Woo-sup Han

Design and control of a disk-type integrated motor-bearing system

A disk-type integrated motor-bearing system having axial magnetic flux is newly invented and its design, analysis, and control methods are presented. Sinusoidal motoring currents to four symmetrically placed winding groups produce a torque, whereas control currents of the same magnitude but opposite signs added to the opposite winding groups create radial forces. The control currents are intended to break force symmetry, resulting in unbalanced radial forces. The system employs two stators not only to effectively remove the rotational frequency modulation effect in the radial control forces, but also to reduce the torque ripple. It is shown that the prototype integrated motor-bearing system built in the laboratory succeeds in stable radial direction control and operation of the rotor.

Global localization of mobile robot using omni-directional image correlation

This paper presents a localization method using circular correlation of omni-directional image. Mobile robot localization, especially in indoor conditions, is a key component in the development of service robots. Though stereo vision is widely used to find location, the performance is limited due to computational complexity and its view angle. To compensate for this, we utilize a single omni-directional camera which can capture 360( panoramic images around a robot at one time. Position of a mobile robot can be estimated by the correlation between CHL (Circular Horizontal Line) of the landmark image and CHL of image captured at the robot position. To accelerate computation, correlation values are calculated based on FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) and to increase reliability, CHLs are warped and correlation values are recalculated. Experimental results and performance in the real home environment show the feasibility of the method.

Efficient Navigation Algorithm Using 1D Panoramic Images

We propose a practical and efficient navigation method of the indoor mobile robot using 1D panoramic images. Mobile robot navigation, one of the most importation components in the robotic application, was carried out using the omni-directional camera that can capture 360deg images around a robot. Therefore, this camera has many advantages in the indoor navigation. In this paper, position of the robot can be estimated by 1D panoramic image correlations. This 1D image is the circular horizontal line in the omni-directional image. The proposed method can estimate the position of the robot without any previous position information in the short time i.e., kidnap problem can be coped with. The path of a robot is generated based on the node map that includes 1D panoramic images and the node information at the captured points. For the feasibility test of the proposed algorithms, we applied them to the mobile robot, iMARO-III. In this test, iMARO-III has succeeded in real world operation without any interaction with operator.

Ubiquitous robot S/W platform, AnyRobot Studio and its demonstration, AnyKids Service

The standardized data may easily move within a network and connect to other systems without any time or geographical limitations. This concept is fundamental to the idea of the ubiquitous robot. Here we present a ubiquitous robot S/W platform, AnyRobot Studio which covers all the aspects of this ubiquitous robot system. Based on the concepts of RUPI, URC, and Web 2.0, AnyRobot Studio aims to standardize the platforms and protocols, and to strongly encourage the participation of users and contents providers (CPs). AnyKids Service is made to test the feasibility of the AnyRobot based on the AnyRobot Studio platform.

Evolutionary algorithm for a genetic robot’s personality

This paper proposes a new concept of the genetic robot which has its own robot genome, in which each chromosome consists of many genes that contribute to defining the robotpsilas personality. The large number of genes also allows for a highly complex system, however it becomes increasingly difficult and time-consuming to ensure reliability, variability and consistency for the robotpsilas personality while manually initializing values for the individual genes. To overcome this difficulty, this paper proposes an evolutionary algorithm for a genetic robotpsilas personality (EAGRP). EAGRP evolves a gene pool that customizes the robotpsilas genome so that it closely matches a simplified set of features desired by the user. It does this using several new techniques. It acts on a 2 dimensional individual upon which a new masking method, the Eliza-Meme scheme, is used to derive a plausible individual given the restricted preference settings desired by the user. The proposed crossover method allows reproduction for the 2-dimensional genome. Finally, the evaluation procedure for individuals is carried out in a virtual environment using tailored perception scenarios.