In this paper, we describe a sensor module that monitors fire environment by analyzing fire characteristics. We analyzed the smoke characteristics of indoor fire. Six different environments were defined according to the type of smoke and the flame, and the sensors available for each environment were combined. Based on this analysis, the sensors were selected from the perspective of firefighter. The sensor module consists of an RGB camera, an infrared camera and a radar. It is designed with minimum weight to fit on the robot. the enclosure of sensor is designed to protect against the radiant heat of the fire scene. We propose a single camera mode, thermal stereo mode, data fusion mode, and radar mode that can be used depending on the fire scene. Thermal stereo was effectively refined using an image segmentation algorithm, SLIC (Simple Linear Iterative Clustering). In order to reproduce the fire scene, three fire test environments were built and each sensor was verified.

3D depth perception has played an important role in robotics, and many sensory methods have also proposed for it. As a photodetector for 3D sensing, single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is suggested due to sensitivity and accuracy. We have researched for applying a SPAD chip in our fusion system of time-of-fight (ToF) sensor and stereo camera. Our goal is to upsample of SPAD resolution using RGB stereo camera. Currently, we have 64 x 32 resolution SPAD ToF Sensor, even though there are higher resolution depth sensors such as Kinect V2 and Cube-Eye. This may be a weak point of our system, however we exploit this gap using a transition of idea. A convolution neural network (CNN) is designed to upsample our low resolution depth map using the data of the higher resolution depth as label data. Then, the upsampled depth data using CNN and stereo camera depth data are fused using semi-global matching (SGM) algorithm. We proposed simplified fusion method created for the embedded system.

This paper analyzes the motion of a horseback riding robot which has two actuators and three joints. It is impossible to control the saddle to get to any position and orientation using the two motors because the robot has less degrees of freedom than the number of joints. Therefore it is required to know the possible location and orientation along with the velocity characteristics of each pose prior to motion planning. For this purpose, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the robot motion. The authors derive the forward and inverse kinematics of the robot motion and developed the trajectory editor for motion planning. Also, Jacobian of the robot is analyzed. It reveals that one of the actuator has little influence to the speed of the saddle motion while the other affects the speed of the saddle motion dominantly. The approach of the paper can be applied for the analysis of characteristics of a robot which has less number of actuators than that of joints.

This paper suggests a multiple robot simulator which considers the uncertainties in robot motion and sensing. A mobile robot moves with errors due to some kinds of uncertainties from actuators, wheels, electrical components, environments. In addition, sensors attached to a mobile robot can't make accurate output information because of uncertainties of the sensor itself and environment. Uncertainties in robot motion and sensing leads researchers find difficulty in building mobile robot navigation algorithms. Generally, a robot algorithm without considering unexpected uncertainties fails to control its action in a real working environment and it leads to some troubles and damages. Thus, the authors propose a simulator model which includes robot motion and sensing uncertainties to help making robust algorithms. Sensor uncertainties are applied in range sensors which are widely used in mobile robot localization, obstacle detection, and map building. The paper shows performances of the proposed simulator by comparing it with a simulator without any uncertainty.