• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.473-480
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• 2000

A fuzzy PID controller is proposed for the posture control of a two DOF robot vehicle inspecting the defects of the inner wall of sewage pipes. The main difficulty in controlling these kinds of vehicles lies in that the center of two mobile shafts does not coincide with the weight center of the vehicle due to its long and wide shape. In this case the previous controller, based on the assumption that the gap between these centers are small, can not guarantee satisfactory transient response characteristics. In this paper, this gap is included in the mathematical modelling of the robot kinematics, and in order to compensate the unsatisfactory transient response characteristics, the fuzzy PID controller is proposed. This controller tunes the PID control gains with respect to the current state of the errors between the reference and the current postures. A series of simulations has been performed to investigate the tracking performance of the proposed controller for the lane changing path and the robustness to the external disturbance. The simulation results show that the proposed controller has a satisfactory tracking performance in the transient state as compared with that of the backstepping control given in reference.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.576-579
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• 1997

In order to repair sewage pipes, it is necessary to dig up the damaged sewage pipes, which results in traffic jams. Since digging up the pipes takes too much time and cost, this method is inefficient. So, in stead of digging up the damaged pipes, a robot is sent down to the pipe to do the repair works. For big pipes, human workers go into the pipe and do to repair works, but for small pipes, it is impossible for human worker to go inside the pipe. In this case, mobile robots have used. The procedures for repairing pipes are as follows : First, the condition of the sewage pipes is observed by a robot. Second, appropriate steps for repair are determined according to the types of the damage. While repairing procedures, a newly-developed packer is sent into the sport to be repaired inside the pipe. Then, the packer is filled with air by a V-shaped wrinkel pipe. This makes the packer inflates uniformly and adhere closely to the inside wall of the pipe in large area. This increases the area that can be repaired. Therefore, the newly-developed packer will be very helpful for sewage pipe repair works.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.258-266
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• 2002

This paper proposes the methodology of the image processing algorithm that estimates the pose of the inner-pipe crawling robot. The inner-pipe crawling robot is usually equipped with a lighting device and a camera on its head for monitoring and inspection purpose of defects on the pipe wall and/or the maintenance operation. The proposed methodology is using these devices without introducing the extra sensors and is based on the fact that the position and the intensity of the reflected light from the inner wall of the pipe vary with the robot posture and the camera. The proposed algorithm is divided into two parts, estimating the translation and rotation angle of the camera, followed by the actual pose estimation of the robot . Based on the fact that the vanishing point of the reflected light moves into the opposite direction from the camera rotation, the camera rotation angle can be estimated. And, based on the fact that the most bright parts of the reflected light moves into the same direction with the camera translation, the camera position most bright parts of the reflected light moves into the same direction with the camera translation, the camera position can be obtained. To investigate the performance of the algorithm, the algorithm is applied to a sewage maintenance robot.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1999.11c
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• pp.670-673
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• 1999

In this paper, we present a robust motion controller based on Adaptive-Fuzzy technique is proposed that multifunctional vehicle(MVR) for two DOF mobile robot can perform detailed inspection of physical conditions of sewage pipes as well as can effectively repair the damaged portions of the inner walls. The main difficulties in controlling this multifunctional robot vehicles lie in the fact that vehicles usually have three degrees of freedom in position and orientation in spite of having only two degrees of freedom for motion control in tracking mode. Decomposition of error between the reference posture and the current posture makes control of speed and steering possible. The Gyro compass part and Inclonometer of the robot is configured in order to realize position of robot. The proposed Adaptive-Fuzzy motion controller has two main characteristics: The one guarantees that the MVR follows the reference trajectory; the other one compensates the dynamics of the MVR. Simulation results are provided to validate the proposed controller. Experiments have been used to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the motion controller.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.173.1-173
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• 2001

This paper proposes the methodology in image processing algorithm that estimates the pose of the pipe crawling robot. The pipe crawling robots are usually equipped with a lighting device and a camera on its head for monitoring and inspection purpose. The proposed methodology is using these devices without introducing the extra sensors and is based on the fact that the position and the intensity of the reflected light varies with the robot posture. The algorithm is divided into two parts, estimating the translation and rotation angle of the camera, followed by the actual pose estimation of the robot. To investigate the performance of the algorithm, the algorithm is applied to a sewage maintenance robot.