• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.298-311
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• 2022

Some problems, such as aging workers, a decreased population due to a low birth rate, and shortage of skilled workers, are rising in construction sites. Therefore research for smart construction technology that can be improved for productivity, safety, and quality has been recently developed with government support by replacing traditional construction technology with advanced digital technology. In particular, the motor grader that mainly performs road surface flattening is a construction machine that requires the application of automation technology for repetitive construction. It is predicted that the construction period will be shortened if the construction automation technology such as trajectory tracking, automation work, and remote control technology is applied. In this study, we introduce the hardware and software architecture of the smart motor grader to apply unmanned and automation technology and then analyze the traditional earthwork method of the motor grader. We suggested the application plans for the path pattern and blade control method of the smart motor grader based on this. In addition, we verified the performance of waypoint-based path-following depending on scenarios and the blade control's performance through tests.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.170-178
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• 2017

This paper proposes an improved path-planning technique based on the $A^*$ algorithm. The conventional $A^*$ algorithm only considers the optimality of the planned path and sometimes produces a path that an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) cannot navigate due to its dynamic constraint such as the limit of the radius of gyration. It is because that the previous method evaluate the moving cost based on the straight distance between nodes. We enhance the conventional method by evaluating the moving cost on the basis of the practically navigable trajectory, which is generated by the waypoint-tracking control of the UUV dynamics. The simulation examples indeed show the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.115-123
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• 2018

Various types of robots running on power transmission lines have been developed for the purpose of line patrol monitoring. They usually have complex mechanism to run and avoid obstacles on the power line, but nevertheless did not show satisfactory performance for going over the obstacles. Moreover, they were so heavy that they could not be easily installed on the lines. To compensate these problems, flying robots have been developed and recently, multi-copter drones with flight stability have been used in the electric power industry. The drones could be remotely controlled by human operators to monitor power distribution lines. In the case of transmission line patrol, however, transmission towers are huge and their spans are very long, and thus, it is very difficult for the pilot to control the patrol drones with the naked eye from a long distance away. This means that the risk of a drone crash onto electric power facilities always resides. In addition, there exists another danger of electromagnetic interference with the drones on autopilot waypoint tracking under ultra-high voltage environments. This paper presents a patrol monitoring plan of autopilot drones for power transmission lines and its field tests. First, the magnetic field effect on an autopilot patrol drone is investigated. Then, how to build the flight path to avoid the magnetic interference is proposed and our autopilot drone system is introduced. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed patrol plan is confirmed through its field test results in the 154 kV, 345 kV and 765 kV transmission lines in Chungcheongnam-do.