This paper presents an active assisted-living system in wireless sensor and actor network (WSAN) in which the mobile robot roles an actor. In order to provide assisted-living service to the elderly people, position recognition of the sensor node attached on the user and localization of the mobile robot should be performed at the same time. For the purpose, we use received signal strength indication (RSSI) to find the position of the person and ubiquitous sensor nodes including ultrasonic sensor which performs both transmission of sensor information and localization like global positioning system. Active services are moving to the elderly people by detecting activity sensor and visual tracking and voice chatting with remote monitoring system.

Abstract Many researchers are studying on humanoid robots in all over the world. However the humanoid robots are still limited in doing works like picking up objects on the ground or moving rapidly. In this study, a humanoid robot based on the wheel-driving was developed. It can operate with a human working area keeping the stability. Also, the developed robot can take up the object on the floor since it has knee(1DoF) and waist(3DoF), and do service quickly and steadily. The hardware and software structure and algorithms of the developed robot, SEROPI are introduced in this paper.

This paper proposes an emotional interaction model between human and robot using an android. An android is a sort of humanoid robot that the outward shape of robot is almost the same as that of human. The android is a robot platform to implement and test emotional expressions and human interaction. In order to behave for the android like human, a structure of internal emotion system is very important. In our research, we propose a novel emotional model of android based on biological hormone and emotion space. Proposed emotion model has an advantage that it can represent emotion change as time by hormone dynamics.

The docking and recharging system for a mobile robot must guarantee the ability of the mobile robot to perform its tasks continuously without human intervention. In this paper, two docking mechanisms are proposed with localization error-compensation capability for the auto recharging system. Friction forces or magnetic forces are used between the docking parts of the docking module and those of the docking station. In addition, an auto recharging system is developed to control the power. Since the system is modularized, it can easily be adapted to other robots.

MOCIE(Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy) handles 6 Projects for Intelligent Robot, whose budget is around 40 Million dollars per year. In this paper we have tried to analyze the state of robot technology of the projects. Each sub-projects has been divided according to the technological classification. Two major projects of Next Generation Growth Engine and 21C Frontier show different state each other. The former is focused on the product while the latter on the technology. Output of 21C Frontier should be linked to the Next Generation Growth Engine, otherwise, it will fail to advance. The project management handles only the quantitative performance such as business results, number of prototype, and number of patents and papers. Technological Capability is essential and it should be managed. This paper proposes efficient classification of robot technology and technology index.

This paper introduces a position-based robust visual servoing method which is developed for operation of a human-like robot with two arms. The proposed visual servoing method utilizes SIFT algorithm for object detection and CAMSHIFT algorithm for object tracking. While the conventional CAMSHIFT has been used mainly for object tracking in a 2D image plane, we extend its usage for object tracking in 3D space, by combining the results of CAMSHIFT for two image plane of a stereo camera. This approach shows a robust and dependable result. Once the robot's task is defined based on the extracted 3D information, the robot is commanded to carry out the task. We conduct several position-based visual servoing tasks and compare performances under different conditions. The results show that the proposed visual tracking algorithm is simple but very effective for position-based visual servoing.

AbstractIntelligent Robot is considered as one of the Next Generation Growth Engine in many countries. The application fields are expected to be widen from 80's robotics for manufacturing to many applications such as military, space, medical, personal, etc. To reduce the R&D investment risk Technical Roadmap is prepared by Japan, Europe and Korea. In this paper, the technical Roadmap of the countries was analysed to get the idea of future of Robotics. Robotics is considered as one of solutions of future aged society. Robot can assist and company with elderly people in the near future. On the other hand, Robot is considered as a core technology of manufacturing competitive power. Industrial competitiveness also would be dependent on robot technology. Special Service robot has many application areas and each country has different target based on the situation. With the comparison of technical roadmap, we have suggested some ideas to improve Korea's roadmap.

Control of a robot manipulator in contact with the environment is usually conducted by the direct feedback control using a force-torque sensor or the indirect impedance control. In these methods, however, the control algorithms become complicated and the performance of position and force control cannot be improved because of the mechanical properties of the passive components. To cope with such problems, redundant actuation has been used to enhance the performance of position control and force control. In this research, a Double Actuator Unit (DAU) is proposed, with which the force control algorithm can be simplified and can make the robot ensure the safety during the external collision. The DAU is composed of two actuators; one controls the position and the other modulates the joint stiffness. Using this unit, it is possible to independently control the position and stiffness. The DAU based on the planetary gears is investigated in this paper. Performance using the DAU is also verified by various experiments. It is shown that the manipulator using this mechanism provides better safety during the impact with the environment by reducing the joint stiffness appropriately on detecting the collision of a manipulator.