• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.78-84
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• 2009

This paper presents development results of integrated operating program and its simulator for an inshore test miner. The inshore test miner drives on the seabed and collects manganese nodules. For operating the test miner, integrated operating program (IOP) is needed for remote control and monitor of the miner in real-time. However, it is hard to develop the practical IOP for the test miner system, because the system is big, expensive, and unique. So a simulator was developed as a test substitute in order to save time and to reduce cost. Using test results of the simulator, the IOP of the test miner was developed. The developed IOP consists of remote program, host program, monitoring program and database program. The operating program was developed using PXI and Labview of NI. The experimental results are presented to show the applicability of the developed program.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.463-473
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• 2010

Inshore tests were performed in order to verify the design concept of deep sea manganese nodule miner at a site near Hupo at East Sea of Korea in June of 2009. Total mining tests of the test miner, named 'Minero$^{(R)}$', together with flexible hose, lifting pump and lifting hose were accomplished. In this study, the performances of three subsystems of testminer (vehicle, pick-up device, and launch-and-recovery device) were analyzed for feasibility assessment of self-propelled remotely controlled miner, and also to compile basic data for designing a pilotminer. Performances of the test miner were defined based on the Functional Requirements of Axiomatic Design. The inshore tests revealed that the test miner generally satisfies the functional performances. Feasibility assessment and reflection on results are discussed within.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.21 no.1 s.74
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• pp.69-74
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• 2007

This paper is concerned about the dynamic analysis of an underwater test miner, which operates on cohesive soil. The test miner consists of tracked vehicles and a pick-up device. The motion of the pick-up device, relative to the vehicle chassis, is controlled by two pairs of hydraulic cylinders. The test miner is modeled by means of commercial software. A terramechanics model of cohesive soft soil is implemented with the software and applied to a dynamic analysis of the test miner model. The dynamic responses of the test miner are studied with respect to four different types of terrain conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.277-282
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• 2004

This paper concerns about dynamic analysis of an underwater test miner, which operates on cohesive soil. The test miner consists of tracked vehicle and pick-up. device. The motion oj pick-up device relative to the vehicle chassis is controlled by two pairs of hydraulic cylinders. The test miner is modeled by means of a commercial software. A terramechanics model of cohesive soft soil is implemented to the software and applied to dynamic analysis of the test miner model. The dynamic responses of test miner are studied with respect to of four different types of terrain conditions.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.229-236
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• 2008

The deep-sea miner is the tracked vehicle system which drives on the deep-seabed and gathers a manganese nodules. The miner is operated by remote control in real-time by the station of surface vessel. So operating S/W is a important part of miner remote operating. At present, the test miner has been designed and manufactured for near-shore sea-test. The test miner consists of mechanical parts, and electric-electronic parts. Because those parts should be controled and monitored remotely, operating S/W for control and monitoring is necessary by all means. In this paper, real-time operating S/W for a control and monitoring of the test miner was designed and developed using PXI, embedded controller and LabVIEW. This real-time operating S/W was developed for an efficient test of test miner in a near seabed area. Moreover, database management system(DBMS) was developed too for the data management of test miner monitoring using MS SQL and LabVIEW.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.319-322
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• 2006

The Deep-sea miner system is composed of body, actuators, sensors, and devices for control and monitoring. At present, we are manufacturing the miner's body included actuators and already consisted with off-the-shelf embedded controller. But sensors and those devices were just determined. To previously test performance of embedded controller which manages control and monitoring of miner system, its simulator must be developed for control and monitoring. Hardware-In-the-Loop(HIL) simulation is being increasingly used in industrial applications. This is an effective tool for the evaluation of electric system and drives. In the HIL simulator, we can test and design the control and monitoring system freely without the risk of hardware ruins and the load of expenses. Also the programming software for miner operating is verified on the HIL simulator. In this paper, we introduce the concept of HIL simulator for control and monitoring of deep-sea miner.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.7 s.196
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• pp.19-25
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• 2007

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2012

A deep-sea manganese nodule miner consists of 4 parts: the pickup device, crusher, disposal device, and tracked vehicle. The tracked vehicle is an essential component to keep the self-propelled miner moving across deep-sea soil. The performances of the tracked vehicle are influenced by noise factors: the shear strength of the seafloor, bottom current, seafloor slope, track speed, reaction forces of flexible hose, etc. It is necessary to adopt a robust design method that improves the performances and minimizes the variation caused by noise factors. Taguchi's method, the most widely known robust design method, searches for the robust optimum using an orthogonal array composed of the product of the inner array and outer array. In this paper, we propose a new screening technique to reduce the number of input factors and apply the MRSN (Multi-Response Signal to Noise) ratio to convert multiple performances into single one in order to overcome the difficulties and limitations of using Taguchi's method in a case with many input factors and multiple performances. A test miner was already designed and tested. It has about 1/10 the capacity of a commercial one and was successfully operated at an in-shore area. Taguchi's robust design was applied to the tracked vehicle of the test miner, and design improvements were implemented for the vehicle.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.367-371
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• 2014

In early 1990s, the Korean government has launched a deep-sea research program to secure the stable long-term supply of strategic metallic minerals including Cr, Cu and Ni. Through the pioneering surveys, Korea registered $150,000km^2$ of Mn-nodule field in the Clarion-Clipperton area, the NE equatorial Pacific to the international sea-bed authority (ISA) in 1994. Following the ISA exploration code, the final exclusive exploration area of $75,000km^2$ was assigned in 2002, based on results of eight-year researches of chemico-physical properties of nodules, bottom profiles and sediment properties. Since that time, environmental studies, mining technical developments including robot miner and lifting system and establishment of smelting systems were accompanied with the detailed geophysical studies to decipher the priori mining area until 2009. Major points of the recent Korea Mn-nodule program are deployed on a commercial scale until 2015. In order to meet the goals, we developed a 1/5 scaled robot miner compared to commercial one in 2012 and performed a mining test at the water depth of 1,370 m in 2013. In addition, detailed 25,000 scaled mining maps in the priori area, which can provide operation roots of the miner, will be prepared and an environmental-friendly mining strategy will be pursued based on the environmental impact test and environmental monitoring.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.487-494
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• 2014

Deep-seabed test miner operated by a self-propelled mining system moving on soft soil is an essential device to secure floating and towing performances. The performances of the tracked vehicle are seriously influenced by noise factors such as the shear strength of the seafloor, bottom current, seafloor slope, speed of tracked vehicle, reaction forces of flexible hose, steering ratio, etc. Due to uncertainties related to noise factors, the design of a deep-sea manganese nodules test miner that satisfies target reliabilities is difficult. Therefore, reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is required to guarantee system reliability under circumstances where uncertainties related to noise factors prevail. Among noise factors, the bottom current, a bimodal distribution, is censored due to the observation limit of measurement devices. Therefore, estimated distribution of the bottom current is inaccurate without considering these characteristics and the result of RBDO cannot be guaranteed. In this paper, we define censored data as unknown values over the limit of observation. If this data is estimated by using Akaike information criterion (AIC) that cannot consider the characteristics of censored data, the distribution of estimated data cannot guarantee accurate reliability. Therefore, censored AIC that can consider the characteristics of data is used to estimate accurate distribution of the bottom current. Finally, RBDO, under circumstances where uncertainties related to noise factors combined censored data are present, is performed on the mobility of a deep-sea manganese nodules test miner.