This paper proposes particle filter(PF) method using acoustic signal for localization of an underwater robot. The method uses time of arrival(TOA) or time difference of arrival(TDOA) of acoustic signals from beacons whose locations are known. An experiment in towing tank uses TOA information. Simulation uses TDOA information and it reveals dependency of the localization performance on the uncertainty of robot motion and senor data. Also, comparison of the PF method with the least squares method of spherical interpolation(SI) and spherical intersection(SX) is provided. Since PF uses TOA or TDOA which comes from measurement of external information as well as internal motion information, its estimation is more accurate and robust to the sensor and motion uncertainty than the least squares methods.

In this paper, developing of a pool cleaning robot is addressed. First, we analyze commercial pool cleaning robot mechanisms, and the merits and demerits of wireless version of a pool cleaning robot is introduced. And then the water-jet moving mechanism for a pool cleaning robot is proposed to improve energy efficiency and mechanical design advantage, which is one of the strong candidates for wireless pool cleaning robots. Next, the method of cleaning performance evaluation of pool cleaning robots is firstly defined with five key factors, and it was verified by experimental results. If the cleaning performance can be quantitatively defined, we can design optimally a pool cleaning robot, which results in the cost down.

This paper describes hierarchical semantic map building using the classified area information in home environments. The hierarchical semantic map consists of a grid, CAIG (Classified Area Information in Grid), and topological map. The grid and CAIG maps are used for navigation and motion selection, respectively. The topological map provides the intuitive information on the environment, which can be used for the communication between robots and users. The proposed semantic map building algorithm can greatly improve the capabilities of a mobile robot in various domains, including localization, path-planning and HRI (Human-Robot Interaction). In the home environment, a door can be used to divide an area into various sections, such as a room, a kitchen, and so on. Therefore, we used not only the grid map of the home environment, but also the door information as a main clue to classify the area and to build the hierarchical semantic map. The proposed method was verified through various experiments and it was found that the algorithm guarantees autonomous map building in the home environment.

In these days, researches about underwater robots have been actively in progress for the purposes of ocean detection and resource exploration. Unlike general underwater robots such as ROV(Remotely Operated Vehicle) and AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) which have propellers, an articulated underwater robot which is called Crabster has been being developed in KORDI(Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute) with many cooperation organizations since 2010. The robot is expected to be able to walk and swim under the sea with its legs. Among many researching fields of this project, we are focusing on a swimming section. In order to find effective swimming locomotion for the robot, we approached this subject in terms of Biomimetics. As a model of optimized swimming organism in nature, diving beetles were chosen. In the paper, swimming motions of diving beetles were analyzed in viewpoint of robotics for applying them into the swimming motion of the robot. After modeling the kinematics of diving beetle through robotics engineering technique, we obtained swimming patterns of the one of living diving beetles, and then compared them with calculated optimal swimming patterns of a robot leg. As the first trial to compare the locomotion data of legs of the diving beetle with a robot leg, we have sorted two representative swimming patterns such as forwarding and turning. Experimental environment has been set up to get the motion data of diving beetles. The experimental equipment consists of a transparent aquarium and a high speed camera. Various swimming motions of diving beetles were recorded with the camera. After classifying swimming patterns of the diving beetle, we can get angular data of each joint on hind legs by image processing software, Image J. The data were applied to an optimized algorithm for swimming of a robot leg which was designed by robotics engineering technique. Through this procedure, simulated results which show trajectories of a robot leg were compared with trajectories of a leg of a diving beetle in desired directions. As a result, we confirmed considerable similarity in the result of trajectory and joint angles comparison.

When using commercialized robot assisted laparoscopic, surgeon has met some problems to depend only on image of the surgical field. To solve it, there were various researches. The previous study showed that it is possible to estimate the operation force on the commercialized instrument inside patient without sensors. To apply the estimated force to a haptic master console for the laparoscopy surgical robot system, the light haptic master console should be designed. This paper suggests the design of lighter master console handle to reduce a weight of the console whose structure can match with the joint and DOF of an instrument. A cable-conduit mechanism is designed to make light structure to perform a delicate manipulation. The cable-conduit mechanism removes the weight and inertia of link caused by haptic actuator and encoder which is separated from handle link of a manipulator.

Due to the low localization accuracy and the requirement of special infrastructure, current LBS(Localization Based Service) is limited to show P.O.I.(Point of Interest) nearby. Improvement of IMU(Inertial Measurement Unit) based deadreckoning is presented in this paper. Additional sensors such as the magnetic compass and magnetic flux sensors are used as well as the accelerometer and the gyro for getting more information of movement. Based on the pedestrian movement, appropriate sensor information is selected and the complementary filter is used in order to enhance the accuracy of the localization.

Recently, development of underwater robot has actively been in progress in the world as ROV(Remotely Operator Vehicle) and AUV(Autonomous Unmmanded Vehicle) style. But KIOST(Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology), beginning in 2010, launched the R&D project to develop the robot, dubbed CRABSTER(Crab + (Lob)ster) in a bid to enhance the safety and efficiency of resource exploration. CRABSTER has been designed to be able to walk and swim with its own legs without screws. Among many research subjects regarding CRABSTER, optimal swimming patterns are handled in this paper. In previous studies, drag forces during one period with different values for angle of each joint were derived. However kinematics of real-robot and fluid-dynamics are not considered. We conducted simulations with an optimization algorithm for swimming by considering simplified fluid dynamics in this paper. Drag-coefficients applied to the simulation were approximated values calculated by CFD(Computational Fluid Dynamics : Tecplot 360, ANSYS). In addition, optimized swimming patterns were applied to a real robot. The experiments with the real robot were conducted in circumstances in the water. As a result, when the experiments were carried out in the water, a regular pattern of drag force output came out depending on the movement of the robot. We confirmed the fact that the drag forces from the simulation and the experiment has a high similarity.

It is a real-time system that the system correctness depends not only on the correctness of the logical result of the computation but also on the result delivery time. Real-time Operating System (RTOS) is a software that manages the time of a microprocessor to ensure that the most important code runs first so that it is a good building block to design the real-time system. The real-time performance is achieved by using real-time mechanisms through data communication and synchronization of inter-task communication (ITC) between tasks. Therefore, test on the response time of real-time mechanisms is a good measure to predict the performance of real-time systems. This paper aims to analysis the response characteristics of real-time mechanisms in kernel space for real-time embedded Linux: RTAI and Xenomai. The performance evaluations of real-time mechanism depending on the changes of task periods are conducted. Test metrics are jitter of periodic tasks and response time of real-time mechanisms including semaphore, real-time FIFO, Mailbox and Message queue. The periodicity of tasks is relatively consistent for Xenomai but RTAI reveals smaller jitter as an average result. As for real-time mechanisms, semaphore and message transfer mechanism of Xenomai has a superior response to estimate deterministic real-time task execution. But real-time FIFO in RTAI shows faster response. The results are promising to estimate deterministic real-time task execution in implementing real-time systems using real-time embedded Linux.