Assuming that the formation uncertainties have an unknown boundary, an NDOB-based observer was designed to estimate the formation uncertainties. A sliding surface containing the observer outputs has been defined. Regarding the sliding surface, an SMC-based controller was investigated to form uncertain robots. A sufficient condition in the sense of the Lyapunov theory was proven such that the formation system is asymptotically stable. Herein, some comparison results between the sole SMC method and the second-order SMC method are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the control scheme for multiple robots in the presence of uncertainties.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.720-723
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• 1997

This paper presents a cooperative control method for multiple robots. This method is based on local sensors. The proposed method integrates all information obtained by local perception through a set of sensors and generates commands without logical conflicts in designing control logic. To control multiple robots effectively, a global control strategy is proposed. These methods are constructed by using AND/OR logic and transition firing sequences in Petri nets. To evaluate these methods, the object-searching task is introduced. This task is to search an object like a box by two robots and consists of two sub-tasks, i.e., a wall tracking task and a robot tracking task. Simulation results for the object-searching task and the wall tracking task are presented to show the effectiveness of the method.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.132-144
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• 2004

This paper presents a new method driving multiple robots to their goal position without collision. To consider the movement of the robots in a work area, we adopt the concept of avoidability measure. The avoidability measure figures the degree of how easily a robot can avoid other robots considering the velocity of the robots. To implement the concept to avoid collision among multiple robots, relative distance between the robots is proposed. The relative distance is a virtual distance between robots indicating the threat of collision between the robots. Based on the relative distance, the method calculates repulsive force against a robot from the other robots. Also, attractive force toward the goal position is calculated in terms of the relative distance. These repulsive force and attractive force are added to form the driving force for robot motion. The proposed method is simulated for several cases. The results show that the proposed method steers robots to open space anticipating the approach of other robots. In contrast, since the usual potential field method initiates avoidance motion later than the proposed method, it sometimes fails preventing collision or causes hasty motion to avoid other robots. The proposed method works as a local collision-free motion coordination method in conjunction with higher level of task planning and path planning method for multiple robots to do a collaborative job.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1992.10b
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• pp.485-490
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• 1992

This paper describes a hardware structure and a communication system of a multiple autonomous robots system. Many studies have been devoted to the development of a single autonomous robot. It is, however, also necessary to investigate decentralized multiple autonomous robots system in order to make wider use of such robots. We have been studying a multiple autonomous robots system employing two mobile robots. In this paper, problems are overviewed on the developed multiple autonomous robots system from the viewpoint of hardware and communication, and an improved system is presented, which employs a new control strategy of a mobile robot and realizes reliable data communication between host computers.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.293-299
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• 2010

The multiple block localization method in a wide area for multiple robots using iGS is proposed in this paper. The iGS is developed for the indoor global localization using ultrasonic and RF sensors. To measure the distance between a mobile robot and a beacon, the tag on the mobile robot wakes up one beacon to send out the ultrasonic signal and measures the traveling time from the beacon to the mobile robot. As the number of robots is increased, the sampling time of localization also becomes longer. Note that only one robot can localize its own position calling beacons one by one during each of the sampling interval. This is a severe constraint for the localization of multiple robots in a wide area. This paper proposes an efficient localization algorithm for the multiple robots in a wide area which can be divided into multiple blocks. For a given block, a master beacon is designated to synchronize robots. By the access of the synchronization signal, each beacon in the selected group sends out an ultrasonic signal. When the robots in the block receive the ultrasonic signal, they can calculate their own locations based on the distances to the beacons, which are obtained by the multiplication of flight time and velocity of the ultrasonic signal. The efficiency of the algorithm is verified through the real experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.433-439
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• 2010

This paper proposes a beacon color code scheduling algorithm for the localization of multiple robots in a multi-block workspace. With the developments of intelligent robotics and ubiquitous technology, service robots are applicable for the wide area such as airports and train stations where multiple indoor GPS systems are required for the localization of the mobile robots. Indoor localization schemes using ultrasonic sensors have been widely studied due to its cheap price and high accuracy. However, ultrasonic sensors have some shortages of short transmission range and interferences with other ultrasonic signals. In order to use multiple robots in wide workspace concurrently, it is necessary to resolve the interference problem among the multiple robots in the localization process. This paper proposes an indoor localization system for concurrent multiple robots localization in a wide service area which is divided into multi-block for the reliable sensor operation. The beacon color code scheduling algorithm is developed to avoid the signal interferences and to achieve efficient localization with high accuracy and short sampling time. The performance of the proposed localization system is verified through the simulations and the real experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.349-356
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• 2013

This paper presents formation control based on potential functions for unicycle robots. The unicycle robots move to formation position which is made from a reference point and neighboring robots. In the framework, a local minimum case occurred by combination of potential repulsed from neighboring robots and potential attracted from a formation line is presented, in which the robot escapes from a local minimum using a virtual escape point after recognizing trapped situation. As well, in the paper, potential functions are designed to keep the same distance between neighboring robots on a formation line, i.e. the relative distance between neighboring robots on a formation line is controlled by a potential function parameter. The simulation results show that the proposed approach can effectively construct straight line, V, and polygon formation for multiple robots.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.104-109
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• 2016

In this paper, a localization method for multiple robots based on Bayesian inference is proposed when multiple robots adopting multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology) communications exist in cognitive radio networks. Multiple robots are separately defined by primary and secondary users as in conventional mobile communications system. In addition, the heterogeneous spectrum environment is considered in this paper. To improve the performance of localization for multiple robots, a realistic multiple primary user distribution is explained by using the probabilistic graphical model, and then we introduce the Gibbs sampler strategy based on Bayesian inference. In addition, the secondary user selection minimizing the value of GDOP (Geometric Dilution of Precision) is also proposed in order to overcome the limitations of localization accuracy with Gibbs sampling. Via the simulation results, we can show that the proposed localization method based on GDOP enhances the accuracy of localization for multiple robots. Furthermore, it can also be verified from the simulation results that localization performance is significantly improved with increasing number of observation samples when the GDOP is considered.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.273-283
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• 2008

This article describes a cooperative localization technique of multiple robots sharing position information of each robot. In case of conventional methods such as EKF, they need to linearization process. Consequently, they are not able to guarantee that their result is range containing true value. In this paper, we propose a method to merge the data of redundant sensors based on constraints propagation techniques on intervals. The proposed method has a merit guaranteeing true value. Especially, we apply the constraints propagation technique fusing wheel encoders, a gyro, and an inexpensive GPS receiver. In addition, we utilize the correlation between GPS data in common workspace to improve localization performance for multiple robots. Simulation results show that proposed method improve considerably localization performance of multiple robots.