• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.207-214
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate effect of feedback methods and ambulatory assistive aids on accuracy of partial weight bearing in healthy adults. Twenty subjects were recruited and trained to 30% weight bearing of body weight (BW) using 3-point gait crutches and wheeled walker pattern. Dynamic feedback group (n=11) was received dynamic postresponse feedback and static group (n=9) received static feedback. Force plate was used to measure %BW and GAITRite used to measure gait parameters in immediately and after 3 days of training. Immediately after training, there was not significantly at 30%BW target load in dynamic group with crutch gait (p>.05). There were significantly differences in %BW according to feedback methods and ambulatory aids (p<.05). There was not significant difference between immediately and after 3 days of training (p>0.05). There were significantly differences in gait velocity and stance ratio between crutches and wheeled walker gait (p<.05). Thus, it was suggested that if possible, use crutches, training for partial weight bearing via dynamic feedback is necessary.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2010

Case of patients with weakness in cardiopulmonary system, other ambulatory function is normal, but oxygen supply function is problem. So they need reduce energy consumption for gait by assistance system. In this study, we designed and developed walking assistant device which helps flexion and extension of hip joint for cardiopulmonary patients. There are two motors, each at the left and right side of pelvis, providing torque to the hip joint. The target angle of the flexion and extension in the hip joint is set according to the normal gait. As a result, reduction of energy consumption was 14.8% by gait assistive device.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.321-328
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a walk status method which can be fused with conventional walk intention method to improve convenience of an electric assistive walking system for elder people with restricted walking capabilities. The system uses a handlebar as a trigger and regards grabbing a handlebar as expressing will to walk. And the system uses a user's linear velocity and angular velocity as linear velocity and angular velocity of a system, checked by laser range finder. To achieve this, we propose a method to find a virtual central point of a human body by estimating a central point between two legs. The experiments are carried out by comparing user's linear velocity and angular velocity, and system's linear velocity and angular velocity. The results show that the error of linear velocity and angular velocity between a user and a system are 1% and 2.77%, which means the linear velocity and angular velocity of a user can be applied to a system. And it is confirmed that the proposed fusion method can prevent a user from being dragged by an assistive walking system or a malfunction caused by lack of experience

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.503-515
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• 2011

We developed a walking-assistance robot for walking rehabilitation and assessed the kinematic characteristics of a prototype. The walking-assistance robot is composed of hip, knee, and ankle joints, and each joint is driven by a motor with a decelerator. The equations of angular displacement while walking were derived by theoretically analyzing human locomotion, and the calculated angular displacements were then applied to the robot controller. The output angular displacement of each joint was measured and compared with its input angular displacement in walking experiments on a treadmill at various walking speeds and strides. The differences between the input and output angular displacements are 5.22% for the hip and 2.97% for the knee joints, and it has been confirmed that the walking-assistance robot works well.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2002.06e
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• pp.281-284
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• 2002

대부분의 보조기 및 의족은 기계식이 주류이며 환자가 착용시 정상보행은 부드럽지 못하고 원활한 보행을 위해서는 장기간 동안 훈련이 요구된다. 따라서 대퇴의족에서 발생하는 이러한 문제점을 개선하기 위해 본 연구에서는 대퇴절단자(transfermoral amputee)의 보행을 정상보행에 일치하는 보행 능력을 복원하기 위해 근전도 신호와 인공신경망을 이용하여 적응 PID제어기를 설계하였고 그 제어 결과를 제시하였다.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07c
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• pp.2907-2910
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• 2003

시각장애인의 보행을 보조할 목적으로 설치된 점자보도블록은 보행방향과 정지 정보를 제공하지만, 현재 위치에 대한 정보는 제공 할 수 없어서 보행 보조물로써의 기능이 매우 제한되어 있다. 본 연구에서는 최근 IT 기술중 하나인 RFID(Radio Frequency Identification)를 내장한 새로운 개념의 점자보도블록과 이를 활용하여 보행을 유도할 수 있는 시스템을 제안하고자 한다. 점자보도블록에는 RFID 태그와 안테나를 삽입하여 현재 위치에 대한 정보를 저장하며, 백색지팡이에는 이 정보를 읽어 들이기 위한 리더기를 설치한다. 현재위치에 대한 정보는 PDA로 전송되어 해당되는 음성정보를 시각장애인에게 전달하게 된다. 제안된 시스템을 통해 시각장애인은 타인의 도움 없이 현재 자신이 위치한 곳에 대한 정보를 얻고, 올바른 곳으로 보행중인지를 판단할 수 있게 되므로, 시각장애인의 보행권과 사회활동권등 복지 증진에 효과가 있을 것이다.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.837-848
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• 2014

This paper describes the development of a walking assistive robot for effective self-rehabilitation for elderly people facing an inconvenience in walking. The main features of the developed robot are enhanced safety and mobility using the baby walker and electric wheelchair mechanisms and an accurate walking tracking control algorithm using potentiometers and stereo cameras. Specifically, a pelvis supporter is designed to prevent the user from falling down and reduce the burden on their legs, and electric motors are used for easy locomotion with low effort. Next, the walking intention and direction of the user are automatically recognized by using potentiometers attached at the pelvis supporter so that the robot can track the user, and the rapidity and accuracy of the tracking were increased by applying a lower-body motion analysis algorithm with stereo cameras. Finally, the user-tracking performance of the developed robot was experimentally verified through stepwise walking assistance experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1137-1142
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• 2004

Walking training is one of the most important rehabilitation processes with paralysis patient. Walking training by using an orthosis can help advancing a patient's independent level. However, existing orthoses have some serious demerit of mechanical problem that the knee joint is locked in the state where it is completely extended, which increases energy consumption and fatigue. For this reason, it is suggested, for more practical orthosis, that the knee joint should be placed and it should have capability of suspending patient's weight. In this paper, 1-DOF walking orthosis which compensates the demerit of the existing orthosis and secures patient's mobility has been proposed. New orthosis has been designed under the following two premises. First, the knee joint of the orthosis was designed fold in order for the orthosis to move in a walking pattern similar to that of a normal person. Second, the knee joint was designed to extend during the swing phase and lock safely during the stance phase.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.259-265
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• 2014

The aims of this study are to investigate the walking intention detection of a rollator based on Infraed (IR) sensor measuring knee joint anterior displacement and leg muscle activities. We used Active Walker attached IR sensor to measure the knee joint anterior displacement and EMG signal of leg muscles(rectus femoris, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius) were taken by Delsys bagnli-8ch. Subjects were eight healthy males(age $23.7{\pm}0.5years$, height $175.4{\pm}2.3cm$, weight $70.6{\pm}5.6kg$) and they were involved in experiments which had been proceeded 30 minutes a week, during 3 weeks. This system indicates that the knee joint anterior displacement had the distinction increases according to the gait slope and velocity. We showed the increase of the femoral muscle activities along the anterior tilt and the increase of the crural muscle activities along the posterior tilt.

• The Science & Technology
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• no.11 s.462
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• pp.68-70
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• 2007